Computer viruses, unlike such other forms of artificial life … are the only form of artificial life not biased by the hope of their creators. Because computer viruses must exist in an environment (DOS in particular) that was designed without any thought of the digital organisms that might come to inhabit it, they are free from any accusation that the environment’s “physics” were written to support the emergence of their lifelike behavior … Once anti-virus software was introduced into the cybernetic ecology, viruses and the programs that stalk them have been driving each other to increasing levels of sophistication. This is nothing less than the common coevolutionary arms race that arises between predators and prey in organic ecosystems.
Predictor: Ludwig, Mark
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Julian Dibbell covers the concept that the study of computer viruses can lead to gains for networking and computing, interviewing Mark Ludwig, author of “The Little Black Book of Viruses” and publisher of Computer Virus Developments Quarterly. Dibbell writes: ”[Mark] Ludwig heard the signal ‘I’m alive’ coming … directly from the virus itself. Viruses behaved like living things: self-reproducing and autonomous. Might we not understand life a little better, he wondered, if we can create something similar, and study it, and try to understand it? … He set up a BBS, announced a bounty of $25 for every virus uploaded, and sat back while the code rolled in. After building up a representative cross section of the wild virus population, he set about examining his haul, and within a few months his research bore its first fruit: ‘The Little Black Book of Viruses,’ [1991] a technical primer on the essentials of virus writing, complete with scrupulously annotated source code for four virus programs of his own creation … ‘People think of viruses as an invasion from Mars,’ he says, ‘and that hurts research into these things. My aim is to change people’s attitudes, to cut down some of the fear.’ To that end he has established an annual international virus-writing competition, flying cheerfully in the face of the ‘swarming hordes of antivirus developers.’ … the proof of Ludwig’s abiding interest in viruses as tools of natural philosophy lies in his [book] ‘Computer Viruses, Artificial Life, and Evolution.’ Published late in 1993, the book is a dense and daunting 373 pages’ worth of charts, differential equations, and tightly reasoned arguments in support of Ludwig’s intuition that self-reproducing computer code bears deep lessons about the workings of life … Ludwig argues that computer viruses, unlike such other forms of artificial life as cellular automata, mobots, or genetic programming, are the only form of artificial life not biased by the hope of their creators. Because computer viruses must exist in an environment (DOS in particular) that was designed without any thought of the digital organisms that might come to inhabit it, they are free from any accusation that the environment’s ‘physics’ were written to support the emergence of their lifelike behavior. Or to put it more bluntly, feral viral ecologies (versus the controlled experiments in university labs) represent the only known simulation of life that does not implicitly (and quite unscientifically) build God into the system. Having carefully constructed this ambitious claim, Ludwig proceeds to test drive it straight into the heart of biology’s most vexing questions: How did life get here in the first place? How did the staggering diversity of life forms that exists today come to be? He sics viruses on the theory of evolution itself, in other words, sending them in to illuminate with their logical simplicity the still murky depths of Darwin’s grand hypothesis. It’s a bold move, but a puzzling one at first glance. Although the viruses found in the wild may exhibit a wide range of lifelike features, they’ve never been known, after all, to evolve. Or have they? Not too long after the first virus was written, the first antivirus program was written as a countermeasure. Once anti-virus software was introduced into the cybernetic ecology, viruses and the programs that stalk them have been driving each other to increasing levels of sophistication. This is nothing less than the common coevolutionary arms race that arises between predators and prey in organic ecosystems.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: Viruses/Worms
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Viruses Are Good For You: Spawn of the Devil, Computer Viruses May Help Us Realize the Full Potential of the Net
Quote Type: Paraphrase
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.02/viruses_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney