Chapter 55 10.6 Adaptive techniques

Adaptive technologies such as distributed intelligence, elastic-time computing, niche economies, and taught evolution all evoke organicity in machines.After being connected into a giant circuit, the artificial world slides firmly into the natural world. Tibbs' studies of how to imitate the "natural world" in manufacturing convinced him that, as industrial activity became more and more organic, it would become--to use a modern term-- More "sustainable".Imagine, says Tibbs, that we are moving from dirty, everyday industrial processes to bio-inspired processes.The vast majority of factories that require high-temperature, high-pressure environments will be replaced by factories operating within the biological value range. "Biological metabolism is primarily fueled by solar energy and operates at normal temperature and pressure," Tibbs wrote in his landmark 1991 monograph "Industrial Ecology." "If the same is true for industrial metabolism, there could be huge gains in terms of factory operation safety." Heat stands for fast, fierce and efficient.Cold represents slowness, stability and flexibility.Life is cold.Pharmaceutical companies are undergoing a revolution in the manufacture of medicines by bioengineering yeast to replace toxic and powerfully soluble chemicals.While the drug factory keeps its high-tech equipment, the genes injected into the active yeast broth take over as the engine (of biopharmaceuticals).The use of bacteria to extract useful minerals from abandoned mine tailings is yet another example of biological processes replacing mechanical ones.The methods that this work has taken in the past have been crude and environmentally damaging.

Although life is built on carbon, it is not powered by carbon.Carbon drives industry, with a huge impact on the atmosphere.The release of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the air upon combustion is proportional to the complex hydrocarbons in the fuel.The higher the carbon content the worse it is.In fact, the real energy obtained from fuel does not come from the carbon in hydrocarbons, but its hydrogen. In ancient times the best fuel was wood.In terms of the ratio of hydrogen to carbon, the carbon in firewood accounts for about 91%.At the height of the Industrial Revolution, coal was the main fuel, containing fifty percent of the carbon.The fuel oil used in modern factories has a carbon content of 33 percent, while the emerging clean fuel natural gas has a carbon content of 20 percent."As industrial systems evolve, [fuels] become more hydrogen-rich. In theory, pure hydrogen would be the ideal 'clean fuel'," Tibbs explained.

A future "hydrogen economy" would use sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, then transport the hydrogen around like natural gas and burn it where energy is needed.Such an environmentally friendly carbon-free energy system can be compared to the light-based energy system in plant cells. By pushing industrial production processes toward organic models, biomimetic engineers have created a range of ecosystem forms.At one extreme are purely natural ecosystems, such as alpine meadows or mangrove swamps.These systems can be thought of as autonomously producing biomass, oxygen, food, and thousands of exotic organic compounds, some of which are harvested by humans.At the other extreme are purely industrial systems that synthesize compounds that do not exist in nature or exist in small quantities.Between the two extremes is a belt of mixed ecosystems, such as wetland sewage treatment plants (using microbes to digest waste) or wineries (using live yeast to make wine), and soon, bioengineering processes that use genetic engineering to produce Silk, vitamins or glue.

Both genetic engineering and industrial ecology herald a third class of biomimetic systems—systems that are part biological, part machine.Imaginings of a variety of biotechnological systems capable of producing the things we need are only just beginning to unfold. Industry will inevitably adopt biological methods because: It makes better things with less material.Cars, planes, houses, computers, and more are made today with less material and with higher performance than they were two decades ago.Most of the production methods that will create our wealth in the future will be reduced to the scale and resolution of biology, even if these methods produce behemoths like redwood trees.Manufacturers will experience the competitiveness and creativity of natural biological processes, and then drive the manufacturing process towards the direction of biological models.

Today, the complexity of creating things has reached the biological level.Nature is a master at mastering complexity, giving us invaluable guidance in dealing with messy, counter-intuitive networks.To be able to function, the man-made complex systems of the future must be consciously infused with organic principles. Nature is unmoved, so one must adapt to her.Nature—much larger than we and our Kit-Kats—sets the basic rhythm for industrial progress.In the long run, man-made must follow nature. Nature itself—genes and various life forms—can be engineered (or patterned) just as industrial systems can be.This narrows the gap between the natural realm and man-made/industrial ecosystems, allowing industry to more easily invest in and implement biological models.

Anyone can see that our world is constantly covering itself with man-made gizmos.But as fast as our society is moving toward the man-made world, it is moving just as fast toward the biological world.At a time when electronic gizmos are dizzyingly plentiful, their main purpose of existence is to breed a real revolution...a revolution in biology.What will lead the way in the next century is not silicon as everyone preaches, but biology: mice, viruses, genes, ecology, evolution, life. Not always accurate.The real stars of the next century are metabiology: synthetic mice, computer viruses, engineered genes, industrial ecology, taught evolution, and artificial life. (They're all the same thing.) Silicon research is flocking to biology.Teams are racing to design new types of computers that not only advance the study of nature, but are also nature itself.

Just look at the shadowy revelations from these recent technical meetings and seminars: "International Conference on Adaptive Algorithms" (Santa Fe, April 1992), studying the flexibility of organisms incorporated into computer programs; "Biological Computing" (Monterey, June 1992), claiming that "natural evolution is a computational process adapted to changing circumstances"; "parallel problem solving from nature" (Brussels, September 1992), regarding nature as a Supercomputers; the "Fifth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms" (San Diego, 1992), mimicking the evolutionary capabilities of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA); Reproduce as a learning model.

From the ideas of these seminal meetings, some of the most surprising products that will end up in your bedroom, office, and garage over the next decade will emerge. Here is a popular history of the world: African savannahs gave birth to human hunter-gatherers—thus giving birth to the most primitive biology; hunter-gatherers developed natural agriculture and animal husbandry; farmers hatched the machine age; and the industrialists hatched the emerging post-industrial objects.What exactly it is, we're still trying to figure out.However, I call it a marriage of nature and man-made. Rather, the next epoch will feature new biology rather than biomimicry, because in any amalgam of organisms and machines, biology always wins out, even though the beginnings may be close.

Biology always wins out because organic doesn't mean divine.It is not a divine state passed down by living beings in some mysterious way.Biology is a necessity—almost a mathematical necessity—to which all complexity goes.It's an omega point.In a slow blend of the natural and the man-made, the organic is a dominant trait and the mechanical is a recessive one.In the end, biological logic always wins.