AI, life, and what it means to be alive | Sara Imari Walker

AI is not replacing life. AI is life. Astrobiologist and theoretical physicist Sara Imari Walker has spent her career studying the origins of life. What she didn’t expect to find is that technology has been a part of that story all along. Drawing on assembly theory and the “overview effect,” Sara offers a mind-bending reframing of technology: it is life’s way of making sense of the universe and expanding the possibilities within it. Her perspective explains our epistemic trauma around AI, even as it demands a clearer definition of aliveness to understand what we're building. Timestamps: 0:00 The “overview effect” applied to AI: seeing life and technology from the outside 1:49 The “hard problem of life” and why our current frameworks are insufficient 10:30 Assembly theory in accessible terms: causal depth, assembly space, and lineage 13:22 The Lego rose vs. biological rose: life as “causally deep” and the present as “thick” 18:39 Technology as part of our life lineage: “life but not alive” and the thickness of now Recorded live at Sana AI Summit 2026, New York, May 21st, 2026. Subscribe for more insights on AI and the future of technology.