Humankind has always had a bit of an obsession with creating a utopian society, not that any have yet come to fruition. A fair number of ideas on how a utopian society could be achieved appear in the form of science fiction novels and other mainstream media. It fascinates me that an apparent trend is forming that links science to the forming of a perfect society, which could imply that it is not in human nature to live harmoniously and prosperously. More importantly perhaps this states that we require some kind of higher being to keep us in balance, whether it be biological or technological. It is interesting to think that there may have been some point where we stopped believing that a philosophical solution was the answer and instead chose to adopt technology to fix flaws in our nature. Is the solution to a utopian society based in creating a technological solution that will keep us on the right path and solve all the problems we have today, or should we listen to the warnings of science fiction and steer clear of a truly conscious artificial being? Before I look at answering the preceding question I want to explain what I will be looking at and why, as the subject area is potentially huge.
To start off I'd like to take this broad subject area and use a subsection of it to create a more specific question: How could it be possible to utilise the principles of emergence with technology in order to create a utopian society? In order to attempt to answer this question I'm going to break up my thoughts into three sections.
The first section is going to focus on what emergence is and why it is relevant to both society and technology. Emergence looks at how complex systems and patterns are formed from large amounts of simple interactions. It is therefore relevant to much more than just society and technology, it has been used to explain and understand patterns and trends in philosophy, science, art & design, literature, medicine, technology, architecture and the social sciences. As it intersects with so many different subject areas it makes an extremely valuable area to study as it can help explain so much. In particular I'm going to look at how emergence is able to help explain how bottom-up control structures work.
I will then move on to the second section and focus on how we could be able to use technology with emergence in order to further our understanding of society and begin to build a better world based upon these technologies. Using technology with emergence not only means that we are able to build technology based on emergence, but also we are able to use technology in order to further understand the effects of emergence.
The final section looks at whether we should heed the views of creative works. These particular works of fiction have questioned how idealistic plans for a utopian society based upon technology fail and lead the way for a dystopian society where the fate of the human race is uncertain. Its a popular topic within science-fiction, but how can we judge whether these creatives are just being pessimistic or if they truly know what they are talking about?
It’s time to take the slightly complicated idea of emergence and explain it in a way that doesn’t make your head hurt. It might be a bumpy ride, maybe slightly painful, but ultimately worth understanding in my opinion. Emergence looks at how complex systems and patterns are formed from large amounts of simple interactions. It occurs on a macroscopic scale which means that we are able to both measure and observe it with the naked eye (Emergence, Wikipedia). It is a bit easier to understand if you think of it as a large group of objects that interact with one another. In isolation these objects seem to behave chaotically with no perceived direction or purpose. Each individual object only has knowledge of what other objects are doing when it has interacted with it. The information that it receives upon interaction then affects the object’s own behaviour and is then filtered through the group as each object interacts with the others. This in turn means that when we look at the group as a whole, these objects appear to have a sense of direction as if they belong to a hierarchy with a controlling body (Johnson 2001). It shows how a sense of cohesion emerges from apparent chaos through simple interactions. This is how a bottom up hierarchy works, where changes are passed from the bottom of the hierarchy and filter their way up to the top. In a traditional hierarchy that you might find in a democratic society, the changes are filtered down from the ruling class down to the general population (idem).
A brilliant example of this can be seen in an ant colony where it appears that an ant is given a task by a ruling class of ant (i.e the Queen ant); however this is not actually the case. Each ant in fact knows what it should be doing through a series of simple interactions with other ants and pheromones, which results in an organised system that enables the colony to thrive. (Gordon, 2010)
So what does this have to do with robots or a utopian society? Emergence can and has been used to explain behaviour of natural living and nonliving objects, philosophy, religion, art, literature, science, artificial intelligence and human behaviour in society (Wikipedia 2012). In order to create a utopian society we would potentially need to understand how even the smallest interactions affect society today. Today we use emergence to help analyse the stock market, learn about how the internet organises itself, understand why self-organisation appears in cities and to a certain extent see how language develops.
The internet is a perfect example of a decentralised system where emergence plays a key role. There is no global body that controls the internet yet it appears to organise itself through links. Patterns do not only emerge on the internet as a whole, but within single sites that are based around a community such as forums and social bookmarking sites. (Shirky 2008)
In Steven Johnson's book Emergence (2001) he uses one particular site that demonstrates how interactions based around a simple set of rules can help create order from chaos. The site he talks about is Slashdot — a community of user submitted and evaluated news stories that relate mostly to science and technology — that titles itself "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters". The site doesn't sound particularly groundbreaking but in fact the way in which it allowed users to interact with the content and each other introduced a feature that has become common on a lot of the sites we see today.
Slashdot started out life in July 1997, when Rob Maida created his personal site, Chips & Dips. Essentially a blog, it enabled him to post a daily rant about something that he found interesting – generally regarding computer science. By September 1997 the site had transformed into Slashdot – "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters" (Goedegebuure 2012). At this point the site was somewhere that Maida and his friends were able to host conversations surrounding topics that interested them. However, it quickly became a hotspot for computer geeks that wanted to read articles about the latest technology – the majority interested in Linux and other open-source software. With a growing user base came a huge problem; the average quality of content dropped, making it difficult to find the well thought out articles (Johnson 2001).
Maida's first solution was pretty simple, he gave a handful of users an elite status, called “moderators” (Goedegebuure 2012). This gave them the power to moderate the site for content that was inappropriate, lacked quality or was simply spam. Although this solved the problem well at first as the site continued to grow it became harder for the moderators to keep on top of it all (Johnson 2001). Not only this, but by giving only a handful of trusted members this power it could be argued that the site became based upon the views of a few.
Maida's second solution changed all of this. Instead of just giving a handful of users the power to moderate the community, he gave all users this power. However, not everyone would have this power all the time as that wouldn't have solved anything, essentially it would have caused chaos. Instead he decided that the system should work like a jury service. Each active user would be called upon to moderate posts for a period of time. If the user used their moderating powers in a way that benefitted the community then they were more likely to be called upon again (Johnson 2001).
Each user has its contributions to the community measured. The way in which a user's input to the community is measured is through a karma system. Users are able to vote on each other’s contributions; they can either give it a point or take a point away and these points are then used to calculate if the user is a positive or negative influence on the community. Essentially it means each user builds a reputation, which is an incentive to users to behave to a certain extent, much like eBay’s reputation system to attempt to keep fraud to a minimum (Shirky 2010, p177). This is useful but not as useful as what the voting allowed Maida to introduce to the site. As each topic builds up a score — the higher the score, the higher the quality — it allows users to filter the content on the site based on the quality. If a user only wants the most valued content, they can turn a filter on to that level and all the noise is toned out. At the opposite end of the spectrum, if a user wanted to see everything, they could turn the filter off and be plummeted into noise filled chaos (Johnson 2001). This demonstrates how a large number of small interactions can create a sense of collective intelligence and, in turn create order from chaos. Thanks to this one feature the site is able to look after itself without a team of moderators working around the clock to filter out the quality posts from the noise.
Using Slashdot as an example only represents a small section of human interaction and only relates to the digital world. However there are great examples in the physical world and in society today, such as the way in which self-organisation occurs in cities.
There are no rules to say that if you are from one culture you must live in a certain area, but we still find areas in London (or any other large city) where a large number of a particular culture or social group have taken residence. The same can be said for businesses where we find areas that are full of similar stores. An example of this is Denmark Street in Central London, which is almost entirely music stores and in particular stores that specialise in guitars. One reason that similar businesses group together is pretty simple. An area that is known for a certain type of store will draw more customers as it will gain notoriety as the place to go when your want that particular type of product (Johnson 2001). However, it is not the only reason.
As humans, we like to interact with people that have similar interests, cultures and backgrounds to our own. When an area develops its own culture and background, it gains a sense of community and notoriety for whatever it is known for. This then draws more people to the area that share that same culture, interest or the thing that pulls that community together and lets it grow. (idem)
This is obviously not the only thing that shapes how the city organises itself. Will Wright's game SimCity demonstrates perfectly how variables affect each neighbourhood in a city. The game allows users to build their own city by creating housing, amenities, government buildings, educational establishments and all the things you would expect to find in any city around the world. Each block of land changes depending on a set of variables, the block is not directly affected by the condition of the whole city but is affected by its neighbouring blocks. When one area changes for better or worse it has a knock-on effect on the neighbouring areas. This means that cities develop from the bottom up. Essentially each city develops through small changes as areas interact with one another and eventually we can see how these changes are affecting the city as a whole. Although we can learn a lot about the macro view of a city through emergence, we can also use it to develop smaller areas and even new buildings (idem).
Architects have started to use ideas of emergence when planning building complexes. Instead of simply laying out paths for pedestrians they allow pedestrians to walk whatever route they like to get from point A to point B. A clear thoroughfare becomes noticeable as more and more people walk the same route and the ground becomes worn away along that particular route. The architects can then make a permanent pavement along the routes that are the most used (idem). This is a more effective than predicting how the general population will interact with their building as it utilises collective intelligence to understand the needs of the area. Although it doesn't cater for the needs of every single user, it caters for the majority. However this means that it is no longer a guessing game for what the majority wants but is based on actual user testing data.
Although I've talked a little about how emergence is and can be used with examples that relate to technology; I haven't really looked at how it can help us study how it works within a society with no hierarchy. In the 1960's Loren Carpenter invited hundreds of people to a large space where he sat them in two groups divided by an aisle. Each was given a small paddle, one side of it was red and the other green – a little bit like a ping pong paddle. At the front of the space was a large screen. He told the participants nothing at first, after a while the participants began to notice that there were little red and green dots on the screen. Each paddle was picked up by light sensors at the front of the room and then interpreted by a computer. As they moved their paddles from red to green they noticed it coincided with what was on the screen and could spot where they were. In an interview in the documentary All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (Curtis, 2011), Carpenter said: ’and when that happened the room erupted. Just totally spontaneous, we didn't say anything.’ (Carpenter cited by Curtis, 2011)
After the spontaneous eruption in the room Carpenter tried an experiment by projecting the computer game Pong onto the screen. Each side of the audience was able to collectively control one of the paddles on the screen by jointly showing one of the colours (Curtis, 2011). For instance, if one of the members of the audience showed red, the bat on the screen would move down a little bit and if they showed green it would go up. In order to move the paddle effectively they would have to work as a team. However, Carpenter had not explained how the game was controller by the audience. If everyone showed green at once the paddle would shoot up to the top and would miss the ball, so to counteract this some members of the audience would also have to show red to stop it in the right place. When describing the experiment Carpenter said:
…something happened in that group of people, where some decided to show green and some decided to show red to cause it to stop in the right place. And we have no idea what did that. (Carpenter cited by Curtis, 2011)
What he was seeing was emergence. The audience had no hierarchy, however it had organised itself and recognised patterns through interacting with the others around them. Each person in the audience had free will to act without any instructions but because they were all connected through Carpenters software an apparent cohesive order appeared. When asked what had happened he replied ‘they formed a kind of subconscious consensus.’ (Carpenter cited by Curtis, 2011)
Essentially, he had linked all the participants through a single machine and created a network of inputs. Each input was able to affect the machine's software; if each input acted randomly nothing would have resulted from his game of pong and the paddles would have moved in a more unpredictable way. However, if the input worked together they would be able to control the paddles and play the game. The initial response of the participants was chaos, but as they interacted more and more with the machine and each other a bottom-up organised system emerged. From this general ideology rose The Californian Ideology, merging individualism and utopian ideas of computer systems. It encouraged a belief that traditional hierarchies were redundant as we were now acting as one interconnected network. (Curtis, 2011)
The idea behind this new interconnected network was to allow individualism. The network should not be controlled by any governing body, whether it be national or global. It should be completely free to develop on its own, in order to create a new kind of democracy. Everything would be connected to everything and create a new global consensus – much like Carpenter's pong experiment but on a global scale. This global network has been realised in the internet. The internet connects millions around the world through machines. As mentioned earlier it is an example of a self organising system that displays strong emergent patterns. However, more importantly, it allows individual freedom that the individual may not have in the physical world.
Clay Shirky wrote a book entitled Here Comes Everybody in which he explores how the internet affects our everyday lives for better or worse. He explains how oppressed populations are able to speak out against a ruling class, which often impose censorship in order to hide unrest from the rest of the world. One particular example stands out for me. He tells us the story of Alaa Abd El Fattah. Adb El Fattah is a programmer, an advocate of democracy and blogger living in Cairo, Egypt. He used Twitter to document his arrest after an Egyptian Judge ordered his arrest while trying to get dozens of websites censored or blocked in Egypt. His reasoning for removing the websites was that the sites ‘insult the Quran, God, The President and the country.’ (Murad, cited by Shirky, 2008, p.185) As more free speech activist bloggers in Egypt reported the proposed censoring, they too joined the list of websites to be blocked.
Twitter allows these activists to spread real news about what is happening in the country at any given time without having to be worried about censorship. Not only this, but it also allows for a group coordination in order to organise a response. Shirky gives us an example of Adb El Fattah utilising Twitter to organise a group of his colleagues:
One early use of Twitter had El Fattah and a dozen or so of his colleagues coordinating movements to surround a car in which their friend Malek was being held by the police, to prevent it and him from being towed away. Knowing they were being monitored, they then sent messages suggesting that many more of them were coming. The Police sent reinforcements, surround and thus immobilising the car themselves. (Shirky, 2008, p.186)
This would not have been possible without the internet or Twitter. However, group coordination is not the only reason for using the internet for communication. By using an extremely open public service such as Twitter it brings what is happening into the global eye which is exactly what the government does not want. (Shirky 2008) As we are increasingly connected to the rest of the world it becomes harder for oppressive regimes to stop the public from speaking out and drawing attention from the rest of the world.
Although the internet has provided millions with the power of free speech and greater options for individualism, it's not the idealistic ‘cyberspace’ that it was originally thought to be. It remains a decentralised network that enables individualism and allows for more freedoms. (Curtis, 2011)
However, the way in which it allows us to share and create our content through the likes of social networks, blogs and chatrooms turns our individualism into commodities for the companies that are running the services we use. Let's take Twitter as an example again. It allows us to openly share our thoughts, opinions and everyday lives with a potentially huge audience. Twitter is a business and therefore like any other business although it has no tangible real world product it has a value and it's value is derived from the number of active users on the site, along with the revenue it can produce through selling advertising space or as they call them ‘promoted tweets’ (Stone, Hello World 2010). The advertising space is valued according to the number of users that will see each individual advertisement. However, this is not the real problem with social networks. The real problem lies with the way in which they act as closed centralised networks. As a user I can only send messages to other users on Twitter, I therefore need to be signed up to more than one network in order to talk with all my friends. A further problem with closed networks is that if that particular service closes down, I would have no way in which to take my data or relations – connections to other users – to a different service. However, in 2012 a new idea has emerged in the form of the Tent and it aims to fix these issues.
Tent is a protocol. Much like email, however it is designed for social networking. The people that created Tent characterise Tent as ‘…open, decentralised, and built for the future. Tent changes everything.’ (Tent, 2012) Tent essentially allows you to keep your data and relationships without limitations by a particular closed network. This kind of decentralised network removes the large companies from the equation and puts the power back into the user’s hands; you would control what you share and what you keep private. If one part of a decentralised system breaks, the rest continues to function without problems, it also makes it almost impossible to censor a decentralised system online without blocking the internet completely, which would allow for greater freedom online. Essentially by making these networks decentralised you remove any form of hierarchy or controlling structure and allow for complete individualism. It would be extremely interesting to see what kind of self-organisation would appear in this situation and perhaps would prove itself as a model for a global utopian society based upon an open-ended, decentralised, bottom-up system.
It's impossible to disagree that we are getting more connected to each other through technology and therefore we are more connected to technology than ever, particularly due to the rise of the internet. Although technology doesn't directly control us, it does affect our behaviour and control parts of our environment. Science fiction writers have explored how allowing technology to control our lives may negatively contribute to humanity and ultimately lead to our destruction. In very little of science fiction is the human race actually able to live harmoniously with an artificial intelligence.
An example that I find particularly interesting is I, Robot by Issac Asimov (1950) and the film based upon his book directed by Alex Proyas. I, Robot is a story where we have created artificially intelligent robots to help us in our everyday lives. The robots are bound by three laws that make sure that they cause no harm to humans. Isaac Asimov defines these three law as:
a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;
a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law;
a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. (Asimov, 1950)
However, the controlling AI understands protecting the human race in a different way and aims to oppress them in order to ensure their survival. This idea questions what it is to be human and if any AI could truly be human. If an AI understands the world through hard data and calculations it is unable to take emotions or morals into account when making decisions. Another of the robots becomes truly self aware and develops emotions, as well as the ability to dream, but does this make him human?
What makes us human is an extremely interesting question and is thoroughly explored by Brian Christian in his book The most human human (2001). I do not want to go into great depth about his work, I just want to reiterate the key question behind it. While participating in a Turing test – essentially evaluating how well an artificial intelligence is able to pass itself off as human within conversation – rather than simply exploring how an artificial intelligence may be able to simulate human behaviour, Christian instead chooses to question: ‘what it means to be human: what the Turing test can teach us about ourselves’. (Christian, 2011, p.15)
In the 1982 motion picture Tron (Lisberger, 1982), we are introduced to Kevin Flynn a computer programmer and arcade owner. Flynn is a former employee of the software corporation ENCOM who he suspects has stolen four computer games that he has created. In order to find proof he attempts to break into their mainframe computer, however he finds himself transported into the computer by the Master Control Program (MCP). He finds himself in a digital world full of computer programs – each program is a digital representation of its creator – where he is coerced to compete in various gladiatorial games. The world he finds himself in is a totalitarian regime where one program assumes control and is attempting to create a perfectly ordered world according to his own twisted view. At the end of film, Flynn returns to the real world and puts TRON in charge of the digital world after he has defeated the MCP and freed the oppressed computer programs.
In the 2010 sequel – Tron Legacy (Kosinski, 2010) we are reintroduced to this digital world – called the Grid – that Flynn is able to send himself into from the physical world. This digital world is visualised as a futuristic metropolis based upon a grid like structure. Flynn has created his own program called CLU, who along with TRON is charged with helping Flynn create the perfect system – a digital utopia. Earlier in the film Flynn speaks of a miracle, this miracle is the appearance of ISOs within the grid. The ISOs are isomorphic algorithms that have spontaneously evolved from the grid without any human intervention. The properties of the ISOs lead Flynn to think that some of their biogenetic properties could be used to change the real world. It's an interesting idea to think how an artificial intelligence could be able to create its own programs that have no input from humans. The idea of programming a program that is able to generate its own programs and simulate Darwin's theory of evolution has been explored within meta programming, although these programs are limited by how we are able to program the initial controlling program. What would an artificially intelligent system be able to produce on its own? Would it create programs that display properties that a human would have never thought about themselves? These programs could be the product of emergence as small interactions with the system lead to patterns that we would miss ourselves. However, in the film CLU sees the ISOs as imperfections and as he has been tasked with creating the perfect system seizes control from TRON and Flynn and destroys all of the ISOs.
CLU: I did everything…everything you ever asked!
FLYNN: I know you did.
CLU: I executed the plan!
FLYNN: As you saw it…
CLU: You…You promised that we would change the world, together. You broke your promise...
FLYNN: I know. I understand that now.
CLU: I took this system to it's maximum potential. I created the perfect system!
FLYNN: The thing about perfection is that it's unknowable. It's impossible, but it's also right in front of us all the time. You wouldn't know that because I didn't when I created you. I'm sorry, CLU. I'm sorry…(Kosinski, 2010)
This conversation between CLU and Flynn explores how a machine’s understanding of perfection is defined by the way in which it is programmed. An artificial intelligence could interpret a perfect world based upon statistics and functionality but be unable to take into account any feelings of the general population.
It could also be argued that a machine would be unable to process change that contradicts what it already knows, even if it is able to learn factually. The difference between knowing and understanding might be something that we are unable to teach an artificial intelligence. (Christian, 2011)
Another film that explores a conflict between humankind and artificial intelligence within both a digital world and the physical world is The Matrix (Wachowski & Wachowski, 1999). This motion picture by Andy and Lana Wachowski explores a bleak world where malevolent machines are harvesting humans for use as a power source. In order to keep the humans oppressed the machines plug humankind into a program that simulates the world as it was in 1999. Any humans that manage to escape this artificial world – referred to as ‘The Matrix’ (Wachowski & Wachowski, 1999) – are confronted with the realisation that the world has been ravaged by war between humankind and artificially intelligent machines. The sky has been turned black by humans in attempt to remove the sun as a power source for the machines. The ground is a barren wasteland due to the use of nuclear weapons. The humans that have escaped the Matrix are resorted to hiding underground from machines that are looking for any remaining humans. These remaining free humans are left questioning if they would have been happier being ignorant living inside the machines’ artificial world. However, people still want to get out of The Matrix and into the real tangible world.
The Wachowskis also explore the idea of programs having distinct personalities and display varying emotions within the trilogy. Agent Smith is essentially portrayed as the head of security within the Matrix. We find out that he hates his job within the artificial world. He tells one of our protagonists:
I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it. (Wachowski & Wachowski, 1999)
This shows us how the Wachowskis are questioning the difference between an artificially intelligence and a human. It may be able to think for itself; it may be able to learn like we do; it may be able to simulate emotions, but it can't truly feel the sensations of the tangible world in the way an organic being can. It can be programmed to know smells within an artificial world, but unable to understand or experience it as an organic life form can in the physical world.
Agent Smith also shares with the audience that the Matrix we are being shown is not the first Matrix the machines designed:
Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilisation. (Wachowski & Wachowski, 1999)
It's interesting to think whether this is just pure pessimism on the Wachowskis part, or whether in fact we would find it difficult to live in a perfect world at all. If you lived in a perfect world what would really have to live for? Your life would have little purpose as you wouldn't have the satisfaction of overcoming your problems.
It's hard to know whether we should heed the warnings of pessimistic creatives or continue to allow technology to become a bigger part of our lives. It's interesting to consider when or if technology will stop being a useful tool and start to dictate our lives (Shirky 2008). Technology has definitely had a positive impact on our everyday lives; allowing greater freedoms, equal opportunities, greater understanding and advances in medical technology leading to longer lifespans. So why would we not continue to explore what else is in the technological pipeline when we might stumble upon some great discoveries.
After looking into emergence it seems clear to me that there is much that can be gained by exploring this area further, particularly in relation to technology and society. We could gain greater understanding of how our society works and improve the way in which we run our local societies (Johnson 2001). It could lead us to adopting more of a bottom-up model of society where the government slowly relinquishes its power over the general population in favour of collective intelligence.
In regards to the idea of create truly self conscious artificial intelligent machines, I'm personally not sure that these machines are likely to occur. It seems the chances of humans being able to create a truly self aware artificial intelligence are slim. An example that seems particularly unlikely is what could happen if the internet itself became conscious with the amount of control it could have over the global society (idem). The thinking behind this is the way in which the internet itself is structured in a similar pattern to that of the neural networks that make up an organic brain. Not to mention the amount of computer power that it could potentially use due to the vast number of machines connected to the internet at any given time. However, there is no evidence that it has or ever will develop the capabilities of a potentially huge artificial intelligence. (idem)
Neal Stephenson wrote an article questioning how the increasingly pessimistic writings of science fiction writers could be affecting the rate at which we develop new technology as younger inventors feel the world is doomed to this bleak idea of the future. His idea is to bring more optimism back to science fiction and bring about a change in the ideas of what could be in store for us in the future if we embrace technology (Stephenson, 2010). However, how do we know if we should heed the warnings of pessimistic science fiction writers or embrace the thing of which they seem so terrified? What seems to be driving science fiction writers towards pessimism is the idea that it’s hard to tell whether the technology we are building can be used to impact on our daily lives for good or for malicious intentions (idem).
It's impossible to predict what the future has in store for us. Who knows if we will be able to create a truly conscious artificial intelligence that will be able to think and understand in the same way as a human and this would to a certain extent depend on how you understand what it is to be human. Can a machine have aspirations, dreams or true emotions that aren't just simulations? Could this type of software become the answer to a perfect world? Perhaps a more important question: is it possible to achieve perfection or is the answer to create a slightly more balanced world with a scattering of imperfections?