An unusual combination of artificial intelligence and biology created the first "living robots" in the world
By: Simon Coplan, Senior Research Fellow in Digital Ethics, School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne and Coby Lanes Senior Research Fellow in Digital Ethics, University of Melbourne
This week a research group of roboticists and scientists published their recipe for creating a new life form called xenobots from stem cells. The term "xeno" originates from the cells of the frog (Xenopus laevis) that were used to create them.
One of the researchers described the creation as follows: "Neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal, but a new type of artificial product: a living, programmable creature."
The length of the xenobots is less than one millimeter and they are made of 500-1000 living cells. They have various simple shapes, including some with short "legs". They can move themselves in straight or circular directions, join to act together, and move small objects. Using their own cellular energy they can live up to ten days.
This time-lapse movie shows cells manipulating and collecting them to create xenobots. (Original film: Douglas Blackstone, Taft University).
These "reconfigurable biological machines" can greatly improve the health of people, animals and the environment, but they raise legal and ethical issues.
A new and strange "creature".
To create xenobots, the research team used a supercomputer to test thousands of random designs of simple living things that could perform certain tasks.
The computer was programmed using an artificial intelligence "evolutionary algorithm" to predict which creatures are likely to perform useful tasks, such as moving toward a goal.
After selecting the most promising designs, the scientists tried to replicate the virtual models using frog skin or heart cells, which were manually attached using microsurgical tools. The heart cells in these custom-made assemblies contract and relax, giving the creatures movement.
The creation of the xenobots is groundbreaking.
Although they are described as "programmable living robots", they are actually completely organic and made of living tissue. The term "robot" was used because it is possible to configure xenobots into all kinds of different shapes, and "program" them to focus on certain objects - which they then unknowingly search for.
They also know how to repair themselves after being hurt.
Possible applications
Some speculate that they could be used to clean up our polluted oceans by collecting microplastics. Similarly, they could be used to enter confined or dangerous spaces to purge toxins or radioactive materials. Xenobots that will be designed with carefully shaped "pockets" will be able to carry drugs into the human body.
Future versions will allow will be built from the patient's own cells to repair tissues and focus on cancers. Being biodegradable, xenobots will have an advantage over technologies made of plastic or metal.
The continued development of "biological" robots could accelerate our understanding of living and robotic systems. Life is very complex, so the manipulation of living things could reveal some of life's mysteries - and improve our use of artificial intelligence.
Legal and ethical questions
On the other hand, xenobots raise legal and ethical issues. In the same way that they can help target cancer, they can be used to take over life functions for malicious purposes. Some argue that the artificial creation of living beings is unnatural, arrogant or "playing at being God". A more compelling problem is unintended or malicious use, as we have seen with technologies in fields such as nuclear physics, chemistry, biology, and artificial intelligence. For example, it would be possible to use xenobots for hostile biological purposes that are prohibited by international law.
Future more advanced xenobots, especially those that live longer and reproduce, could potentially "malfunction" and become unruly, and out-perform other species. For complex tasks, xenobots will need sensory systems and nerves, which can result in sentience. A programmed creature with sentience will raise further ethical questions. Last year the resuscitation of a pig's brain severed from the body raised concerns about the suffering of different species.
Risk Management
The creators of the xenobots rightly recognized the need to discuss the ethics of their creation.
The scandal in 2018 about the use of CRISPR (which allows the insertion of genes into living creatures) can serve as an instructive lesson here. The purpose of the trial was to reduce the vulnerability of two infant twins to HIV-AIDS, but the associated risks caused an ethical storm. The said scientist is in prison. When CRISPR became widely available, some experts called for an end to inherited genome editing. Others argued that the benefits outweighed the risks. Any new technology should be considered impartially and on its own merits, but giving life to xenobots raises significant questions.
1. Should xenobots have kill switches in case they go rogue?
2. Who will decide who can access and control them?
3. What if "homemade" xenobots were allowed? Should there be a suspension of activity until regulatory frameworks are established? How much regulation is necessary?
Lessons learned in the past from developments in other fields of science can help manage future risks, while maximizing potential benefits.
Long road here, long road ahead
The creation of xenobots had various biological and robotic precedents. Genetic engineering created mice that were genetically modified and began to glow in UV light. Engineered bacteria can create drugs and food ingredients that may eventually replace animal farming. Nanobots can monitor people's blood sugar levels and may eventually be able to clear clogged arteries. Robots can incorporate living matter, as we saw when engineers and biologists created a catfish robot powered by light-activated cells.
In the coming years we will surely see more creatures like the xenobots that will cause wonder as well as justified fear. And when that happens, it is important that we keep an open mind but also be critical.
to the article on The Conversation website
More of the topic in Hayadan:
11 תגובות
Can someone explain how to program the cell? This is not explained in the article, but only stated as a fact
To the one who wrote about the prophets of wrath - I completely agree with you. There is nothing new under the sun. What was will be. Technological progress and our capacity for self-destruction are probably increasing in a manner consistent with the rate of population reproduction...
"Thousands of years ago, one of the humans discovered how to light a fire. He was probably burned on the same pyre that he taught his brother to light. He is considered a criminal who made an alliance with Satan, the terror of the human race. But later, the fire remained with the humans, and they learned to warm themselves, to cook, to light their caves. He left them a gift that they themselves could not achieve. He removed the darkness from the face of the earth."
Ayn Rand, as the rising spring. (Written in 1943)
It is religion that maintains the limits of humanity, while science is the one that expands them. Very fascinating, thank you.
There has already been a creature that can be programmed quite a long time ago.
He was born before his time and without survival abilities
and shaped by his environment from the womb.
Even nature without human intervention, almost makes all life on earth happy...
What a lousy clickbait. They only used the computerized design to predict how a group of cells should be tied together to move in a certain way. They did not change the cell itself and there is no sophisticated robotics here. The film also only shows the binding of the cells to each other.
The next step is to activate an autonomous reproductive system
Hello Kochav, hello Haim? Have a good day with you
And despite all the amazing technological progress, man has not yet learned, and may never know, to completely synthetically create the simplest cell.
There is mystery in the universe
If they find a use for this thing, then in the near future only the risk-loving rich will dare to use this thing for medical purposes, etc. It is more likely that they will use it maliciously.
And in the distant future, it is most likely that the cocoon will rise up against its creator and we will create a new strain of viruses for ourselves...
There is nothing more to be done about it. Pandora's box has been opened for a long time. We can only talk about it. Science buffs will gloat that they have something else to fill their time/pockets with and everyone else will curse.