When I was in high school I learned some definition of life in biology. Later, I realized that this definition does not quite work. Especially, when I see a couple who cannot have a baby. At least one of them would fall out of the definition.
(Maybe this could still be alright if we understand life as a flow of genes and not as visible creatures moving around.)
Then, I came to the conclusion that there is no binary distinction. Essentially, the difference depends on the complexity of the chemical reactions. A human is probably chemically-speaking more complex than a bacterium. And a bacterium is more complex than some organic chemical reaction. After all, these are all chemical reactions. So I'd attribute something like different shades of liveliness to all sorts of things (not to be confused with panpsychism).
In that sense a NN would fit as it computes and outputs floats that represent something gradual. But the text expresses rather something binary.