# Eörs Szathmáry > **Machine-Evolution Nexus:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] places this node within the history and governance of substrate-independent evolution. **Domain:** Evolutionary Theory / Major Transitions **Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition Eörs Szathmáry is an evolutionary theorist known for work on origins of life and major evolutionary transitions. ## Nexus Context With John Maynard Smith he developed a framework for changes in hereditary organization and units of selection; in 2026 he applied it with Müller and Steels to evolvable AI. ## Evidence Boundary Major-transition framing identifies conditions and risks; it does not establish that AI has already crossed such a transition. ## Relationships [[wiki/John Maynard Smith|John Maynard Smith]], [[wiki/Major Evolutionary Transitions|Major Evolutionary Transitions]], [[wiki/Evolvable AI|Evolvable AI]], [[wiki/Unit of Selection|Unit of Selection]] ## Sources / Provenance - Maynard Smith and Szathmáry (1995); Müller, Steels and Szathmáry (2026).