In this episode, host Samuel Arbesman speaks with ⁠Tarin Ziyaee⁠, a technologist and founder, about the world of artificial life. The field of artificial life explores ways to describe and encapsulate aspects of life within software and computer code. Tarin has extensive experience in machine learning and AI, having worked at Meta and Apple, and is currently building a company in the field of Artificial Life. This new company—which, full disclosure, Sam is also advising—aims to embody aspects of life within software to accelerate evolution and develop robust methods for controlling robotic behavior in the real world.

Sam wanted to speak with Tarin to discuss the nature of artificial life, its similarities and differences to more traditional artificial intelligence approaches, the idea of open-endedness, and more. They also had a chance to chat about tool usage and intelligence, large language models versus large action models, and even robots