What's so special about RNA? What if our genetic code was bits and bytes on a computer? Would a computer be alive, or the artificial being that it created? If so, then a genetic algorithm already meets your definition of life.
This is an excellent point. I suppose I was just thinking about the natural world (on planet Earth). Indeed, replicating information, RNA or not, would be a form of "life", provided it was persisted. I think persistence here is the key. A genetic algorithm would be life as you say, provided I think that its states could be saved into a database or the like. Self-replicating, persisted information in some kind of definable form or shape is life, roughly I would think. So, sure, a GA counts provided you persist it someplace. Naturally occurring crystals in a cave would too for that matter. And if the physicist Lee Smolin is right, the universe could be a replicating entity as well, making new universes via black holes or similar mechanisms (see his book, "Life of the Cosmos").