wildchild comments on Natural Selection's Speed Limit and Complexity Bound - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 November 2007 04:54PM

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Comment author: wildchild 06 November 2007 08:20:00AM 0 points [-]

Here are some mutation strategies that life uses that may be of value in programming towards AI-- (evolving software is part of the program- true?)

1)adaptive mutation (aka directed mutation)--
It has been observed that bacteria will mutate more quickly when under stress.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11433357&dopt=AbstractPlus

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/1160.html

http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-1-t-000196.html

2)purposeful mutation (How long do you suppose that description will last?)
This type of mutation involves the human immune system (at least that's what is being studied so far)

http://www.aecom.yu.edu/cellbiology/PDF/scharff/scharff2007_4.pdf

"junk DNA" is an unfortunate misnomer. The actual term "hetrochormatin" isn't exactly a winner either. But it ain't junk and is an area of intense current interest.

Don't forget the role of epigenetics in the evolution of life forms either-- this may turn out to be biggest factor yet-- (Wouldn't that be cool if science had that much advance coming in the near future?)