# Artificial Heredity > **Machine-Evolution Nexus:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] places this concept within the history and governance of substrate-independent evolution. **Domain:** Artificial Life / Inheritance **Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition Artificial heredity is the engineered transmission of organization among nonbiological descendants in a way that can preserve and vary lineage traits. ## Machine-Evolution Context Barricelli’s number strings, cellular-automaton loops and digital instruction genomes instantiate different artificial inheritance channels. ## Continuity and Evidence Boundary A copied file is not automatically heredity; it becomes hereditary when embedded in a recurrent descendant-producing process. Artificial heredity does not imply artificial consciousness. ## Relationships [[wiki/Heritable Information|Heritable Information]], [[wiki/Digital Organism|Digital Organism]], [[wiki/Description Copier|Description Copier]], [[wiki/Substrate-Independent Evolution|Substrate-Independent Evolution]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > "Far AIs should be created to educate themselves, evolving to function in their environments effectively without human guidance or contact." > **— Stephen M. Kosslyn**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Artificial Aliens Should Evolve Without Human Guidance by Stephen M. Kosslyn|Artificial Aliens Should Evolve Without Human Guidance by Stephen M. Kosslyn]] > "An artificial intelligence is coordinating the efforts of a sort of collective intelligence, operating thousands times faster than human brains, with many consequences for human life." > **— Luca De Biase**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Artificial Intelligence Could Coordinate Collective Intelligence by Luca De Biase|Artificial Intelligence Could Coordinate Collective Intelligence by Luca De Biase]] > "I believe our first answer will be: humans are for inventing new kinds of intelligences that biology could not evolve." > **— Kevin Kelly**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Humans Invent Intelligences Biology Could Not Evolve by Kevin Kelly|Humans Invent Intelligences Biology Could Not Evolve by Kevin Kelly]] > "Artificial intelligences, whether confined to desktop boxes and robots or distributed in cyber space, have been created by replicator power just as our own intelligence was created by replicator power. They are evolving far faster than we did and may yet give rise to further even faster replicators. That power will not stop because we want it to. And its products will certainly not be impressed by our claims to be in control or to have designed the machinery on which they thrive. That intelligence will continue to evolve, and the sooner we accept the idea of replicator power the more realistic we are likely to be about the future of our life with intelligent machines." > **— Susan Blackmore**, *2017, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Term or Concept Ought to Be More Widely Known?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Intelligent Machines Are the Next Replicators by Susan Blackmore|Intelligent Machines Are the Next Replicators by Susan Blackmore]] > "As we invent and expand worlds of 1s and 0s the primary criteria for success and viral replication is whether we can breathe life into their virtual realities. Be this a direct reflection of daily life, a la Facebook, multi player massive worlds, or a replicating, self reinforcing network reproductive logic. The digital world accelerates expansion, survival, virtual life through mutant hyper growth. It becomes a fast forward caricature of what we have strived to build throughout centuries of breeding and agricultural practices, of building layer upon layer of civilizations in great cities." > **— Juan Enriquez**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Digital Life/Digital Worlds Accelerate the Evolution of Virtual Life by Juan Enriquez|Digital Worlds Accelerate the Evolution of Virtual Life by Juan Enriquez]] > "In May 2014, a team of molecular biologists led by Floyd Romesberg created a new genetic code, a self-replicating system that codes life forms using chemically modified DNA. This is a BFD; insofar as we know, for 4 billion years all life on this planet replicated using the four known base pairs of DNA (ATCG). Now we can swap in other chemicals. This third evolutionary logic-tree of life would initially be completely human designed-driven and could rapidly diverge from all known life. In theory scientists could begin to breed plants and animals with a very different genetic makeup from that of any other creature on the planet. And these new life forms may be immune to all known viruses and bacteria." > **— Juan Enriquez**, *2016, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Consider the Most Interesting Recent Scientific News? What Makes It Important?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Humanity Has Created a Third Evolutionary Tree of Life by Juan Enriquez|Humanity Has Created a Third Evolutionary Tree of Life by Juan Enriquez]] ## Sources / Provenance - IAS Barricelli archive; von Neumann (1966); Avida literature.