From the paper: “ instability is defined as the relative propensity of the subunit to undergo a physical disintegration of its structure, either spontaneously,

From the paper: “ instability is defined as the relative propensity of the subunit to undergo a physical disintegration of its structure, either spontaneously, or through the action of degradative agent such as an enzyme.” Relative to what? other subunits. The caption to figure 2: “ If the B subunit is less stable than A subunit (indicated in gray font), this leads to a reduced population of AB replicators and free A subunits; this represents a more complex system because it yields a set with two distinct members.” It’s not clear to me if this is the most general example they can think of, but later in the paper they relate SAI to a particular cellular automaton, Langton’s loop. Overall 6/10, requires work, more erudite reviewers/promoters, or quantamagazine to determine if the field is indeed interesting.