1948
Could a machine be alive?
The cuts
John von Neumann 1948
Self-replication is a computational problem: a machine can contain the description of a machine that builds machines.
Proved reproduction was mechanizable before molecular biology found the mechanism.
Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata1966
Michael Levin 2022
Life isn't a substance, it's an organizational achievement. Xenobots — living robots built from frog cells — are neither the frog they came from nor machines we designed. 'Alive' is a gradient of problem-solving competence, and our machines may already sit somewhere on it.
Made 'alive?' quantitative — how much goal-directed competence a system has, rather than which materials it happens to be made of.
Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere (TAME)2022The tensions
Von Neumann proved self-replication was mechanizable before molecular biology found DNA doing exactly what his automata described. Levin’s work upstream makes the modern version quantitative: how much problem-solving competence does it take to count as alive — and do our machines already have some?
