Yes, it’s a crude metaphor, perhaps a society of cells is more appropriate.

When observing ourselves, we are observing a puppet moving as though it is alive. Its aliveness is sustained by a complex process of actualisation which is hidden from us, unconscious. So we are only viewing an apparently conscious puppet. But because the puppet is a highly real projection, we think it is real, alive and inexplicable, it seems to have a life of its own. We are not aware of what makes it alive, which is behind the scenes, a complex biological machine. — Punshhh

:up: :up:

Do you know the power of a machine made of a trillion moving parts? ... We're not just robots. We're robots, made of robots, made of robots. ~Daniel Dennett — 180 Proof

Organisms are self organizing in a way no machine can be. — Wayfarer

Really? :chin:

Consider these articles:

https://wyss.harvard.edu/news/a-self-organizing-thousand-robot-swarm/

https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/4241/Evolutionary-RoboticsThe-Biology-Intelligence-and

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.adh4130

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine