Living robots reproduce: DARPA Xenobots

Wyss; Katie Hunt (CNN/MSN); Pfc. Sandoval, Sheldon S., Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Living robots move, breed: Team builds first living robots — that reproduce (harvard.edu)

Funded by feds at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) for MILITARY use.

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World's first living and self-replicating robots reproduce like Pac-Man

What is "life" now that science controls it?

The US scientists who created the first living robots say the life forms, known as xenobots, can now reproduce -- and in a way not seen in plants and animals.

Formed from the stem cells of the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) from which it takes its name, xenobots are less than a millimeter (0.04 inches) wide.

• Why is DARPA/the military interested in living robots?

The tiny blobs were first unveiled in 2020 after experiments showed that they could move, work together in groups, and self-heal.

They BREED? Morning DJ Klein says he was excited about robot sex. Now they don't need us.

Self-moving parent xenobot gives birth to "baby" composed of stem cells like PacMan.

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Xenobot with "heart" programmed by AI

Now the scientists that developed them at the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering said they have discovered an entirely new form of biological reproduction different from any animal or plant known to science.

Scientists say 1st living robots walk, reproduce

"I was astounded by it," said Prof. of Biology Michael Levin, director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University who was co-lead author of the new research.

"Frogs have a way of reproducing that they normally use but when you...liberate (the cells) from the rest of the embryo and you give them a chance to figure out how to be in a new environment, not only do they figure out a new way to move, but they also figure out apparently a new way to reproduce."

Synthetic robot or organic organism?

When will SEX robots rejuvenate themselves?

The xenobots are very early technology -- like a 1940s computer -- and don't yet have any practical applications. However, this combination of molecular biology and artificial intelligence could potentially be used in...

Stem cells are unspecialized cells that have the ability to develop into different cell types. To make the xenobots, the researchers scraped living stem cells from frog embryos and left them to incubate. There's no manipulation of genes involved.

Dinos don't look like we've been told.

"Most people think of robots as made of metals and ceramics, but it's not so much what a robot is made from but what it does, which is act on its own on behalf of people," said computer science Prof. Josh Bongard, a robotics expert at the University of Vermont and lead author of the study. More

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