This workshop explores cognitive processes from the perspective of Mortal Agents—creature-agents with physical bodies, psychological minds, and finite lifespans. Survival is fundamental in nature, as seen in Ashby’s ultrastable systems (homeostasis) and Varela & Maturana’s autopoiesis, both of which frame life as an ongoing process of maintaining stability and resisting decay. With advanced AI and robotics emerging, this workshop examines the implications of mortality in artificial systems.

There are three key reasons for hosting this workshop at ALIFE:

1. Relevance to ALIFE Research ALIFE has long studied agent survival through research such as homeodynamics, homeostatic adaptation, and evolutionary optimization. The Mortal Agents perspective builds on these themes, enriching contemporary discussions. 

2. ALIFE’s Broad Perspective on Life Phenomena While homeostasis and mortality in artificial intelligence remain underexplored, they are gaining attention. ALIFE’s life-as-it-could-be framework fosters discussions on survival and death in artificial systems. Our invited speaker will examine these implications.

3. ALIFE as a Bridge Between Science, Art, and Life Robots exist as research tools, artistic expressions, and consumer products (e.g., ERICA, aibo, LOVOT). Yet, all face eventual functional limits and cessation. A panel discussion will explore their life-like qualities through interviews with artists.

This workshop invites researchers from artificial life, robotics, neuroscience, AI, and art to discuss life’s essence in creature-agents and the intelligence that resists death.

References

[1] Ashby, William Ross. "An introduction to cybernetics." (1956).

[2] Maturana, Humberto R., and Francisco J. Varela. "Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of the living." (2012).

[3] Suzuki, Keisuke, and Takashi Ikegami. "Shapes and self-movement in protocell systems." Artificial Life 15.1 (2009): 59-70.

[4] Iizuka, Hiroyuki, and Ezequiel A. Di Paolo. "Extended homeostatic adaptation: Improving the link between internal and behavioural stability." International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2008.

[5] Seth, Anil K. "Evolving action selection and selective attention without actions, attention, or selection." Proceedings of the fifth international conference on simulation of adaptive behavior on From animals to animats. Vol. 5. 1998.

[6] Yoshida, Naoto, et al. "Emergence of integrated behaviors through direct optimization for homeostasis." Neural Networks 177 (2024): 106379.

[7] Horibe, Kazuya, and Naoto Yoshida. "Emergence of Implicit World Models from Mortal Agents." Intrinsically-Motivated and Open-Ended Learning Workshop@ NeurIPS2024.

[8] Idei, Hayato, et al. "Future shapes present: autonomous goal-directed and sensory-focused mode switching in a Bayesian allostatic network model."  npj Complex 2, 23 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44260-025-00046-y

[9] C. G. Langton: Artificial Life, Artificial Life, pp.1-47, 1989

[10] Glas, Dylan F., et al. "Erica: The erato intelligent conversational android." 2016 25th IEEE International symposium on robot and human interactive communication (RO-MAN). IEEE, 2016.

[11] Doya, Kenji, and Eiji Uchibe. "The cyber rodent project: Exploration of adaptive mechanisms for self-preservation and self-reproduction." Adaptive Behavior 13.2 (2005): 149-160.

[12] Breazeal, Cynthia. Designing sociable robots. MIT press, 2004.

[13] Takayuki todo, Dynamics of a Leashed Dog, https://creators.j-mediaarts.bunka.go.jp/project/dynamics-of-a-dog-on-a-leash

[14] Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, Can’t Help Myself, https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/34812 

[15] Fujita, Masahiro. "Digital creatures for future entertainment robotics." Proceedings 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No. 00CH37065). Vol. 1. IEEE, 2000.

[16] Yoshida, Naoto, et al. "Production of character animation in a home robot: A case study of LOVOT." International Journal of Social Robotics 14.1 (2022): 39-54.

[17] Hinton, G. (2022). The forward-forward algorithm: Some preliminary investigations. arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.13345, 2(3), 5.

Invited Speakers

Workshop Schedule (October 6)

All schedules are in Japan Standard Time (JST)

Proceedings are available from here. 

Introduction (1 min)
16:45-16:46 Mortal Agents organizers

Keynote Lecture (30 min Talk + 4 min QA)
16:46-17:20 "Pain Towards Death or Survival", Minoru Asada

Contributed Talks (7 min × 4 speakers)

17:20-17:27 "Fading Faces: When Agents Forget Who You Are", David Freire-Obregón (online).

17:27-17:34 "Reward Functions For Agent-Based Ecosystem Modeling", Claes Strannegård and Niklas Engsner (online).

17:34-17:41 "Techno-(Neg)-Autopoiesis. Understanding-by-building Life, Death, and their Entanglement", Luisa Damiano, Rebecca Mannocci, Hagen Lehmann, Antonio Fleres, Andrea Roli and Pasquale Stano.

17:41-17:48 "Mortal Machines: On Life, Death, and Forgetting in Artificial Minds", Soumya Banerjee and Patrick Mario Simon Wagner

Short Communication (2 min × 1 speaker)

17:48-17:50 "In Search of a Computational Model of Depersonalization Using a Bayesian Recurrent Neural Network Approach", Mario Zarco and Keisuke Suzuki

Artist Interview (5 min artist introduction + 20 min discussion)

17:50-17:55 Introduction

17:55-18:15 Artist Interview 

Call for Papers

Contributed talks are extended abstracts, maximum 2 pages two-column (excluding references and acknowledgments), following the ALIFE format. Submissions are welcome from ALIFE, machine learning, robotics, art, and beyond, broadly covering topics related to the impact of the body on life, cognition, and intelligence.

Submission Deadline : August 15th August 31 (AoE)

Notification of Acceptance: late August September 10   September 8th

Submission site (OpenReview)

Organizers

Contact Information

yoshida.naoto.8x[at]kyoto-u.ac.jp