Artificial Life: Coming to a World Near You

For many people of generations past, the idea and thought of artificial life being a reality was ridiculous. It was just something that made for a great sci-fi movie. Then, in the past decade or so, movies like "AI: Artificial Intelligence" and "I Robot" have expanded on the cheesy costumes and bed sets of the previous generation of sci-fi flicks depicting artificial life. These movies have helped to make artificial life seem more real, with human thoughts, emotions, and even human-like skin. To some, this is just fantasy, an illusion.

You may not know it or believe it, but artificial life is about to jump off of the big screen and become reality... and a lot sooner than many people think. Major groups of researchers and scientists are competing and estimates are for artificial life to become a reality in about three to ten years!

But, before a human panic on the scale of Y2K happens, there are three main hoops that need to be jumped through in order for artificial life to become a reality. Mark Bedau, who is the chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of the major groups or researchers racing to be the first to create artificial life, outlines those three main hoops:

1) Some sort of a body, or container, needs to be created. This "body" needs to act as a membrane that will allow good molecules to enter, but that will also keep bad molecules out. The cells that are together in this container, also need to be able to have the ability to multiply.

2) Reproduction and mutation are essential in the continuation and survival of a being, including artificially created ones, therefore some sort of genetic system needs to be created in order to control the functions of the cell, especially the ones needed for reproduction and the ability to adapt to the environment or such artificial life will simply die off quickly.

3) A metabolic system needs to be created. The function of this system will be to extract raw materials from the environment in order to convert it to energy, in order to sustain life. Such planned uses further down the line in this process would be to help create a system for the proper elimination of human waste.

The idea of sustaining the artificial life that is created is a huge goal. But, for people with fears that humanoid robots will try to rebel against humans (think "I Robot"), the ability to sustain artificial life for a long time will take many more years than the predicted three to ten years it will take to successfully create the first artificial life. Mark Bedau has attempted to reassure alarmists that we won't become slaves of this new, artificially created life form. According to him, "When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab. But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen."

Only time will tell, but while you are waiting, instead of building paranoia and fear, run to your local movie store or use your online rental service to enjoy artists' renditions of artificial life. And don't be worried about these research groups trying to build a secret army, Bedau reassures that "it's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it."