Biological Software

Abstract

The robot in the common science fiction nmnrel appears as a tram an the surface, but is built mechanically from wheels and levers inside. In A.I., we usually visualize an A.I. system as having a similar structure: it communicates in man's language (English), or performs other tasks which make it appear man-like, but it is in fact a large program, written in a programming language, and executed under a common time-sharing system. The present paper argues on the contrary that A.I. systems should not need to appear man-like, and that it is necessary, both from the A.I. point of view and from the software engineering point of view, that the next level down in the A.I. system has quasi-biological properties, such as the ability to reproduce