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Self-Replicating Robots

Posted by samzenpus on from the beginning-of-the-end dept.

ABC News is running a story that self-replicating robots are no longer the stuff of science fiction. Scientists at Cornell University have created small robots that can build copies of themselves. Here is a movie demonstrating the self-replication process. And the paper that will be published in Thursdays issue of Nature.

8 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. That's not self replication by catbutt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hell they might as well consider the raw material to be "robots that are powered off", and then have the bots push the power button on the "raw material" to create a new robot.

    Lame.

    1. Re:That's not self replication by datafr0g · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is this not self replication?
      Who said that replication must involve the original robot to create the robot parts? And even if it did, it would still have to create these "spare parts" from smaller parts anyway...
      The robot is replicating itself from it's own basic building blocks from what I can see.

      --
      "Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
    2. Re:That's not self replication by Andy+Gardner · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree how is this different to robots on an assembly line assembling a car, change 'car' to 'copies of the robot performing the assembly' and you have a /. story. The only reason it hasn't been done before is theres no point?

    3. Re:That's not self replication by FleaPlus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why is this not self replication?

      Indeed. Last I checked, humans and other animals couldn't self-replicate either, but needed to have raw materials preprocessed by things like plants first.

    4. Re:That's not self replication by andrebasso · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The thing is - humans gather and harvest those raw materials on their own and are completely responsible for the use of those raw materials around them. Actually, it is very close to self replciation. This video shows no harvesting or cultivating of those discreet building blocks in any way. They merely pop into the frame. Very, very far from self replication in any way.

      --
      "Were Alph, the sacred river ran, through caverns measureless to man, --Coleridge // Andre Basso
  2. Not exactly "gray goo" by localroger · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So they can assemble spare parts into copies of themselves. Where do they get the spare parts? Oh right.

    --
    Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
  3. Re:Not replication by MankyD · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It may not be creating itself from what most would consider "raw" materials, but from its own world view it is. It has a few fundamental building blocks from which it can create more advanced structurues - copies of itself in this case.

    --
    -dave
    http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
  4. Re:Edward F. Moore's 1959 self-reproducers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I thought it was a strained tour-de-force then, and I think these "self-replicating robots" are just a fancier example of the same thing.

    We are just fancier examples of the same thing.