Levin is interested in the planarian because, if you cut off its head, it grows a new one simultaneously, its severed head grows a new tail. Some of the most important discoveries of his career hinge on the planarian-a type of flatworm about two centimetres long that, under a microscope, resembles a cartoon of a cross-eyed phallus. Levin began his talk, and a drawing of a worm appeared on the screen behind him. researchers introduced him, to a packed exhibition hall, as a specialist in “computation in the medium of living systems.” He waited onstage while one of Facebook’s A.I. Fifty-one, with light-green eyes and a dark beard that lend him a mischievous air, Levin studies how bodies grow, heal, and, in some cases, regenerate. It was odd, therefore, when Michael Levin, a developmental biologist at Tufts University, gave a presentation at the 2018 conference, which was held in Montreal.
Each year, researchers from around the world gather at Neural Information Processing Systems, an artificial-intelligence conference, to discuss automated translation software, self-driving cars, and abstract mathematical questions.