Quote from OPTIONAL777:
Let us review those distinctions. Living organisms or systems remain functional only by continual change, whereas mechanisms remain functional only if they do not change, except as programmed. (Note that changes in natural systems can progress in only one direction, as they cannot undo their aging, while machines can run, in principle at least, both forward and backwards.) Living organisms are autopoietic and autonomous -- that is, self-produced and self-ruled. Mechanisms, on the other hand, are allopoietic and allonomous -- other-produced and other-ruled. The `others' are humans, or human-programmed robots, which make other robots. A robot making itself by its own rules is a logical impossibility.
http://www.ratical.org/LifeWeb/Erthdnce/chapter15.html
You've just described a type of neural network...
Wait... do you even know what a neural network is?