For decades we've thought of computers as centralized intelligences; our model was the human brain. But lately, a growing number of researchers have been talking about a shift in the core metaphor for computing, from the notion of "artificial intelligence" to something that might be called "artificial biology." Forget about the dream of creating bug-free software. Just as bugs regularly affect any biological system-I have a cold as I write this-they should also be expected in software. So software needs to be designed to survive the bugs. It should have the biological properties of redundancy and regeneration: parts should be able to "die off" without affecting the whole.

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