{"id":709252,"date":"2026-06-30T14:19:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T18:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=709252"},"modified":"2026-06-30T17:43:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T21:43:51","slug":"templeton-foundation-agentic-intelligence-difference-between-life-machines-709252","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/templeton-foundation-agentic-intelligence-difference-between-life-machines-709252\/","title":{"rendered":"Can AI want something? URochester awarded Templeton Foundation grant to find out"},"content":{"rendered":"

The $4.2 million in funding launches a new institute to investigate one of science\u2019s biggest mysteries: the difference between life and machines.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

What separates living things from machines?<\/p>\n

Bacteria swim toward food. A bird builds a nest. A person plans for the future. Machines, on the other hand, do whatever they\u2019ve been programmed by people to do.<\/p>\n

But today\u2019s artificial intelligence systems can sometimes feel more like sentient beings than machines. They solve complex problems, write essays, compose music, create art, and provide companionship. They\u2019re so smart\u2014and learning more every day\u2014that whether they might acquire capabilities akin to those of living things has become an urgent question for science and society.<\/p>\n

Do they want anything? Could they need something? Might they ever act on their own?<\/p>\n

These questions and others are being asked by a team of researchers led by the University of Rochester<\/a> with the aid of a $4.2 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation<\/a> to investigate the science behind the capacity of living things to generate and pursue goals. By understanding life and its ability to act as what scientists call \u201can autonomous agent,\u201d the new grant also seeks to understand if there are limits to agency in artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

The three-year award will establish the Virtual Institute for the Physics of Agentic Intelligence (VIPAI), an international collaboration led by URochester physicist and computer scientist Gourab Ghoshal<\/a>. Physicists, philosophers, biologists, and computer scientists from the Santa Fe Institute, Dartmouth College, the University of British Columbia, the University of Auckland, and the Basque Foundation for Science will join the effort, with URochester serving as the institute\u2019s coordinating hub.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s AI is extraordinarily capable, but capability isn\u2019t the same thing as agency and acting on one\u2019s own behalf,\u201d Ghoshal says. \u201cIf we can discover what distinguishes living intelligence from today\u2019s artificial intelligence, we\u2019ll not only better understand ourselves, we\u2019ll have a stronger scientific foundation for building the next generation of intelligent systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s work will span three complementary areas: developing philosophical foundations for agency and meaning; creating mathematical models that explain how autonomous systems arise and sustain themselves; and advancing theories to understand so-called \u201csemantic information,\u201d the information living things gather and organize to survive and adapt.<\/p>\n

Within that framework, the team will investigate the conditions under which artificial systems might exhibit features associated with autonomous agency and how they compare with those observed in living systems. By comparing biological and artificial systems, the researchers hope to uncover general principles underlying agency, meaning, and intelligent behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

The URochester team includes astrophysicist Adam Frank<\/a>, the Helen F. and Fred H. Gowen Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and a researcher who does popular science writing as a self-described \u201cevangelist of science.\u201d Frank currently works at the intersection of astrobiology and the physics of life.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018What is life?\u2019 and \u2018What is intelligence?\u2019 are ancient questions that go hand in hand because life is the only physical systems which show real intelligence,\u201d Frank says. \u201cNow we\u2019re at a moment where we can begin asking those questions in entirely new ways. Intelligence is not just the ability to solve problems, it\u2019s knowing what problems you need to solve.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds, \u201cThat\u2019s the question of \u2018agency.\u2019\u00a0 How can a bunch of molecules become organized in a way that they collectively have wants and needs.\u00a0 We want to know more than just how intelligence works. We want to know how it arises in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The funding launches a new institute to investigate one of science\u2019s biggest mysteries: the difference between life and machines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1262,"featured_media":709332,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,3],"tags":[16792,24292,18662,36412,9186,43052,16072],"class_list":["post-709252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-tech","category-university-news","tag-adam-frank","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-department-of-physics-and-astronomy","tag-gourab-ghoshal","tag-research-funding","tag-research-impact-accelerates","tag-school-of-arts-and-sciences"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCan AI want something? 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