Artificial Life

Artificial Life sounds like a fine thing, except that it may come complete with its own existential angst, in which case I'm not sure we'd know how to propitiate a possibly irascible artificial Deity. How efficacious would it be to build a monumental pyre of stock options from firms that own the patents on artificial lifeforms? Or if we're phenomenally lucky perhaps a simple electronic prayer on the intertubes would suffice... In any case, it seems unwise, considering, to venture into the creation of artificial life on a purely commercial basis, as we are doing — I would feel much more comfortable having a government scientific agency involved that's capable of assessing the risks. This is the edge of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend territory.