I recently returned from attending the ALIFE 2025 conference in Kyoto, Japan. Wow, how incredibly thought-provoking! Since then, I have spent weeks thinking about the talks scholars, researchers, and innovators gave, as well as the creative works artists exhibited in ALIFE’s Art Expo.
It was quite an experience to be barraged with fascinating concepts in the context of Artificial Life as well as Artificial Intelligence. Topics included evolution, novelty, selfhood, agency, autonomy, causality, replication, simulations, embodiment of diverse intelligences, constraints and optimizations, multimodal models, robotics, goal-directedness in living and non-living systems, and so much more!
I loved the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, the daring scope of curiosity, vision, and questioning. The ALIFE 2025 Organizing Committee did a stellar job. Presentations ranged from physics, mathematics and computability to game theory, philosophy, information theory, neurophenomenology, bioengineering, Buddhist meditation and mental training—to name only some of what was offered. Examinations included open-endedness, active inference, salience, affect, symbiogenesis, and nondual awareness—again, to mention only a few investigative approaches to hardware, software, and wetware, from microbial to animal and human collective systems. Additionally, there is so much to consider on linguistic, social, cultural, and ecological levels.
ALIFE has certainly provided me a new way of pondering. Very exciting on this eve…Happy New Year! May 2026 bring all beneficial new discoveries and collective wellbeing.
Watch ALIFE 2025 talks here and see for yourself this incredible event. The ALIFE 2025 program can be found here featuring the following keynote speakers, and others:
- Blaise Agüera y Arcas, CTO, Google Technology & Society
- Hector Zenil, King’s College London, The Francis Crick Institute
- Michael Levin, Principal Investigator, Tufts University, Dept of Biology