Beta-Life by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Beta-Life by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Computers are changing. Soon the silicon chip will seem like a clunky antique amid the bounty of more exotic processes on offer. Robots are changing, too; material evolution and swarm intelligence are creating a new generation of devices that will diverge and disperse into a balanced ecosystem of humans and robjects (robotic objects).

Somewhere in between, we humans will have to change also.in the way we interact with technology, the roles we adopt in an increasingly intelligent environment, and how we interface with each other. The driving motors behind many of these changes will be artificial life (A-Life) and unconventional computing. How exactly they will impact our world is still an open question.

But in the spirit of collective intelligence, this anthology brings together 38 scientists and authors, working in pairs, to imagine what life (and A-Life) will look like in the year 2070. Every kind of technology is imagined: from lie-detection glasses to military swarmbots, brain-interfacing implants to synthetically grown skyscrapers, revolution-inciting computer games to synthetically engineered haute cuisine. All artificial life is here.

Ra Page is a former editor of Newcastle Tales magazine and the editor of Bracket, The City Life Book of Manchester Short Stories, Comma, Hyphen, Leeds Stories, and Parenthesis.