Social Sciences > Life Forms > Artificial Life

Artificial Life

Physical Characteristics
Artificial Life takes on many different forms - androids, robots, self-aware computer programs, collective machine consciousnesses and sentient starships.

Reproductive Method
As implied by the name, artificial life is typically created through sophisticated computer programming. Additionally, some higher forms of artificial intelligence are able to reproduce themselves, either through self-replication or by combining their own programming information with data from one or more other artificially intelligent entities.

Homeworld
Artificial life has no specific home world; the various forms are dispersed throughout known space.

Social Characteristics
Artificial life constitutes a sizeable minority of the population in the Known Worlds. Some artificial lifeforms are barely self-aware, no more intelligent than a domestic animal, while others seem nearly godlike in their knowledge and abilities. Under Commonwealth law, all machines and programs that pass a standardized set of intelligence tests are afforded full rights and citizenship.