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I wonder if there are any applications in building biological robots? I don't know too much about the process so perhaps this is far fetched but if you could bu
by n0us 11y ago
I wonder if there are any applications in building biological robots? I don't know too much about the process so perhaps this is far fetched but if you could build a robot with organic appendages that could be "swapped out" once they are used or damaged I would image you could end up with something far more versatile than the mechanical equivalent with servos/solenoids etc.
- logi 11y agoI'd imagine that rather than being "swapped out", a machine with components that could heal to some degree would be far more useful. But still an interesting idea.
- stephengillie 11y agoSufficiently advanced robotics is indistinguishable from life. - Adapted from Arthur C Clarke.
- kenbellows 11y agoMm, that's some thin philosophical ice you're treading there
- mmusson 11y agoA nervous public will demand that organic robots be given an arbitrarily short lifespan as a failsafe. Say four years. And those robots would also be restricted to working in outer space because it would be too hard to control robots indistinguishable from ordinary humans on Earth.
- david-given 11y agoThen it will start being four o'clock in the morning and raining. All. The. Time. On the plus side, there will be a sudden popularity in delicious noodle bars.
- rzzzt 11y agoFancy umbrellas will also be abound.
- dragontamer 11y agoThe light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. The problem with 4 years is that they'll be significantly stronger and smarter than us.
- mmusson 11y ago"I've... seen things... you people wouldn't believe." "Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion; I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate..." "All those... moments... will be lost, in time, like [chokes up] tears... in... rain." "Time... to die."
- mathgeek 11y agoI think you mean an artificial biological creature, rather than a biological robot.
- gsmethells 11y agoGeez, how far off is Frankenstein?
- logfromblammo 11y agoFive years for the body. Fifteen for the brain and spinal cord. Fifty for the legal recognition that it has the same rights as every other person.
- nbadg 11y agoIt's been several years since I've been active in anything resembling this space (I did my master's in a biorobotics lab and was 50/50 between biomedical and mechanical), so take this with a grain of salt. However, as awesome as this is (composite cellular constructs have always been very difficult), it's probably not especially applicable to biorobotics, because they're using the "wash and repopulate" method for growing the appendage. Basically, you take an existing appendage from a (presumably NOT living and breathing) fully-developed donor animal and strip it of all cellular material. That leaves what's called the extracellular matrix, which is a little bit like the rebar in a reinforced concrete lattice. So ignoring the obvious ethical questions here -- of which there are many, and which are critically important not to ignore -- but ignoring them, if you wanted to build a cyborg robot thing, you'd be much better off skipping the wash and repopulate, and maybe even skipping the "dead" part. But from my perspective, that's no fun! I'd much rather design my own system from the ground up and have some flexibility to make improvements to "design" unconstrained by the very slow process of evolution. So in that case, I'd want to be able to 3d-print the extracellular matrix[1] and then populate it however I deemed fit, integrating it with a more efficient nerve-computer interface from the start. [1] People are totally working on this which is absolutely amazing. https://www.google.com/search?q=3d+printing+extracellular+matrix https://www.google.com/search?q=3d+printing+extracellular+ma...
- rokhayakebe 11y agoThe natural progression is man will create its own replacing species.