The “Worm” programs—early experience with a distributed intelligence

Abstract

Following a mention in a recent article of our preliminary experiments on worm programs (Witten & Thimbleby, 1989), we have been deluged with enquiries about the progress of this research project. Although we had planned to wait until further concrete results were available before going to press, we feel obliged to satisfy curiosity by publishing some details of the research program now. Moreover, our lawyers have advised us that this step is advisable in order to forestall others who may plan to patent this new computational technique

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