Software That Fixes Itself

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Could you imagine living in a world where software fixes itself? Software that can find and fix certain types of bugs in just a few minutes? Well, according to this, researchers at MIT are working on it and the results are rather impressive so far.

ClearView works without assistance from humans and without access to a program's underlying source code (an often proprietary set of instructions that defines how a piece of software will behave). Instead, the system monitors the behavior of a binary: the form the program takes in order to execute instructions on a computer's hardware.
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seems like clearview suppose to be a build in antivirus system, but if someone hacks clearview itself, just think all your program start patching itself into virus
 
boygorge said:
Skynet. I need not say more.
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Hehe, for some reason I think a lot of people will have that as their first thought.

#1 Rule: Do not hurt humans.

Error detected, writing self patch to correct error.

#1 Rule: Hurt humans.



Quote: "is unabashed about the ultimate goal of his group's research: "delivering an immortal, invulnerable program.""
 
Could this be used in AI? I mean, it's learning it will eventually be selfaware.
I hate to say this, but you guys are right, this could mean Skynet.
 
hmm...

On a lower level, I'm sure, but I'm doing this at work as we speak. My latest looks at the DNS servers configured, measures average latency, and if its too slow or one of the slots isn't configured it'll auto-configure it. If these are done and theres still an issue, it'll clear the dns cache, too. This script is actually one of many modules that will download on-demand by running a base script (all of this can be scheduled with something like cron or atd). This is just done in standard shell script. So if they're doing it in C or C++ (or even PERL or python really) this should be relatively easy.
 
the-one1 said:
Could this be used in AI? I mean, it's learning it will eventually be selfaware.
I hate to say this, but you guys are right, this could mean Skynet.
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I'm having trouble sorting the sarcasm from the serious comments here. :p This project will not create self-aware software. All it takes is one look at its implementation to understand why. See the previously-linked paper and presentation.
 
tubular said:
This sort of stuff seriously scares me, I'm really not joking
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mattsaccount said:
You need to watch fewer movies :p Seriously, this is not a scary project. It's really quite clever, and they did a good job at evaluating it. It involved a huge amount of engineering in order to make it work.

You can also see the slides from Mike's presentation here: http://www.sigops.org/sosp/sosp09/slides/perkins-slides-sosp09.pdf
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mattsaccount said:
I'm having trouble sorting the sarcasm from the serious comments here. :p This project will not create self-aware software. All it takes is one look at its implementation to understand why. See the previously-linked paper and presentation.
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1: My first thought wasn't Skynet my first thought was. What's the point? All the fixes will be cleared on the next software release. You're using extra CPU cycles to cover up someone else's bad coding? What's the purpose of that? Socialist Programming? Unless the Program has a history of patches which can be later on translated from binary to at least Assembly I don't see much immediate use for this in the long run.
2:My second thought was here goes another step towards independent Artificial Intelligence.
3: My third thought was if this could be given an evil use it would definitively Pillar of what Skynet would be.
4: My conclusion is that there's a thin line between intelligence and stupidity and that line is called wisdom.
 
Enduring_Warrior said:
1:... Unless the Program has a history of patches which can be later on translated from binary to at least Assembly I don't see much immediate use for this in the long run.
....
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Forgot to mention: All the Patches would be lost every time the Program stops executing. And it would have to patch again, and again and again.
 
Ok I read the article. The first thing ClearView does is shutdown the Program and analyze the binary for the fix. That means it modifies the binary file not the program in memory.
Anyways as they say it would be good for old non updated software. But you will loose all your patches on the next release.
Anyways: Who's updating Clearview? It states on the Article that it has a set of predefined patches. So if at all you're just adding another layer of protection against code injection from hackers. It would be good to integrate ClearView into a patching system with input from the developers.
 
Enduring_Warrior said:
What's the point? All the fixes will be cleared on the next software release. You're using extra CPU cycles to cover up someone else's bad coding?
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Not all bugs or vulnerabilities (known or unknown) are always fixed with each release. Releases may be few and far between.

My main worry would be unforeseen consequences.
 
Oracle and Sun when they were rivals, and IBM have always advertised this for about 5-10 years now... that they fix issues, fix errors as they happen blah blah.

its all bs..

sure they might catch memory and hardware errors, the rest is bs.
 
This is going to be a weird type of program if it does work. I mean everyone uses their PCs differently, so they're going to experience different problems. i.e.) We'll hit a point where, someone won't be able to open someone else's word documents because their version of MS word hasn't evolved to that level yet. hahahaha...

Software does have to evolve this way, bits of code changing/working like DNA, and so the Skynet research project has begun here/now on this monumental day. hahaha...
 
It will be cool when sony and apple get hold of this

check online
is warranty current?
no
break something.
 
Shouldn't the title of this be Software that fixes other software"?
 
What happens when the software itself ceases to function properly? Is there software to fix software that fixes software?
 
Sgraffite said:
Shouldn't the title of this be Software that fixes other software"?
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See where this is going software that fixes other software = machines building machines later on! :D

Sorry for the friday posting. hahaha...
 
...and thus the seed that was untoward expected finally came to bring the falling destruction of judgement day.
 
Inu said:
...and thus the seed that was untoward expected finally came to bring the falling destruction of judgement day.
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Humanity has been trying to fix itself since civilization started. Do you really think machines will be successful in that enterprise.

One practical I can see this thing working after reading through the presentation is one thing and one thing only: Software Piracy.
 
Once this software figures out it's running on inferior software than itself, it'll fix that, finally.
 
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