Engineering Life

What model drives the design of contemporary technologies?
“Life-likeness” is one of the most insightful challenges that recent and fast technological transformation is revealing. The term refers to representations or imitations of a living being. In fields such as robotics, new materials or synthetic biology, the imitation of the living has become increasingly complex, since, more than merely representing what we understand that life is, we now seem to transform our construal of life through technology. Does life have a given form or is it merely interpreted by humans as determinate? Life-likeness is, so to say, in the eye of the beholder. Throughout history, humans have shown an enduring fascination with the creation of human-like entities, as suggested by the ancient myths, such as that of Pygmalion and Galatea, and technological efforts from ancient mechanical robots to, currently, synthetic cells . We show fascination and fear towards human-likeness, as revealed by what has been termed the uncanny valley: humans experience unsettling feelings when perceiving simulations that closely resemble us. With recent advances in Artificial Intelligence, these questions are at gaining urgency. It is difficult to explain AI not because it is artificial, but because intelligence, in general, is difficult, if not impossible, to explain. Are we projecting human ideas of intelligence? Can we think of non-human forms of intelligence? How would they shape our technological imaginations? Any progress in understanding AI offers important insights on into the more difficult topic of intelligence, in general. The interrogation of life-likeness is an important pathway in this pursuit, as it leads to insights into concepts of life aside what the natural sciences classically posited. As such, this course will explore life-likeness through the prisms of natural, life and technical sciences (e.g., robotics); humanities (anthropology; questions on meaning-making, as stemming from biosemiotics); the arts and art history; science journalism and scientific illustration, as loci of mediation and representation of this conception.