haha, no i didn't catch that thread.
I'll try and see about those books, they sound interesting.
Here's a project that aims to do something like you talked about (except on the defense side rather than the virus side): http://www.cyc.com/cyc/applications/cycsecure Check that site out, they have a number of other interesting projects goin' on, including a different version you can download and install on your home pc @ http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...ckage_id=44003

The ones I was using for this thread were "chatbots" like the ones you always hear about. Here are a few online examples that you dont have to dl: http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/t...d5d403ce352330
http://www.turinghub.com/servlet/Beta3
http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/t...d922d97e345aa1
http://chat.jabberwacky.com/ <= This one learns from every1 it ever had a chat with.
http://www.bitesizeinc.net/index.php/ainebot.html

Heres a impressive and ambitious project based on the human cortex, but i havn't seen it in action yet.: http://www.ad.com/

Here is a site with alot of links to various AI projects: http://www.geocities.com/brizglace/

I dont know about the whole artificial life thing, but i agree it does seem possible.