If anyone is interested, following Dr Michael Levin's Thoughtforms.life podcast is the cutting edge of where all this previously fuzzy stuff is becoming more concrete. So long as you can tolerate distinguished scientists flailing about as they discuss consciousness and life and developmental biology (and other less-obviously living things, like algorithms) as involving "free lunches" and "ingressing patterns from the platonic realm" :)

Those are the absolutely fascinating parts, and I sincerely hope AI won't get out of control before we're able to tackle some of these.