Recently, American researchers discovered a new way of biological reproduction, and used this discovery to create the first self-reproducing "living" robot in history. This "living" robot is somewhere between a living being and a machine, and is "very similar" to existing robots in behavioral patterns.
Do robots have to be made of metal, plastic, wood and concrete? Recently, American researchers discovered a new way of biological reproduction, and used this discovery to create the first self-reproducing "living" robot in history.
Xenobot 3.0 is out
. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a research paper on "living" robots, and one of the authors of the paper, Sam Kriegman, said: "They can go places in the human body and perform tasks that traditional robots cannot. , because the human body will reject metals."
Last year, the research team used skin and heart cells from the early embryos of African clawed frogs to assemble a new life form, creating the world's first "living" robot "Xenobot" ( xenobots). They can move independently for about a week before running out of energy, repairing themselves and breaking down naturally.
In March of this year, the Xenobot 2.0 "living" robot came out, combining the African clawed frog heart cells (contracting cells) and epidermal cells (passive cells). It is capable of propelling itself using hair-like "legs" of cilia, moving rapidly across surfaces. In addition, it has the ability to record information.
Joshua Bongard, another author of the paper, said: "The newly upgraded Xenobot 3.0 is only millimeters in size, and they are neither traditional robots nor known animal species. This is a living, Programmable Organisms."
Co-author Michael Levin also said: "These are completely new life forms, they have never appeared on Earth." Levin also said that these clawed frog cells can be engineered into interesting new biological forms, with their The original anatomy is completely different. "Clawed frogs have their own way of reproducing, but when you liberate the cells from the embryo, you can let them try to adapt to the new environment. Eventually, they not only find new ways to move, but they also find new ways to reproduce. "The
researchers found that if enough of the xenobots were placed close to each other in a petri dish, they would aggregate and start stacking other individual stem cells floating in the solution. So hundreds of stem cells assemble "baby" xenobots in their "mouths". After a few days, these "babies" are transformed into new xenomorphs that look and act like their mothers. These new xenobots can then go out again to find cells and create "copies" of themselves, and so on, repeating over and over again.
Robot or organism?
Although Xenobot is currently called a "living" robot, whether it is a machine or a completely new form of organism is still somewhat controversial. According to Ye Sheng, a biology professor at Beihang University, this "living" robot is between a living being and a machine, and is "very similar" to existing robots in behavioral patterns.
Ye Sheng said that the so-called robot is actually able to do a certain fixed action or certain things autonomously. "This time the aggregate of cells we are talking about is actually in this state, but the reason why it is similar to life to a certain extent is that it is composed of cells and has many of the most basic characteristics of life, such as It is said that the utilization of energy, the metabolism of substances. So it is really difficult to define it now.”
According to some scientists, one of the most striking characteristics of living things is that they can reproduce on their own. The most concerned breakthrough of Xenobot 3.0 is that it has been developed by researchers to reproduce itself. Wang Xiaowei, an associate professor at the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China, believes that the emergence of Xenobot 3.0 heralds the birth of a new kind of artificial object.
Future may be used for cancer treatment
The birth of such a self-reproducing "living" robot reminded some onlookers of the scenes depicted in some science fiction novels and movies. Some netizens commented that this is "alien is coming", fearing that scientists have created a deadly biological weapon that can destroy human beings.
It is reported that the next step in the research is to try to make similar living robots out of mammalian cells. The goal is to create robots that can act without human supervision, but this raises ethical issues.
As for outside doubts, Kriegman said that only fragile, easily-changeable environments would cause xenobots to replicate themselves. "If you change the sodium levels in the water too high or too low, they die. It's a controllable, preventable and safe system."
For the public opinion controversy, Joshua Bongard responded that these millimeter-scale alien robots are currently in the laboratory and can be easily destroyed, and ethics experts have reviewed this.
Although this "living" robot cannot yet leave the laboratory and can only perform some simple and basic activities, Josh Bongard, a professor of computer science at the University of Vermont in the United States, said that the combination of molecular biology and artificial intelligence technology The results may be used for many tasks in the human body and the environment, such as collecting microplastics in the ocean, examining root systems and regenerative medicine.
Some optimistic researchers say that in the future, "living" robots may also provide more direct and personalized drug treatment for trauma, birth defects, cancer, aging, etc. Wang Xiaowei believes that these goals are "expected in the future", but the current research results still have a lot of work to do before clinical practical application.
