> They also have a far more ambitious effort underway: to build what she calls “an origin-of-life engine in the lab.” Robots will mix inert chemicals in a vast

> They also have a far more ambitious effort underway: to build what she calls “an origin-of-life engine in the lab.” Robots will mix inert chemicals in a vast number of combinations, looking for ones that produce more complex compounds. > Under the right conditions, the chemicals may form droplets that may be able to bootstrap themselves to a higher and higher assembly index. Above a certain threshold, they might become alive — but as a form of life we’ve never seen before. This seems like poor logic. Because life has a high assembly index, we’ll just randomly make chemicals with a high index and hope that one of them comes alive somehow?