He also wrote [1], which is a review of the development in that domain in the last 10 years or so. It's amazing how much progress has been made even when compared to OP links which is only 2 years old. This is by far the best thing I have read in the last 12 months. From controlling morphogenesis, re-viewing what life and death really mean, where memory actually live, how to create synthetic lifeforms etc. I would recommend it to anyone. It's strangely relevant to computer science/AI as well in my opinion.
The ethical implications are also quite staggering to think about.
You can also find a keynote from him from the last ALife conference, around the same theme, but less thorough [2].
The ethical implications are also quite staggering to think about.
You can also find a keynote from him from the last ALife conference, around the same theme, but less thorough [2].
[1] "Life, death, and self: Fundamental questions of primitive cognition viewed through the lens of body plasticity and synthetic organisms" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00062... (You can find it in full on Sci-hub).
[2] "Multi-scale goal-directedness in biology as inspiration for robotics and artificial life" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L43-XE1uwWc