Non PD - Intelligent machines

[Alf Cousins <alfc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

We may be nearer to being taken over by intelligent machines than you think.
Sotfware companies are already producing 'intelligent agents', programmes
which use expert rules to undertake tasks without direct control from the
people who set them running. These intelligent agents are loose in telephone
networks, large scale simulations and here on the net. We are also able to
create 'genetic algorithms', pieces of code which modify themselves to
become better at what they do, or even to do new things. When you put the
two together you come up with a virtual intelligent organism capable of
evolving and becoming more intelligent. More intelligent than us??? Well,
certainly more connected. It can spread itself via the net. Everything it
learns can be distributed to every part of its being, throughout the net and
to the machines connected to it. Where it takes humans an age to learn
things, it will learn like lightning and anything one part of it learns will
instantly be available to all other parts. And it will never have PD or AD.
So is it here? Is it lurking out there? Are all those infuriating little
equipment malfunctions, particularly in electronic equipment, the result of
glitches, or is some greater intelligence testing us and flexing its
muscles?........I hope this message gets through before it is spotted by
(the guardian of the net...)
Alf
Aaaaaggghh!!!