Researchers find xenobots can give rise to offspring
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
> But there is a hitch. “It turns out that these xenobots will replicate once, one generation, they will make children. But the children are too small and weak to make grandchildren,” said Bongard.
So, not copies of themselves, after all. Since the offspring lack at least the ability to make offspring.
I bet Bongard would love to demonstrate evolution of xenobots. He needs sustainable replication with heritable traits to get it going. Then he can select for the behavior he wants.
Thus we can discover interesting/valuable cell assemblies to either make by (eventually robot) hand, or if the xenomorph ecosystem can support replication factors above 1, farm.
That’s describing the earlier design. The later computer made design was able to produce not only grandchildren, but, iirc, even up to great great grandchildren.
> Using artificial intelligence, the researchers found that if the xenobots were formed into certain shapes, such as that of the video game character Pac-Man, replication continued for further generations.
"What if we make a Pacman shape out of frog cells" doesn't seem like it's leading anywhere profound.
I wonder if they could impose arbitrary logic, and implement something like Conway's game of life? Seems like you'd need a predictable algorithmic framework in order to achieve anything useful with it.
Imagine using autologous xenobots (homobots?) as a drug delivery mechanism for humans.
> I wonder if they could impose arbitrary logic, and implement something like Conway's game of life? Seems like you'd need a predictable algorithmic framework in order to achieve anything useful with it.
Exactly. When I look at these xenobots I see a prototype for programmable matter. Imagine using these kinds of things to run programs where the output of the programs isn't shifting bits in a CPU but shifting molecules in a substrate.
You could use these for autonomous manufacturing from the microscale and up.