Chemical Neural Networks Inside Synthetic Cells? A Proposal for Their Realization and Modeling

Abstract

The exciting sci-tech arena of synthetic biology (SB) provides concepts, tools, and approaches for fundamental revolutions in basic and applied research. SB plays a key role when it is conceived as one of the branches of the "sciences of the artificial" In particular, SB contributes to the wetware approaches, which are complementary to the software and hardware ones that characterize the other two most well-known branches. In this perspective, SB offers the unique opportunity of devising novel chemical versions of AI, whose main feature is embodiment, i.e., forms, systems, networks that compute through physical interactions (not based on the abstract representations typical of AI), and that potentially display autonomous adaptive/plastic dynamics (in contrast to mechanical robots).