Abstract

While technology has always been considered the byproduct of scientific knowledge, during the last decades new technologies have started to predate scientific discoveries. The change in the relationships between Science and Technology began with the computer, which made possible the advent of ‘intelligent’ machines able to support and even substitute humans in cognitive tasks. But it has been the endeavor of synthesizing new forms of life, i.e. Artificial Life, that brought to completion the inversion between Science and Technologies. This is clearly demonstrated by Evolutionary Robotics, a branch of Artificial Life, where the researcher lets robots evolve their behaviors (and sometimes also their bodies) through an artificial evolutionary process: in this case, the realization of the artifact (technology) predates the understanding of its behavior (science), which can then provide insights on natural phenomena. The new Artificial Life technologies are also revitalizing philosophy by providing new pressing ethical questions related to the coexistence between human beings and the new technologies and by constituting a new ground on which to rethink ancient issues regarding the nature of Life and Intelligence.