Generation

Steven Levy is a well renowned ALife author - especially for his book, "Artificial Life: Quest for New Life" (incidently, the book which got James interested in AI). Levy is currently the senior editor of Newsweek. We were honored to have the opportunity to interview Steven Levy.
1.) You are a leading writer in the field of ALife - how did you get interested in ALife?
Unfortunately I was not at the first Alife conference in 1987, but heard about it and was fascinated. I had done some research into cellular automata and saw that things were moving towards the creation of biological-style behaviors and wanted to document it.
2.) Artificial Life is growly rapidly, where do you envision it in years to come?
The major breakthrough of course would be to create something that satisfies even a skeptic's definition of "alive-ness."
3.) What practical applications are there to ALife?
I think biological behaviors could make computers smarter in many ways, from simulating real-world systems (including organisms, or parts of organisms) to making agent-like artificial critters who can do work for us.
4.) Computer generated music and art is fast becoming a reality, how do you think the general public will look upon such advances?
I think that a skepticism will endure, and perhaps rightfully. We are humans and cherish the humanity in our creations. The fact that biological, or "natural" rules might help in the creation of a computer generated work of art is interesting, but even a wonderful work of art made in this fashion isn't the same as a person,with all his or her experiences and emotions involved, making art.
5.) Your book "Artificial Life: A Quest for New Creation" mentioned how close computer viruses were to becoming "life". Do you ever see man-kind having to re-define "life" to exclude computers? Or will man accept a "living-computer"? Or do you believe such a scenario will never arise?*
To answer in reverse: I won't say never. We've only had computers for fifty years or so, and have only begun to understand DNA and complex biological phenonema. To think that things won't change dramatically in both these areas is folly.
So I think that our definition of life will indeed have to change to reflect the ability of computers to help us create artificial organisms that satisfy definitions of "living creatures." I hope we can figure out what qualities characterize "non-artificial" life from its newer counterpoint.