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Past Visions of Artificial Futures: One Hundred and Fifty Years under the Spectre of Evolving Machines
  
  Tim Taylor,  Alan Dorin
2018

Abstract
The influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial Life (ALife) technologies upon society, and their potential to fundamentally shape the future evolution of humankind, are topics very much at the forefront of current scientific, governmental and public debate. While these might seem like very modern concerns, they have a long history that is often disregarded in contemporary discourse. Insofar as current debates do acknowledge the history of these ideas, they rarely look back further than the origin of the modern digital computer age in the 1940s–50s. In this paper we explore the earlier history of these concepts. We focus in particular on the idea of self-reproducing and evolving machines, and potential implications for our own species. We show that discussion of these topics arose in the 1860s, within a decade of the publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species, and attracted increasing interest from scientists, novelists and the general public in the early 1900s. After introducing the relevant work from this period, we categorise the various visions presented by these authors of the future implications of evolving machines for humanity. We suggest that current debates on the co-evolution of society and technology can be enriched by a proper appreciation of the long history of the ideas involved.

 
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Reference
<span id="taylor2018past">Taylor, T., &amp; Dorin, A. (2018). Past Visions of Artificial Futures: One Hundred and Fifty Years under the Spectre of Evolving Machines. In T. Ikegami, N. Virgo, O. Witkowski, M. Oka, R. Suzuki, &amp; H. Iizuka (Eds.), <i>ALIFE 2018: Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference 2018</i> (pp. 91–98). https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00022</span>

BibTeX
@inproceedings{taylor2018past,
  author = {Taylor, Tim and Dorin, Alan},
  title = {Past Visions of Artificial Futures: One Hundred and Fifty Years under the Spectre of Evolving Machines},
  booktitle = {ALIFE 2018: Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference 2018},
  editor = {Ikegami, Takashi and Virgo, Nathaniel and Witkowski, Olaf and Oka, Mizuki and Suzuki, Reiji and Iizuka, Hiroyuki},
  year = {2018},
  publisher = {{MIT} Press},
  pages = {91--98},
  doi = {10.1162/isal_a_00022},
  category = {conference},
  keywords = {history, selfrep}
}

   
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor2024afterword">Taylor, T. (2024). <b>An Afterword to "Rise of the Self-Replicators": Placing John A. Etzler, Frigyes Karinthy, Fred Stahl, and Others in the Early History of Thought About Self-Reproducing Machines</b>. <i>Artificial Life</i>, <i>30</i>(1), 91–105. https://doi.org/10.1162/artl_a_00424</span></div>

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    <pre>@article{taylor2024afterword,
  author = {Taylor, Tim},
  title = {An Afterword to "Rise of the Self-Replicators": Placing John A. Etzler, Frigyes Karinthy, Fred Stahl, and Others in the Early History of Thought About Self-Reproducing Machines},
  journal = {Artificial Life},
  year = {2024},
  volume = {30},
  number = {1},
  pages = {91-105},
  publisher = {{MIT} Press Journals},
  doi = {10.1162/artl_a_00424},
  issn = {1530-9185},
  category = {journal},
  keywords = {history, selfrep}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor2020what">Taylor, T. (2020). <b>What Am I For? Self-Purpose and Self-Reproduction in Rossum’s Universal Robots (Samoúčelnost a samoreprodukce u Rossumových univerzálních robotů)</b>. In J. Čejková (Ed.), <i>ROBOT 100: Sto rozumů</i> (pp. 178–180). Prague: Kosmas.</span></div>

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    <pre>@incollection{taylor2020what,
  author = {Taylor, Tim},
  title = {What Am I For? Self-Purpose and Self-Reproduction in Rossum's Universal Robots (Samoúčelnost a samoreprodukce u Rossumových univerzálních robotů)},
  booktitle = {ROBOT 100: Sto rozumů},
  editor = {\v{C}ejkov\'{a}, Jitka},
  year = {2020},
  pages = {178-180},
  isbn = {978-80-7592-062-1},
  publisher = {Kosmas},
  address = {Prague},
  category = {chapter},
  keywords = {selfrep, agency},
  note = {Centenary edition of Karel \v{C}apek's Rossum's Universal Robots. In Czech.}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor2020rise">Taylor, T., &amp; Dorin, A. (2020). <i><b>Rise of the Self-Replicators: Early Visions of Machines, AI and Robots That Can Reproduce and Evolve</b></i>. Cham: Springer.</span></div>

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    <pre>@book{taylor2020rise,
  title = {Rise of the Self-Replicators: Early Visions of Machines, AI and Robots That Can Reproduce and Evolve},
  author = {Taylor, Tim and Dorin, Alan},
  publisher = {Springer},
  year = {2020},
  isbn = {978-3-030-48233-6},
  address = {Cham},
  category = {book},
  keywords = {history, selfrep}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor2014digital">Taylor, T., Dorin, A., &amp; Korb, K. (2014). <b>Digital Genesis: Computers, Evolution and Artificial Life</b>. <i>Presented at the 7th Munich-Sydney-Tilburg Philosophy of Science Conference: Evolutionary Thinking, University of Sydney, 20-22 March 2014</i>. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.02100</span></div>

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    <pre>@article{taylor2014digital,
  author = {Taylor, Tim and Dorin, Alan and Korb, Kevin},
  title = {Digital Genesis: Computers, Evolution and Artificial Life},
  journal = {Presented at the 7th Munich-Sydney-Tilburg Philosophy of Science Conference: Evolutionary Thinking, University of Sydney, 20-22 March 2014},
  month = mar,
  year = {2014},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.02100},
  category = {workshop},
  keywords = {history}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor2003evolving">Taylor, T. (2003). <b>Evolving Interaction in Artificial Systems: An historical overview and future directions</b>. In P. McOwan, K. Dautenhahn, &amp; C. L. Nehaniv (Eds.), <i>Abstracts from the Evolvability and Interaction Symposium, held at Queen Mary, University of London, UK, in October 2003</i>. University of Hertfordshire Computer Science Technical Report No. 393.</span></div>

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    <pre>@incollection{taylor2003evolving,
  author = {Taylor, Tim},
  title = {Evolving Interaction in Artificial Systems: An historical overview and future directions},
  booktitle = {Abstracts from the Evolvability and Interaction Symposium, held at Queen Mary, University of London, UK, in October 2003},
  publisher = {University of Hertfordshire Computer Science Technical Report No.~393},
  year = {2003},
  month = oct,
  editor = {McOwan, Peter and Dautenhahn, Kerstin and Nehaniv, Chrystopher L.},
  category = {workshop},
  keywords = {evoca, history, oee}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="mcmullin2001who">McMullin, B., Taylor, T., &amp; von Kamp, A. (2001). <b>Who Needs Genomes?</b> <i>Proceedings of the Atlantic Symposium on Computational Biology and Genome Information Systems and Technology, CBGIST 2001</i>, 250–254. Duke University, USA.</span></div>

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    <pre>@inproceedings{mcmullin2001who,
  author = {McMullin, Barry and Taylor, Tim and {von Kamp}, Axel},
  title = {Who Needs Genomes?},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the Atlantic Symposium on Computational Biology and Genome Information Systems and Technology, CBGIST 2001},
  year = {2001},
  pages = {250-254},
  month = mar,
  address = {Duke University, USA},
  category = {conference},
  keywords = {selfrep}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor2000some">Taylor, T. (2000). <b>Some Representational and Ecological Aspects of Evolvability</b>. In C. L. Nehaniv (Ed.), <i>Proceedings of the Evolvability Workshop at the the Seventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (Artificial Life 7)</i> (pp. 41–44). Retrieved from http://homepages.herts.ac.uk/ comqcln/al7ev/cnts.html</span></div>

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    <pre>@inproceedings{taylor2000some,
  author = {Taylor, Tim},
  title = {Some Representational and Ecological Aspects of Evolvability},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the Evolvability Workshop at the the Seventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (Artificial Life 7)},
  year = {2000},
  editor = {Nehaniv, Chrystopher L.},
  pages = {41-44},
  url = {http://homepages.herts.ac.uk/~comqcln/al7ev/cnts.html},
  month = aug,
  category = {workshop},
  keywords = {selfrep, oee}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor1999selfreproduction">Taylor, T. (1999). <b>On Self-Reproduction and Evolvability</b>. In D. Floreano, J.-D. Nicoud, &amp; F. Mondada (Eds.), <i>Advances in Artificial Life. ECAL 1999</i> (pp. 94–103). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48304-7_15</span></div>

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    <pre>@inproceedings{taylor1999selfreproduction,
  title = {On Self-Reproduction and Evolvability},
  author = {Taylor, Tim},
  year = {1999},
  booktitle = {Advances in Artificial Life. ECAL 1999},
  series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
  volume = {1674},
  pages = {94-103},
  editor = {Floreano, Dario and Nicoud, Jean-Daniel and Mondada, Francesco},
  doi = {10.1007/3-540-48304-7_15},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address = {Berlin},
  category = {conference},
  keywords = {selfrep, cosmos}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor1999artificial">Taylor, T. J. (1999). <i><b>From Artificial Evolution to Artificial Life</b></i> (PhD thesis). School of Informatics, College of Science and Engineering, University of Edinburgh.</span></div>

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    <pre>@phdthesis{taylor1999artificial,
  author = {Taylor, Timothy John},
  title = {From Artificial Evolution to Artificial Life},
  school = {School of Informatics, College of Science and Engineering, University of Edinburgh},
  year = {1999},
  uri = {http://hdl.handle.net/1842/361},
  category = {dissertation},
  keywords = {selfrep, oee, cosmos}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor1997studying">Taylor, T., &amp; Hallam, J. (1997). <b>Studying Evolution with Self-Replicating Computer Programs</b>. In P. Husbands &amp; I. Harvey (Eds.), <i>Fourth European Conference on Artificial Life</i> (pp. 550–559). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.</span></div>

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    <pre>@inproceedings{taylor1997studying,
  title = {Studying Evolution with Self-Replicating Computer Programs},
  author = {Taylor, Tim and Hallam, John},
  pages = {550--559},
  booktitle = {Fourth European Conference on Artificial Life},
  editor = {Husbands, Phil and Harvey, Inman},
  publisher = {MIT Press},
  address = {Cambridge, MA},
  isbn = {0262581574},
  year = {1997},
  category = {conference},
  keywords = {cosmos, selfrep}
}
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