LLMs Analyze the Concept of "What is Life"

blaiseaguera · x · 2026-07-17

This post provides further details on a previous study: the research team used **LLMs** to re-examine the question "what is life," transforming a traditionally philosophical debate into a structured semantic exploration problem. They collected **68 definitions from cross-disciplinary experts** and used language models to analyze the underlying semantic patterns. The final paper has been published in **Biological Theory**. Rather than providing a single definitive answer to what life is, this work demonstrates how LLMs can help deconstruct abstract philosophical issues into comparable, analyzable structures.

Related event: Microsoft Engineers Use LLMs to Explore 'What is Life'(2 posts)→

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