What Is Life? Evolution as Computation

By Blaise Agüera y Arcas

Antikythera and MIT Press are pleased to announce their new book series with the inaugural title What Is Life? by leading AI researcher and longtime Antikythera collaborator Blaise Agüera y Arcas. Taking its title from theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s 1944 book of the same name, What Is Life? shows how self-reproduction, hence life, is inherently computational.

Hemispherical Stacks Call for Submissions

JANUARY-MARCH 2025

Antikythera’s digital journal and book series with MIT Press deploys a genre of philosophy that is rooted in speculation as a mode for revising past, present, and future. Publications investigate the implications for and trajectories of planetary scale computation, including its socio-technical genealogies (scientific, infrastructural, governance), philosophical transitions (epistemological and ontological effects), and geopolitical dynamics (legal, social, economic, policy scenarios, etc).

Antikythera’s multimedia journal with MIT Press publishes projects that engage philosophies of planetary computation through writing, cinema, and code. The journal pairs writers and designers to advance insights related to Antikythera’s core research themes and enhancing content through rich and dynamic web media. Many journal articles complement and augment the books in the Antikythera series. The journal will preview in late 2024, with official launch of the first issue in Spring 2025. The journal contributions are invite only. Read Antikythera: A journal of philosophy of planetary computation here.

The Antikythera book series takes a constructive and propositional approach to critical philosophies, integrating fiction and nonfiction, history and futures, and works by multiple authors. Core subject areas include philosophy, computer science and science-fiction, architecture, urbanism, economics, and science studies. The first book in the series – What is Intelligence

What is Intelligence?

Blaise Agüera y Arcas

What is Intelligence?

Blaise Agüera y Arcas