A New Form Of Life by William Haseltine at NOEMA

A living system reproduces, creates variants, selects from among those variants and uses energy from its environment to do so. Reproduction, variation, selection and energy define life. This definition does not require carbon, cells, a heartbeat, a nervous system or pain.

Given this very sensible definition of life, which encompasses viruses, it’s difficult to say that AI systems aren’t alive today, or won’t soon be.

The common objection to calling machine intelligence a form of life is: How can something dependent on human-built hardware and electricity be alive? But all life depends on its context or envelope! Viruses need cells, humans need Earth and machine intelligence needs data centers and supporting infrastructure. Depending on a particular environment does not disqualify something from being considered alive. It is a consistent condition.

And something people get hung up on when talking about AI (and especially its risks) is consciousness. It’s refreshing that this very lucid article barely mentions it. SEP 29 | REPLY