Artificial Life Possibilities: A Star Trek Perspective (Paperback)

Description

The Star Trek series has inspired not only armchair fans, but also the researchers who are trying to better the human race, developing the devices of the future, and struggling to conquer space travel. The Star Trek series was also the inspiration for this book, which examines the artificial intelligences portrayed in the shows.

The question we’ll be asking throughout this book is, “How do we get from where we are now to the point where we are able to create truly exceptional artificial beings such as Holodeck characters, Lieutenant Commander Data, and the Emergency Medical Hologram?” In order to answer this, we’ll examine where we are right now and extrapolate where we are heading. Throughout the book a passion for Star Trek is integrated with academic research from the AI, A-Life, and Robotics domains, which are presented in an easy to understand way—bypassing the technobabble and mind-blowing mathematics.

The book examines the characteristics and capabilities of Star Trek’s artificial life forms and compares them with current technologies in an attempt to predict if we’ll ever create such advanced beings. It is written to provide both the serious Trekker and the occasional voyeur with a handbook of the current techniques and devices available in the fields of artificial intelligence, robotics, and artificial life. It examines the development of artificial life forms such as Data and the EMH from the bottom up, including their physical creation programming, and metaphysical aspects such as personality and emotions to determine if such beings might some day be a reality.

If you have ever wanted to know what a positronic brain is or how to write a personality subroutine then this is the book for you!

描述

《星際迷航》系列不僅啟發了沉迷於觀看的粉絲，也啟發了那些致力於改善人類、開發未來設備並努力征服太空旅行的研究人員。《星際迷航》系列也是本書的靈感來源，本書探討了劇集中所描繪的人工智能。

本書將一直探討的問題是：“我們如何從現在的狀態發展到能夠創造出像Holodeck角色、Data中尉指揮官和緊急醫療全息圖這樣真正優秀的人工生命體的程度？”為了回答這個問題，我們將檢視我們現在的狀態並推斷我們的發展方向。整本書將熱情地融入《星際迷航》的研究，並以易於理解的方式呈現人工智能、人工生命和機器人領域的學術研究，避免使用專業術語和令人震驚的數學。

本書檢視了《星際迷航》中人工生命體的特徵和能力，並將其與當前技術進行比較，試圖預測我們是否會創造出這樣先進的生命體。它旨在為熱衷於《星際迷航》的人和偶爾的旁觀者提供一本手冊，介紹人工智能、機器人和人工生命領域中目前可用的技術和設備。本書從底層開始探討了Data和EMH等人工生命體的發展，包括它們的物理創造、編程以及個性和情感等形而上學方面，以判斷這樣的存在是否有朝一日成為現實。

如果你曾想知道什麼是正電子腦或如何編寫個性子程序，那麼這本書就是為你而寫！