User contributions for DrTimTaylor

6 January 2022

• 12:1312:13, 6 January 2022 diff hist +859 User:DrTimTaylor Added note about those Dec 21-Jan 22 edits current Tag: Visual edit

5 January 2022

• 18:2018:20, 5 January 2022 diff hist +196 User talk:MrOllie →Pages relating to AI and self-replicating machines
• 18:0018:00, 5 January 2022 diff hist 0 User talk:MrOllie →Pages relating to AI and self-replicating machines
• 17:5817:58, 5 January 2022 diff hist +3,152 User talk:MrOllie →Pages relating to AI and self-replicating machines

3 January 2022

• 18:0418:04, 3 January 2022 diff hist −1 User talk:MrOllie →Pages relating to AI and self-replicating machines
• 18:0318:03, 3 January 2022 diff hist +2,146 User talk:MrOllie →Pages relating to AI and self-replicating machines: new section
• 14:2914:29, 3 January 2022 diff hist +1,014 Artificial intelligence →In fiction: Added a couple of sentences about Darwinian AI in fiction, starting with Butler's Erewhon. I'm conscious that this article is very long, but nevertheless believe that this flavour of AI in fiction deserves a mention here. Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 13:1913:19, 3 January 2022 diff hist −11 m AI takeover →In fiction: Merged the two "See also" links into one Tag: Visual edit
• 13:0613:06, 3 January 2022 diff hist +502 Artificial intelligence in fiction →Background: Added a sentence about George Eliot, and also a citation of Adrienne Mayor's book Gods and Robots about AI in antiquity Tag: Visual edit

1 January 2022

• 18:2918:29, 1 January 2022 diff hist +665 Self-replicating machine →Self-replicating spacecraft: Added a sentence about J. D. Bernal's early contribution, and also of early pulp sci-fi such as Laurence Manning's work from 1933. Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 15:2915:29, 1 January 2022 diff hist +443 User:DrTimTaylor Added some more details and a link to my book Tag: Visual edit
• 15:1115:11, 1 January 2022 diff hist +1 m AI takeover in popular culture →1950s and earlier: Pluralised "earlier works" by Butler - he wrote several letters on this subject before publishing Erewhon Tag: Visual edit
• 15:0915:09, 1 January 2022 diff hist +1,942 AI takeover in popular culture Added a sentence in the introductory section about works focusing on AI that can self-reproduce and evolve, which constituted some of the earliest work in this area. Also added some information the "1950s and earlier" section about relevant work by George Eliot (1879) and S. Fowler Wright (1929). Plus some very minor editing to improve the structure and tidy up the writing. Tag: Visual edit

31 December 2021

• 12:0012:00, 31 December 2021 diff hist +802 AI takeover →In fiction: Added a sentence about Samuel Butler's work here, which predates Capek's RUR. Tag: Visual edit
• 10:2810:28, 31 December 2021 diff hist +671 Self-replicating spacecraft Adding a bit more info and context to the final paragraph of the History section. I didn't want to remove what someone else had already written about Brin, but I did want to emphasize that this was just a single fairly random example and that many people had discussed similar things before Brin. Tags: Reverted Visual edit

30 December 2021

• 21:3521:35, 30 December 2021 diff hist +164 Self-replicating spacecraft Moved the paragraph about self-replicating spacecraft being considered a form of life from the Applications section to the end of the History section, and added some further references and context. Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 20:0120:01, 30 December 2021 diff hist +102 Self-replicating spacecraft →History: Added link to The World, the Flesh & The Devil page (even though this currently just redirects to the J. D. Bernal page) Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 19:5519:55, 30 December 2021 diff hist +217 Talk:Self-replicating spacecraft →In fiction: Philip K Dick: reply added re Autofac
• 19:4519:45, 30 December 2021 diff hist +535 Self-replicating spacecraft →History: Added a short paragraph about ideas from early pulp sci-fi Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 18:4118:41, 30 December 2021 diff hist +504 Self-replicating spacecraft →History: Just some low-level tidying up in various places, and adding a bit of more general context at the start of the Applications section about thinking of self-replicating machines as a form of life. Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 14:1514:15, 30 December 2021 diff hist +5,041 Self-replicating spacecraft I made some significant changes to the first sections driven by the need to correct factual errors in the previous version about von Neumann's connection to the topic (he developed a general theory of self-reproducing machines but did not talk about self-replicating spacecraft as such). I renamed the "Theory" section to "History" as the previous section was a mixture of both. I added a lot of new content to "History" and moved some of existing content to other sections to improve the structure. Tags: Reverted Visual edit

29 December 2021

• 15:2715:27, 29 December 2021 diff hist −1 m Self-replicating machine →Von Neumann's kinematic model: Fixed typo in von Neumann's name Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 15:2615:26, 29 December 2021 diff hist +98 Self-replicating machine Corrected the description of Paley's contribution. The previous wording had suggested that Paley said that the capacity of self-reproduction would render the question of who designed the watch moot, but this is not what he said. Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 14:5814:58, 29 December 2021 diff hist +237 Artificial life →Notable simulators: Added entry about Cosmos Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 13:4213:42, 29 December 2021 diff hist +185 m Self-replicating machines in fiction →In literature: Minor tidying of formatting of table for consistency - all entries in the Work column are now italicised and with no quotation marks Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 13:3813:38, 29 December 2021 diff hist +213 Self-replicating machines in fiction →In literature: Added entry about S. Fowler Wright's 1929 story Automata Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 13:2513:25, 29 December 2021 diff hist +725 Self-replicating machines in fiction →In literature: Added an entry about George Eliot's 1879 work Impressions of Theophrastus Such. Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 13:1613:16, 29 December 2021 diff hist +250 Self-replicating machines in fiction →In literature: Added notes about the 1920 play R.U.R. Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 13:1013:10, 29 December 2021 diff hist +1,934 Self-replicating machines in fiction Added a new History section at the start of the article Tags: Reverted Visual edit

28 December 2021

• 13:2513:25, 28 December 2021 diff hist +1,286 Self-replicating machine →History: Added extra information and references to the opening paragraphs of the History section, and made some minor edits to improve (I hope) the overall structure and flow of these paragraphs. Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 12:5512:55, 28 December 2021 diff hist −132 Self-replicating machine I deleted the sentence "Although suggested more than 70 years ago no self-replicating machine has been seen until today." This was already flagged with "[citation needed]", and the sentence is incorrect when stated as simply as this. In a recent edit I added information at the top of the article of the first implementations of very simple artificial self-replicating systems in hardware (Penrose and Jacobson) and software (Barricelli). Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 12:5112:51, 28 December 2021 diff hist −156 Self-replicating machine I deleted the sentence "A self-replicating machine is an artificial self-replicating system that relies on conventional large-scale technology and automation" because (having recently written a book about self-replicating machines) I do not agree with the assertion made in the sentence that the term "self-replicating machine" applies exclusively to conventional large-scale technology (i.e. "clanking replicators"). The term is used more widely in the literature (e.g. by Drexler and others). Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 12:3212:32, 28 December 2021 diff hist +16 Self-replicating machine Added Konrad Zuse as another early contributor to the field. Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 12:2812:28, 28 December 2021 diff hist +1,252 Self-replicating machine I have tidied up the introductory paragraphs of this article, adding some more information and references about the very early history of the subject, adding another citation of von Neumann's very early work, and (I hope) improving the structure and flow of the text. I removed the reference to "clanking replicators" in the second paragraph because this is also mentioned a bit later on in the fourth paragraph. Tags: Reverted Visual edit
• 10:2910:29, 28 December 2021 diff hist +23 m Self-replication →History: Changed "See also" tag to "Main article" tag, and minor improvements to wording of this paragraph. Tags: Reverted Visual edit

27 December 2021

• 19:1119:11, 27 December 2021 diff hist +1,373 Self-replication →Overview: Added a brief History subsection Tags: Reverted Visual edit

10 September 2021

• 08:5308:53, 10 September 2021 diff hist +155 Nils Aall Barricelli Added reference to Barricelli's 1954 Methodos paper as the first publication of his work on artificial life Tag: Visual edit
• 08:4508:45, 10 September 2021 diff hist +431 Nils Aall Barricelli Added reference to support claim about this being pioneering ALife research

4 July 2021

• 09:2509:25, 4 July 2021 diff hist +135 m Talk:Darwin among the Machines →Merge suggestion: fixed typo and added links
• 09:2209:22, 4 July 2021 diff hist +1,036 Talk:Darwin among the Machines Response to merge suggestion

14 November 2020

• 13:2013:20, 14 November 2020 diff hist +445 Darwin among the Machines Added reference to secondary source to support the statements made in the first paragraph. Also reworded old "References" section to "Bibliography" and old "Notes" section to "References" in keeping with usual practice. Tag: Visual edit

11 November 2020

• 16:2316:23, 11 November 2020 diff hist +438 Erewhon Cited a secondary source to back up the claim that "Butler was the first to write about the possibility that machines might develop consciousness by natural selection" Tag: Visual edit

9 November 2020

• 10:3310:33, 9 November 2020 diff hist −4 m History of artificial life Minor rewording to avoid repetition of words in successive sentences Tag: Visual edit
• 10:2110:21, 9 November 2020 diff hist +60 m History of artificial life Further fixing of reference Tag: Visual edit

8 November 2020

• 13:3913:39, 8 November 2020 diff hist −7 m History of artificial life Minor rewording to avoid repetition of possibility/possible in sentence Tag: Visual edit
• 13:1413:14, 8 November 2020 diff hist +1,130 History of artificial life Added paragraph about the early history of self-reproducing machines in the Pre-computer section and also tidied up the opening paragraph of that section. Tag: Visual edit
• 12:3912:39, 8 November 2020 diff hist +287 History of artificial life Adding a citation (to the "AI Narratives" book) to opening paragraph and tidying up the wording to make it more precise. Tag: Visual edit

3 November 2020

• 10:1710:17, 3 November 2020 diff hist −5 m Evolutionary computation Minor improvement to wording to avoid repeat of word "first" in sentence about Barricelli. Tag: Visual edit

2 November 2020

• 15:3115:31, 2 November 2020 diff hist +201 Evolutionary computation Added a citation of Barricelli's first published work on computational evolution from 1954. Tag: Visual edit

1 November 2020

• 11:2911:29, 1 November 2020 diff hist +475 Evolutionary computation Corrected date of first simulations by Nils Aall Barricelli (1953, not 1960s) and cited a reference. Also added link to Barricelli's page. Tag: Visual edit