It sounds to me like the author isn’t thinking about near-future scenarios, just existing AI.
Making a machine autopoietic is straightforward if it’s got the right sort of intelligence. We haven’t yet made a machine with the right sort of intelligence to do it yet, but there are good reasons to think we’re close. AutoGPT and similar agents can roughly functionally understand a core instruction like “maintain, improve, and perpetuate your code base”, they’re just not quite smart enough to do it effectively. Yet. So engaging with the arguments for what remains between here and there is the critical bit. Maybe it’s around the corner, maybe it’s decades away. It comes down to the specifics. The general argument “Turing machines can’t host autopoietic agents” are obviously wrong.
I’m not sure if the author makes this argument, but your summary sounded like they do.
It sounds to me like the author isn’t thinking about near-future scenarios, just existing AI.
Making a machine autopoietic is straightforward if it’s got the right sort of intelligence. We haven’t yet made a machine with the right sort of intelligence to do it yet, but there are good reasons to think we’re close. AutoGPT and similar agents can roughly functionally understand a core instruction like “maintain, improve, and perpetuate your code base”, they’re just not quite smart enough to do it effectively. Yet. So engaging with the arguments for what remains between here and there is the critical bit. Maybe it’s around the corner, maybe it’s decades away. It comes down to the specifics. The general argument “Turing machines can’t host autopoietic agents” are obviously wrong.
I’m not sure if the author makes this argument, but your summary sounded like they do.