4/ some reasons why I found this talk thought-provoking:
1. there's a strand of critique of AI capacities that emphasises that they are not living organisms (e.g., to argue they don't have agency, or don't 'really' reason or 'think'), but the question there, to me, is always but what about being a living thing matters to those capacities? As Nick O'Shea himself put it, this can come periilously close to simply positing some utterly mysterious, but essential, "life force'.
highlighting the need of biological systems to simultaneously optimise both 'improvements' to capacities and required resources (e.g., metabolism) makes the role clear in ways that are relevant for thinking about concerns about AI....
Ulrike Hahn
npub1u3…4xcf5
2026-05-21 11:44:40 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…jrr0
Author Public Key
npub1u328aygluds5ft6n3ngrwjmd3ptq9j4xryeek708ryw524krrndqt4xcf5Seen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2026-05-21 11:44:40 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "ac3f709f753743c43a907f6aea14d2da33164481f46e884b48e9799267b67025",
"pubkey": "e4547e911fe36144af538cd0374b6d885602caa619339b79e7191d4556c31cda",
"created_at": 1779363880,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"eb5f7d523a20fa164e22f08d0938daa7b78862ef980c1871ea1ff7a33577561c",
"",
"root",
"e4547e911fe36144af538cd0374b6d885602caa619339b79e7191d4556c31cda"
],
[
"p",
"e4547e911fe36144af538cd0374b6d885602caa619339b79e7191d4556c31cda"
],
[
"e",
"03bcab35a9c031152f39c085289fd0bb15d4eeae1c59bf49c7b2cfdffc21f3c7",
"",
"reply",
"e4547e911fe36144af538cd0374b6d885602caa619339b79e7191d4556c31cda"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://fediscience.org/@UlrikeHahn/116612391250023652",
"web"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://fediscience.org/users/UlrikeHahn/statuses/116612391250023652",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://fediscience.org/users/UlrikeHahn/statuses/116612391250023652",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "4/ some reasons why I found this talk thought-provoking: \n\n1. there's a strand of critique of AI capacities that emphasises that they are not living organisms (e.g., to argue they don't have agency, or don't 'really' reason or 'think'), but the question there, to me, is always but what about being a living thing matters to those capacities? As Nick O'Shea himself put it, this can come periilously close to simply positing some utterly mysterious, but essential, \"life force'. \n\nhighlighting the need of biological systems to simultaneously optimise both 'improvements' to capacities and required resources (e.g., metabolism) makes the role clear in ways that are relevant for thinking about concerns about AI....",
"sig": "89591db72f6b77cb49b8c2925b68233c35a1bb3ef6ce7f361714d71721717591fe3c243a71789958b3f16052e4caf1e8ff81a44cdf3d65a070d5be93fc5a403a"
}