Self-Replicating Robots

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.

Comments

That's not self replication

[catbutt]

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.

Re:That's not self replication

[FleaPlus]

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.

Re:That's not self replication

[andrebasso]

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.

Re:Not replication

[MankyD]

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.