Team Builds First Living Robots - That Can Reproduce

[amd]

Kinematic self-replication in reconfigurable organisms
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/49/e2112672118

Here we show that clusters of cells, if freed from a developing organism, can similarly find and combine loose cells into clusters that look and move like they do, and that this ability does not have to be specifically evolved or introduced by genetic manipulation.

Finally, we show that artificial intelligence can design clusters that replicate better, and perform useful work as they do so. This suggests that future technologies may, with little outside guidance, become more useful as they spread, and that life harbors surprising behaviors just below the surface, waiting to be uncovered.


Team Builds First Living Robots - That Can Reproduce
https://wyss.harvard.edu/news/team-builds-first-living-robots-that-can-reproduce/

The same team that built the first living robots (“Xenobots,” assembled from frog cells—reported in 2020) has discovered that these computer-designed and hand-assembled organisms can swim out into their tiny dish, find single cells, gather hundreds of them together, and assemble “baby” Xenobots inside their Pac-Man-shaped “mouth”—that, a few days later, become new Xenobots that look and move just like themselves.

And then these new Xenobots can go out, find cells, and build copies of themselves. Again and again.

“With the right design—they will spontaneously self-replicate,” says Joshua Bongard, Ph.D., a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research.

Designed (C-shaped) organisms push loose stem cells (white) into piles as they move through their environment.

 

[Green Dot]

I wonder what will come out of this, considering the fact that they're designed in a "mechanical" way, opposed to in an ever evolving biological manner.

 

[Peatful]

I wonder what will come out of this, considering the fact that they're designed in a "mechanical" way, opposed to in an ever evolving biological manner.

A “Brave New World“ of course.
A soulless society.

A. Huxley was probably a Freemason as well.

 

[amd]

The words "artificial intelligence" are used without much care about what intelligence actually means.

It is an oxymoron.


Despite this lack, organisms do possess deep reservoirs of adaptive potential at all levels of organization, allowing for manual or automated interventions that deflect development toward biological forms and functions different from wild type (1), including the growth and maintenance of organs independent of their host organism (2⇓–4), or unlocking regenerative capacity (5⇓–7). Design, if framed as morphological reconfiguration, can reposition biological tissues or redirect self-organizing processes to new stable forms without recourse to genomic editing or transgenes (8). Recent work has shown that individual, genetically unmodified prospective skin (9) and heart muscle (10) cells, when removed from their native embryonic microenvironments and reassembled, can organize into stable forms and behaviors not exhibited by the organism from which the cells were taken, at any point in its natural life cycle.

 

[JamesGatz]

Well, Well, Well looks like I can finally get me a wholesome wif- er uh I mean very interesting - what a smart team!

 

[Lollipop2]

Bad news. Think of the myriad ways this can be used nefariously.

 

[tankasnowgod]

Kinematic self-replication in reconfigurable organisms
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/49/e2112672118

Here we show that clusters of cells, if freed from a developing organism, can similarly find and combine loose cells into clusters that look and move like they do, and that this ability does not have to be specifically evolved or introduced by genetic manipulation.

Finally, we show that artificial intelligence can design clusters that replicate better, and perform useful work as they do so. This suggests that future technologies may, with little outside guidance, become more useful as they spread, and that life harbors surprising behaviors just below the surface, waiting to be uncovered.


Team Builds First Living Robots - That Can Reproduce
https://wyss.harvard.edu/news/team-builds-first-living-robots-that-can-reproduce/

The same team that built the first living robots (“Xenobots,” assembled from frog cells—reported in 2020) has discovered that these computer-designed and hand-assembled organisms can swim out into their tiny dish, find single cells, gather hundreds of them together, and assemble “baby” Xenobots inside their Pac-Man-shaped “mouth”—that, a few days later, become new Xenobots that look and move just like themselves.

And then these new Xenobots can go out, find cells, and build copies of themselves. Again and again.

“With the right design—they will spontaneously self-replicate,” says Joshua Bongard, Ph.D., a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research.

View attachment 30833
Designed (C-shaped) organisms push loose stem cells (white) into piles as they move through their environment.

Uh oh, this sorta sounds like a von Neumann machine. And they are one of the Top Ten Ways to destroy the Earth-

Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth

Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe. From black holes and collisions with large rocks to detonation by antimatter or vacuum energy, here's a look at the feasibility of a host of ways to turn the lights out on our planet.

www.livescience.com

Eaten by von Neumann machines​

You will need: a single von Neumann machine.

Method: A von Neumann machine is any device that is capable of creating an exact copy of itself given nothing but the necessary raw materials. Create one of these that subsists almost entirely on iron, magnesium, aluminum and silicon, the major elements found in Earth's mantle and core. It doesn't matter how big it is as long as it can reproduce itself exactly in any period of time. Release it into the ground under the Earth's crust and allow it to fend for itself. Watch and wait as it creates a second von Neumann machine, then they create two more, then they create four more. As the population of machines doubles repeatedly, the planet Earth will, terrifyingly soon, be entirely eaten up and turned into a swarm of potentially sextillions of machines. Technically your objective would now be complete — no more Earth — but if you want to be thorough then you can command your VNMs to hurl themselves, along with any remaining trace elements, into the sun. This hurling would have to be achieved using rocket propulsion of some sort, so be sure to include this in your design.

So crazy it might just work.

Earth's final resting place: the bodies of the VNMs themselves, then a small lump of iron sinking into the sun.

Earliest feasible completion date: Potentially 2045-2050, or even earlier.

Sources: "2010: Odyssey Two," by Arthur C. Clarke

 

[amd]

When self-replication is involved, it is of concern. Unforeseen outcomes or mistakes can have serious repercussions.

We do have the creation of chimera viruses, which are released to create (fake) pandemics.

But the tendency of infectious organisms is to evolve into a less lethal form by increasing infection while reducing mortality to facilitate reproduction/replication (e.g., Omicron Covid variant).

That may not be case when cells are taken out of the context of an organism and designed to perform very specific tasks.

 

[Peatness]

South Korea cuts human interaction in push to build ‘untact’ society

The government invests heavily to remove human contact from many aspects of life but fears of harmful social consequences persist

www.theguardian.com

 

[Peatness]

The Great Robo-placement? Workplace Robot Orders Jump 40% In First Quarter - Activist Post

In one example, two robots reduced a three-person printing crew to one, saving $16,000 per month in expenses.

www.activistpost.com