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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.
/. stories have been performing this feat for years...
(the trick is to get them to *stop* duplicating...)
Would this be considered robot porn?
Don't Tread on Me
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SNL Skit, funny as shit!
I am not Sarah Connor, and I don't know anyone destined to stop these evil self-replicating robots, terminators, or Skynet. Just wanted to make that clear.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
Coralized Movie
This type of "replication" is what Von Neumann envisioned with his kinetic automata. They essentially sit in a sea of their own parts and use them to reproduce themselves. It started the field of cellular automata that is used today in biology and elsewhere. It may not seem like much, but it's a promising first step.
Well, if they make one that looks like Amanda Tapping, sign me up. I don't even care if it's evil!
The thing is, self replication isn't a completely clearcut situation. Everything has inputs, so the issue is how distant from your inputs you can get. In an extreme example, I could say that a rock with a broken stick attached to it is a self replicator, because if you put the stick of a pair of rocks connected by a stick under it, the rock will break the connecting stick and have created two more copies of itself.
For a more real-world example, look at malformed prions involved in BSE (mad cow disease). In a way, they self replicate - a single malformed prion can end up leaving your brain full of them. On the other hand, their input is simply a normal prion - they just fold it into their misformed shape. Is that really replication? Yes, but it's a pretty simple form of replication with very limited inputs.
A real feat would be robots that could self replicate with their only material inputs being, say, raw minerals and energy. That would be closer to what bacteria do.
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.