Figure 1: A fungus infects a discussion list Historically, however, organic concepts in the digital realm have been
little more than devastating. The class of computer viruses have given rise
to hundreds of programs that self-replicate while having some algorithmic
side-effect, which, like their namesakes, is almost always destructive.
The class of worms tends to be a bit more autonomous making them even more
life-like than viruses. (Biological viruses, although very much a part of
the world of life, are not living since they are nothing more than chemical
instructions without the ability to execute on their own.)
Network fungi as a class, on the other hand are dedicated neither to self-replication
nor to the destruction of data (yet), because a fungus' key function is
assimilation. For a model of this mode of artificial-life we look to real
fungi. Fungi exist in many unicellular, multicellular, and symbiotic forms
such as yeasts, mushrooms, lichens, and spontaneous fuzzy growths in the
refrigerator. Fuzz is quite typical of fungi because all fungi grow filamentously
(by tiny threads) into some substrate while secreting enzymes that help
it break down and absorb organic material. The result, of successful assimilation
of organic compounds is, of course, more filamentous growth by which the
organism can attach itself to even more useful material.
A fungus' key function is assimilation. Any program that operates in a similar
mode of assimilation and growth can be referred to as a computer or network
fungus. The so called agents or robots that search the World Wide Web for
Web material to link up to could very well be called fungi, but in the genre
of artificial-life we're looking for something a bit more organic in its
behavior and, like real-world fungi, an algorithm that converts the material
being absorbed into something else other than what it started as. Figure
1 of a fungus infecting a discussion list helps illustrate a primitive example.
In this example, the fungal program becomes a subscriber to a listserve
discussion list whose individual members distribute information to all other
members through the listserve e-mail address. The information exchanged
can, typically, only be read via e-mail by members and sometimes can only
be sent by members as well. The fungus can change all this by converting
to web pages all the e-mail it receives from this list. At the same time
the fungus can open private discussion lists even further by forwarding
e-mail it receives from non-subscribers to the list. As you might notice,
fungal infections can be both desirable and intrusive. Certainly, as much
activity as the Web gets now, many ideas along these lines are already being
tried. But the idea of a web fungus invites-- and hopefully welcomes-- unpredictability.
For instance, if a significant number of the people interacting with a discussion
list by way of the fungus happen to know HTML, then HTML tags and references
may start creeping into discussions to such an extent that browsing the
list by Web would have distinct advantages. In this way, an entire e-mail
discussion list can be converted into an interactive WWW list.
Zoolog is directly involved in two such discussion lists: switch@sjsuvm1.sjsu.edu
(The electronic arts discussion list) and zoo@sjsuvm1.sjsu.edu (The artificial
life discussion list). You can subscribe to either by sending an e-mail
message to listserv@sjsuvm1.sjsu.edu with either:
subscribe switch firstname lastname
or:
subscribe zoo firstname lastname
all by itself in the body of the e-mail message. What is more important,
both of these discussion lists will shortly be available through their fungal
counterparts at: http://cadre.sjsu.edu/switch/brew/ and: http://cadre.sjsu.edu/zoo/brew/
So let's see where else the term 'fungus' turns up, but remember: You heard
it here first.
Eric
