It seems that my presentation is the last one prior to the closing keynote by Chris Langton. I'm not sure whether it is a blessing or a curse Well the blessing may be that you've run out of sharp objects to hurl up the front. The curse is that it seems everything I want to say has more or less been touched on by other speakers.

Firstly I should introduce myself and tell you a little about my background. I trained many years ago as an architect and practiced for a number of years. I mention this only so that you are more likely to understand my approach to this subject. Architecture taught me many things, but the most important was the ability to look a little deeper into our environment and to uncover some fundamental truths. Most architects at one time or another probably consider the fact that in designing the built environment they are influencing the people that live in it for a very long time, and quite likely their creations are doing so long after they are dead. We have good examples of this is all around us. Indeed the building we are in was built over 500 years ago - the original architect being long forgotten. I believe then that it is useful to search for fundamental truths and my talk today is aimed at digging below the surface of the technologies we have been considering over the past two days and looking at the fundamental concepts and their future evolution.

The title of this talk is 'The Architecting of Cyberspace' (I realise that the word 'Architecting' is not listed in the Oxford English Dictionary - but I hope you'll let me get away with it today as we're in Cambridge!) It does however, aptly describe what seems to be happening in Cyberspace. In keeping with my introduction I feel that I should continue in the same vein and delve into the fundamental nature of the terms we are using.

My talk is divided into four main areas:
A. A brief discussion on the nature of Cyberspace
B. Debunking the word reality
C. The Architecture of Cyberspace
D. Artificial Life - the New Frontier


A. What is CyberSpace?
I recently found the following definition of Cyberspace:

"A metaphor for describing the non-physical environment created by computer systems. Online systems, for example, create a cyberspace within which people can communicate with one another via e-mail or other means such as chat rooms."

Of course the original meaning of the word was coined by the science fiction writer William Gibson when he sought a name to describe his vision of a global computer network, linking all people, machines and sources of information, and through which one could move or "navigate".

The more I experience all of the many facets of Cyberspace the more I realise that it cannot be so easily defined and even Gibson's own definition leaves it wanting. In my opinion cyberspace is more than just a method or medium but yet another example of an emergent phenomenon where the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts. Whichever way you look at it, this emergent phenomenon is taking on the role of an alternative reality into which increasing numbers of people in the developed world, every day are tapping into.

But where does cyberspace start? You may assert that any electronic computer contains cyberspace. However in the same way that you couldn't describe a glass of water as being an ocean I would contend that cyberspace doesn't manifest itself in isolated pockets of the medium, for example in the closed memory of a computer in the form of a computer program. Using this definition of cyberspace, computer programs, especially computer games, are only the fore-runners of cyberspace.

These fore-runners include adventure games and indeed any computer programs that simulate human thought. Adventure games immerse the individual in an imaginary universe where there are both allies and enemies - all imbued with life-like thought processes and given plausible roles to act out. However there are two missing ingredients here that make them fall short of fitting this definition of cyberspace.

It is computers that manufacture and maintain the necessary medium for cyberspace to exist, but the first essential ingredient to allow for a spontaneous and unplanned chain of events to occur (in other words an emergent phenomenon), is the computer network. Not just any network but a network that connects a very large number of computers and clearly the largest network in existence today is the Internet.

However in order to complete the picture and in order to see cyberspace as an emergent phenomenon one must add another ingredient - that of intelligent thought and lashings of human imagination. Only then can one say that this is truly an example of an emergent phenomenon. Trying to understand the reasons for this of course reveals one of the deepest enigmas of emergent phenomena, which is the impossibility of tracing their development. However, by way of explanation one could say that the processing power of computers and the network connecting them, seems to elevate human thought and imagination to a level never before attainable. From all these elements combined together there has started to emerge something greater than the sum of the parts.

I realise of course that I am using an unusual approach here to make my point about the definition of cyberspace and I also know that there are some people here who would not agree with me. I would ask you however to give me the benefit of the doubt as I am trying paint a picture here, not of a planet full of human beings sitting in front of computers which are all connected together, but something much more fundamental. If you rise above the nuts and bolts or bits and bytes you can start to perceive this image of another dimension or even another place in the universe.

Because the concept of cyberspace as a real place and indeed the technology to achieve it, is so new to us, we often overlook the fundamental nature of what we have helped to evolve. This is excusable as by definition, emergent phenomena don't materialise over night. For example the evolution of life itself is considered by most to be an emergent phenomenon which developed insidiously and would probably have been almost unrecognisable at first. So it is with Cyberspace. Indeed, during these early days things like e-mail, MUDS, chat rooms, world wide web, etc are easily perceived as merely multi-user successors to the fore-runners I mentioned earlier. It is only with the advent of Virtual Worlds on the Internet and the introduction of Biota, that one gets the uncanny feeling that this is the start of something altogether and fundamentally different. Cyberspace seems to be transforming into a habitable place or dimension where human beings are beginning to find alternative accommodation.


B. What is Reality?


When talking about my 'real' experiences in virtual environments, I sometimes get, as well as the blank looks, the comment that my experiences aren't actually real. That because they don't conform to the accepted notion of reality, that they are somehow invalid. So far, I have talked about the concept of cyberspace being an alternative reality. So I now want to pose the question: what, fundamentally, is reality?

Firstly if we look at our own physical lives we tend to take our own existence as being fairly concrete. We perceive our lives as a permanent reality until we die. However as Steve Grand has pointed out elsewhere, we are not physically the same people as when we were children. The only true persistent thread to our existence is the genetic code that immortalises us and the memories that we maintain most of our lives. To use a computer term you could say that biological organisms are created 'on the fly' from the underlying code. The real stuff is the genetic code and the memes, that persist beyond our own lives and may be thought of as more 'real' than our own existence.

Similarly when rendering on screen any computer output, be it a document, a graphic image or a virtual world walk-through, it is created 'on the fly' from the underlying digital code and one could be forgiven for describing this code as more real than the resulting representation. Again it is the underlying code that persists rather than the representations.

To find a more reliable definition, we could take a step back beyond biology and turn to physics to look for a benchmark of reality. Unfortunately at least in the area of particle physics the concept of reality has taken quite a knock this century. At least it is the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory that implies we cannot be certain of something's existence until it is actually observed. This has further eroded our confidence in reality as an unshakable concept and has shown us that our accepted definition of reality cannot reliably be extended beyond the limited boundaries of our own perceptions.

By way of analogy only, I think it is interesting that while moving through a virtual world, and for obvious reasons, the representation of so-called virtual reality, is only there while it is being observed. The only perceivable reality exists within the boundaries of the display area. As soon as one turns or moves away from an object it 'ceases to exist' in virtual space. Again this is analogous in quantum theory to the collapse of the wave function. I think this is as far as I care to go in comparing virtual reality to quantum theory, suffice it to say that it is the act of observation that enables the perceived reality.

Whichever way one interprets the idea of reality, this argument only serves to put the proverbial 'cat' amongst the pigeons and allows us to redefine a new sense of what reality actually means. Fundamentally, it shows that reality, in human terms, can be defined only within the limited confines of our own experience and perception.

Ok so I've talked about cyberspace as a new habitable place in the universe and then continued to debunk our long established concept of reality.

C. The Architecture of Cyberspace, the growth of cyber communities This is probably a good place to start talking about Cyber Community which as everyone knows is a fast growing phenomenon and originated from the old BBSs. One of the original and probably most famous cyber communities was the Well. In a moving article in Wired Magazine last hear Katie Hafner wrote: "It was a very public way to die. Public, that is, to the few thousand people on The Well. ....Tom Mandel was only doing what he had done nearly every day, and sometimes several times a day, for years: dialing in to a community where he had found a home unlike any he had ever known".

I am sure that most people who read that article describing among other things the on-line life and death of Tom Mandel, were touched by the sublime sense of humanity that seemed to emerge from a group of people who were physically remote from each other. However, cyber communities like the Well do more than transcend distance, they also seem to break social barriers to communication which are often present in normal person-to-person relationships. Cyber Communities are the pioneers in the emergent phenomenon of cyberspace and sometimes offer as much authenticity as physical reality without some of its limitations.

I don't intend to delve any further into the phenomenon of cyber communities here as there would be enough material for a whole conference, however it brings me neatly to the subject of Virtual Worlds.

Virtual Worlds technology has emerged as the logical progression from previous text-base cyber communities. It combines human sociality with a greater sense of place, by the introduction of virtual presence in three dimensions. It also introduces the idea of modelling objects and habitats, usually based on our own built environment, which further serves to give cyberspace a greater sense of place and community.

Being an architect I have become fascinated with idea of building environments for people in these alternative realities. My experience shows me that Virtual Worlds are beginning to imbue cyberspace with many of the qualities of physical reality.

Tom Ray talked about VW and in particular Activeworlds in the first part of his presentation. He was lamenting the fact that VWs generally slavishly copy reality…I'll come back to that a little later even though Chris Langton answered it very adequately the other day. But something else he said that I found particularly interesting. If you remember he said in referring to AlphaWorld…that he had never been there. You would have thought it odd if he had said that about Microsoft Word…you might say I have never used Word…or with a web page you would say…I have never seen that page…but not "I've never been there". So I think Tom has admirably made this point for me.

Last year I had the privilege of organising an amazing event. It was a virtual architecture competition and was probably the first one of its kind. The culmination of the competition was probably another first, and was the virtual prize-giving ceremony. It was something which I shall never forget. It was attended by a number of the contestants and eminent judges who at the time were scattered in different places around the globe. The prize giving was staged after around two hours of guided tours, through the various schemes, which were given by the designers and builders. Bruce Damer and myself acted as the MCs, I was in London and Bruce in his mountain retreat in Santa Cruz. I would just like to read a quote from Bruce's eloquent description of the proceedings so as to give you a flavour of the almost palpable atmosphere felt by everyone who attended.

"Right after the winner sign appeared, there was a wave of elation moving through the entire group. The builders of Aurac the winning scheme, Zg, Aurac and HenrikG, were falling over. The flow of text picked up, full of emoticons, *clapping* and other emoties. Everyone was thrilled to be at an event which went far beyond the normal unstructured, unfulfilling experience of text chat with random strangers."

For me it was an amazing experience as it was the end of two years of planning and organisation. For attendees in the UK and others in Northern Europe and Scandinavia the event continued until the early hours of the morning. Eventually of course it came to an end and the limitations of the medium became suddenly apparent as I had to break open a bottle of champagne and drink it alone.
The experience was confirmation to me that this was a real place and that I had participated in an exciting and real event. The fact that it was a gathering of committed people attending at the same time from all around the world was a remarkable thing and proved to me that cyberspace had at last come of age.

The Architecture of Cyberspace
So the emerging nature of cyberspace is of an alternative place which sometimes mimics and sometimes stretches the confines of physical reality. Somewhere that people can transend the barriers of distance and immerse themselves in a new version of reality. But how is this new reality being shaped? In the context of virtual worlds the architecting of cyberspace is now no longer just an imaginary exercise but a reality.

On Friday Bruce Damer touched on some of the delights of ActiveWorlds. The birds-eye view of the original AlphaWorld represents I think one of the most amazing manifestations of the emerging cyberspace. Here are placed not just hundreds, but millions of virtual objects comprising structures and virtual buildings that are the result of the unfettered imagination of thousands of ActiveWorlds citizens, over a period of less than three years. This was only the beginning. Even though the original AlphaWorld is still being expanded by countless virtual beings, there are now over 250 smaller worlds that are part of the Activeworlds universe.

I would just like to quote Bruce again. This time from his book called Avatars!. It is a brief description by Ron Britvich the creator of ActiveWorlds, of a time before the world was actually open to the public and when he found some colleagues, who were unfamiliar with his work, but had stumbled upon the software on the company's file server:

"These users, without any help files or much of an interface, had figured out how to build with the few parts lying around, and had put together, piece by piece, a castle. This really set the stage for what was to happen later. In just over one year, citizens of AlphaWorld had placed down over ten million objects!"
ActiveWorlds is almost unique in the virtual world scene as it allows its users (registered users being called citizens) to create almost anything they can imagine. With access to your own server you aren't restricted to the components and objects that are available in AlphaWorld, but components, even complete structures, can be modeled in a 3-d modeling package and uploaded to the server, ready for placing in-world.
Architecture in the physical world is a very complex phenomenon In one sense it can be seen as one of the arts but it is probably the most ignored one and most people have an almost subliminal sense of it. How many times have you gone into an art gallery or museum and come out having seen the exhibits but completely ignored the building housing them, even though it may have been a noteworthy building?

The built environment is incredibly important to our physical lives. Buildings give us shelter and keep us at a comfortable temperature. Within a building's envelope will be organised various functions associated with the use of the building. This is analogous to the skin of an animal that contains all of its organs and processes. Buildings also embody icons that we perceive often again, at a subliminal level. We intuitively recognise a school or an office building and of course a religious building. This of course is the job of an architect to manipulate our perceptions so that we can better 'read' and interact with our environment.

Virtual architecture should really be another story. I have always been fascinated by the types of creation found in the ActiveWorlds universe, not for their use of imagination but actually for their lack of it! It is interesting that builders stay with the 'building' metaphor of our own physical built environment. They very rarely 'step out' and design spaces or structures that would look out of place in the physical world. This may have something to do with the 'given' parameters of the medium. For example, Activeworlds has a simulated force of gravity and even though you don't actually need a ground plane, however, without it, avatars, on entering the world would fall and accelerate quickly to the bottom of virtual space. It may be that as gravity determines so many factors in our physical existence its virtual presence is enough to encourage people to continue the inhibitions imposed in their physical environment.

Of course in a virtual environment there is no need for actual 'buildings'. We don't need walls to keep out the rain or the cold. We don't need roofs for shelter or floors to walk on. In fact we don't need buildings or structures at all! However it is generally representations of buildings that we find in the Activeworlds universe and indeed in other virtual world systems. This pehenomenon is of course not new. Many new technologies seem to borrow much from previous or existing icons or methods. Early cinema and even television was modeled on stage drama and early photography was seen as a cheaper but accurate alternative to portrait painting.

Basically people feel more comfortable with the familiar. Virtual worlds technology is relatively new so builders will naturally turn to the physical built environment in order to look for inspiration. However there is one token difference which suggests that the familiar is not actually quite enough. I call this the 'Superman Effect'.

There is something mildly perverse and at the same time tantalizing, to be moving through a virtual building which mimics a physical one but at the same time being able to pass through walls and effortlessly lift up or copy seemingly heavy objects at the touch of a button. And then to fly up through the roof and look from a great height without aid of a flying machine.

I suppose there could be an analogy here with the taking of drugs and this would be a complete research project on its own. Suffice it to say that the slavish reproduction of our built environment together with subtle superman-like powers seems to be an enticing formula.

It may be however that a natural progression of the Superman Effect will be towards a growing iconoclasm where we cast off the inhibitions of our physical built environment. The Superman effect may be our way of nudging the boundaries - to feel our way, while still remaining rooted in some vestige of physical reality.

What ever the reasons for the compelling nature of Virtual Worlds people are now migrating from the old text-based cyber communities and starting to colonise these three dimensional environments. Virtual Worlds offer these hi-tech colonists an almost complete environment where they can own land, build their own virtual dwellings and hide behind animated representations of themselves called avatars. They can project images of themselves that are not possible in every day life and some experience relationships with other people that they are unable to attain in physical reality.
An interesting observation in these early days of Vitual World settlement is that these first colonists exhibit many of the traits of their forebears who settled continents in the real world. They tend to be hardy and sometimes socially difficult people who are paving the way for more well-adjusted types like you and me!
If virtual worlds technology is the logical progression from text-based chats and also the launch-pad for a habitable cyberspace, it may also become a homeland for another life-form altogether.

D. A-Life - The New Frontier

This brings me to the final point of my talk. However, I am now starting to tread on dangerous ground. A-life and biota are not my fields, but it strikes me that there can and should be a very strong connection between virtual worlds technology and the new science of A-life.
Of course the idea of robots goes way back beyond this - the mythical Gollum is a recurring theme for example in chekoslovakian literature. Later science-fiction stories generally majored on the idea of advanced electronic robots being cast in the image of humans but being at the same time superior and subservient. The overriding theme of the stories however, is the relationship and interaction that these robots have with humanity.

Outside the realms of myth and science-fiction, robot technology in the form of electro-mechanical devices and computer brains, has been bogged down for many years by the seemingly insurmountable problems presented by the physical world. Machine tools are one thing, but the ability to create robots in the image of the mechanical characters popularized in science fiction stories written by the likes of Isaac Asimov, seems to be a long way off.
It seems to me that virtual worlds are the logical place for a new wave of artificial life to evolve. Digital organisms unconstrained by the physical laws that govern molecular-based life could have rich and unpredictable environments in which to grow and evolve.

The idea of 'bots' in a virtual world aren't new. In fact bots have already made their appearence in ActiveWorlds and with a new API there are many more that are planned. Here are some ideas posted on the ActiveWorlds web site for a variety of bots with specialised jobs:

For example there is the Bartender Bot who attempts to carry on a conversation with people. Or the Building Bot that obeys construction commands and performs complex building operations. And then there is the Pollster Bot who stands on street corners and takes surveys, collecting votes on matters of public opinion. Some obvious omissions from this list are the Pick-up Bot that attempts to make passes at other avatars of the opposite sex or even the same sex. These are just some of the many ideas that have been or could be considered.

However these bots are far removed from the idea of biota that develop over a period of time and whose behaviour and form is not actually programmed but evolved. Bruce has already talked about Nerve Garden which is based on L-systems and involves the growth, behaviour and evolution of plant like digital organisms that respond to their environment and to human interaction. Then there is Larry Yaegars compelling Polyworld creations and Steve Grand's loveable but mischeivous creatures and of course Tom Ray's tierra organisms that enjoy a diet of ftp transmissions amongst other things. It is systems like these which differ from 'bots' by being learning and evolving organisms, that will probably supercede the programmed variety.

If primitive biological organisms and their digital counterparts, computer viruses have taught us anything, it is that biota are more likely to evolve as our enemies than our friends. This is the inevitable consequence of introducing organisms that compete for the same resources.
If it becomes possible to inject the seeds for this type of evolution into environments such as ActiveWorlds one can imagine all manner of different scenarios.
For example types of virtual bacteria or viruses that evolve, attack and disable human avatars. Along the same lines, small mould-like growths may feed off certain objects or textures. Larger, insect-like creatures may evolve to scavenge for virtual food.

Some of the most intriguing scenarios would arise from the interaction these organisms would have with human avatars. It is here that their evolution would be able to benefit from human unpredicability. On a less primitive level, and of a more benign nature, one can imagine organisms that evolve to help translate between avatars of different languages and are fed and nourished by an agreed system of rewards. Or organisms that evolve to solve land disputes or help to police the worlds against unscrupulous or abusive human avatars.
Virtual worlds may become the biological/A-life interface, or the front-line in a battle of wills between human beings who will increasingly inhabit them, and artificial life-forms that will evolve in them.

Clearly the virtual environments of today are nowhere near rich enough to support this type of evolutionary digital life. There would need to be mechanisms in place for replication and survival strategies in order for any model of Darwinian evolution to occur. However, when this does eventually happen we may be witness to a much accelerated evolution than we are used to in biological terms. Digital computers can evolve organisms at millions of times the speed of biological ones. With the parrallel processing capabilities of fast networks this evolution may be even more dramatic. In the words of Kevin Kelly: "When everything is connected to everything in a distributed network, everything happens at once".
Even with the primitive state of the technologies that are now available, I think one can begin to see the possibility of Virtual environments becoming the 'petry dish' for artificial digital lifeforms in which to evolve and grow.


Summary


In summary then, I have talked about the concept of cyberspace as an emergent phenomenon and of reality as a somewhat unreliable and unrepresentative word to describe our perceived universe. I touched on Cyber Communities and described them as 'real' places for people to gather and communicate, transcending geographical distance and social barriers.
I then led on to Virtual Worlds technology which is the logical progression of the Cyber Community, and then talked about the type of environments that are being created there, and the subtle amplification of our powers that make virtual worlds so compelling.

Finally I touched on the possibility of injecting seeds of artificial life into these virtual worlds where they could evolve and develop alongside the human settlers.
I would just like to finish on the theme of artificial life with a quote from Kevin Kelly's book, 'Out of Control' which is an inspirational treatise on the new biology of machines.
"...as we unleash living forces into our created machines, we lose control of them. They acquire wildness and some of the surprises that the wild entails. This, then, is the dilemma all gods must accept: that they can no longer be completely sovereign over their finest creations. The world of the made will soon be like the world of the born: autonomous, adaptable, and creative but, consequently, out of our control."
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