4 ms·
Living robot is a terrible term. If I understand correctly, Xenobots are bits of organic matter that use little spaghetti legs to swim around. So the computer m
by Flankk 5y ago
Living robot is a terrible term. If I understand correctly, Xenobots are bits of organic matter that use little spaghetti legs to swim around. So the computer made one that looks like a cheese puff and somehow clumping them together is defined as reproduction? Maybe I'm missing something but it doesn't seem that exciting.
- seaknoll 5y agoDid you miss this part? > "Then those parents built children, who built grandchildren, who built great-grandchildren, who built great-great-grandchildren."
- noah_buddy 5y agoBuilt children out of already living cells? This to me seems more like a golem that produces other golems on happenstance from living matter.
- legacynl 5y agoIt's hard to define what 'reproduction' is. I think in lot's of definitions this would fit. Also aren't we basically the same? (i.e. a collection of mindless cells, doing their thing, leading to the effect of human reproduction?)
- ampdepolymerase 5y agoI have commented on this before so I will link it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27332700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27332700 For xenobots to be useful, the underlying cell behaviour needs to be better understood and controlled. Their research appears interesting if you are a computer scientist or physicist. But for practical applications and applied biotechnology what they are doing is an curious gimmick at best. If they can perfect their understanding, then they would have basically solved half the puzzle of organ engineering. But right now it is no different from black box engineering. This is very similar to Turing's reaction-diffusion models on leopard spots — great for computer modeling and popular science magazines, not so immediately useful if your grandmother gets cancer. I will admit it looks perfect to sell as a biotech startup to dumb SV VCs who don't do their due diligence when it comes to investing in applied science fields.
- teawrecks 5y agoIt's taking a bunch of cells that are not a clone of itself and sticking them together to create a clone of itself. Has this been done before outside of natural reproduction?