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> “These things move around in the dish and make copies of themselves,” said Prof Josh Bongard, of the University of Vermont, a co-author of the research. > Bu
by robotresearcher 5y ago
> “These things move around in the dish and make copies of themselves,” said Prof Josh Bongard, of the University of Vermont, a co-author of the research.
> 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.
- drdeca 5y ago> Since the offspring lack at least the ability to make offspring. 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.
- robotresearcher 5y agoThanks, I missed that. The text is below. It's not clear from the article if the repro is sustainable indefinitely. > 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.
- drdeca 5y agoYes, the other article I read (which Wikipedia cites) mentioned great great grandchildren, but it wasn’t clear to me whether it seemed like it could continue indefinitely.