What is Amorphous Computing Anyway?

I found a very cool presentation from Harvard on "Amorphous Computing". The title is "Global-to-Local Programming: Design and Analysis for Amorphous Computers". It can be found at the Harvard website for SOS publications. I've just browsed it so far. This example of computing mimicking biology is quite fascinating. It does raise the following question:

"Are we humans merely cheap, replaceable, and unreliable nano-robots creating a global structure through global to local programming?"

I'll be on Sand Hill Rd later. Maybe they can answer this burning question..............