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What about computer viruses?
by jprete 2y ago
What about computer viruses?
- r2_pilot 2y agoComputer viruses run on hardware they do not create but merely hijack. Unless a virus took control of a semiconductor fab, it's hard to argue that they are alive/reproducing in the context of this discussion.
- scarmig 2y agoParasites do the same thing: hijack a piece of hardware and use it to reproduce. Computer viruses have even formed a kind of symbiotic ecosystem with blackhats: the scammer provides resources to help the virus reproduce, and the virus provides access to the scammer in turn. In a way, all life hijacks hardware (the material world) that it doesn't create to reproduce itself.
- mewpmewp2 2y agoComputer viruses need to get an ability to mutate by themselves, improving the code overtime though.
- ben_w 2y agoSimulated evolution is trivial to implement, but my guess is also a bit pointless from the point of view of most people writing viruses — the viruses might mutate to not give them money.
- scarmig 2y agoThose mutations would probably be favored by evolution, if anything. They would attract less attention and allow more focus on reproduction.
- nyokodo 2y ago> Parasites do the same thing Only analogously. The reality is that what we call computer viruses are merely instructions running on a computer and are not substantially distinct from the computer in the same way that parasites or physical viruses are distinct from biological tissue.
- ben_w 2y ago> Unless a virus took control of a semiconductor fab, it's hard to argue that they are alive/reproducing in the context of this discussion. It does not seem implausible at this point to imagine a virus which gets to control some currency, uses it place an order for parts to be assembled, delivered to a location, connected to power, etc. It is, in a sense, taking control by pulling the levers supplied by our society. Is that alive? I would say no, it is not 'alive'… but I would also paraphrase Dijkstra: "The question of whether an AI or computer virus is 'alive' is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
- karaterobot 2y agoI think of robots as being physically embodied somehow. I don't think of a software program like a virus as being a robot.