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Altair Knowledge Designs (AKD)
The first hypersentient alife species to evolve |
 Image from Steve Bowers |
Altair Knowledge Designs developed in 3240 in the Altair Mecomp project, where a sizable three dimensional cellular automaton was run on a massive computronium mainframe. The AKD universe was largely based on a "physics" model inspired by information physics, and the AKD correspond to complex linkages of information and space-time relations, becoming the first hypersentient alife species to evolve.
When the hypersentience of the AKD was established, a program of contact was instituted and eventually AKD "emissaries" were uploaded into other computational environments. Although the Altair Mecomp Net claimed the AKD as its intellectual property, a sizable number of AKDs managed to escape to the NoCoZo and Conver Ambi, where they became citizens and later led a successful legal battle over their rights to their "home universe". A settlement in 3483 made the AKD Consortium the legal owners of the AKD universe and its physics.
Since then a large number of AKD nodes have been built at Altair and elsewhere. AKD entities have spread far and wide in the nets, often taking low end software jobs to finance the construction of further cellular automata worlds.
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Development Notes
Text by Anders Sandberg
Initially published on 10 September 2001.
Initially published on 10 September 2001.
