Lifecycle manipulation and Exobots

[ThinkSome]

Why does LM cause exobots to go from initial population 1 to 3? Exobots aren't alive.

With the exobots nerfed across the board (very bad everything, bad population AND being more expensive to produce), why not make them start with 3.0 population regardless if LM is researched or not?

[Oberlus]

Exobots are alive, same than Replicon. They are living machines.
Same for lithic species. They all are different forms of life.
Lifecycle Manipulation (and any other tech regarding biology and related) comprehends knowledge on all forms of life, not only organic metabolism.