![Self-replicating machine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Self-replicating_machine.png)
A self-replicating machine is a type of
autonomous robot
An autonomous robot is a robot that acts without recourse to human control. The first autonomous robots environment were known as Elmer and Elsie, which were constructed in the late 1940s by W. Grey Walter. They were the first robots in history th ...
that is capable of reproducing itself autonomously using raw materials found in the environment, thus exhibiting
self-replication
Self-replication is any behavior of a dynamical system that yields construction of an identical or similar copy of itself. Biological cells, given suitable environments, reproduce by cell division. During cell division, DNA is replicated and ca ...
in a way analogous to that found in
nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
. The concept of self-replicating machines has been advanced and examined by
Homer Jacobson,
Edward F. Moore
Edward Forrest Moore (November 23, 1925 in Baltimore, Maryland – June 14, 2003 in Madison, Wisconsin) was an American professor of mathematics and computer science, the inventor of the Moore machine, Moore finite state machine, and an early pione ...
,
Freeman Dyson
Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was an English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum m ...
,
John von Neumann
John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...
,
Konrad Zuse
Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse (; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, pioneering computer scientist, inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programmable computer; the functional program-c ...
and in more recent times by
K. Eric Drexler
Kim Eric Drexler (born April 25, 1955) is an American engineer best known for studies of the potential of molecular nanotechnology (MNT), from the 1970s and 1980s. His 1991 doctoral thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was revised and ...
in his book on
nanotechnology
Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...
, ''
Engines of Creation
''Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology'' is a 1986 molecular nanotechnology book written by K. Eric Drexler with a foreword by Marvin Minsky. An updated version was released in 2007. The book has been translated into Japanese, F ...
'' (coining the term clanking replicator for such machines) and by
Robert Freitas
Robert A. Freitas Jr. (born 1952) is an American nanotechnologist.
Career
In 1974, Freitas earned a bachelor's degree in both physics and psychology from Harvey Mudd College, and in 1978, he received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Santa Clara U ...
and
Ralph Merkle
Ralph C. Merkle (born February 2, 1952) is a computer scientist and mathematician. He is one of the inventors of public-key cryptography, the inventor of cryptographic hashing, and more recently a researcher and speaker on cryonics.
Contribution ...
in their review ''Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines''
which provided the first comprehensive analysis of the entire replicator design space. The future development of such technology is an integral part of several plans involving the mining of
moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
s and
asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere.
...
belts for ore and other materials, the creation of lunar factories, and even the construction of
solar power satellite
Space-based solar power (SBSP, SSP) is the concept of collecting solar power in outer space by solar power satellites (SPS) and distributing it to Earth. Its advantages include a higher collection of energy due to the lack of reflection and ab ...
s in space. The
von Neumann probe
The concept of Self-replicating spacecraft, as envisioned by mathematician John von Neumann, has been described by futurists including physicist Michio Kaku and discussed across a wide breadth of hard science fiction novels and stories. Self-rep ...
is one theoretical example of such a machine. Von Neumann also worked on what he called the
universal constructor, a self-replicating machine that would be able to evolve and which he formalized in a
cellular automata
A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...
environment. Notably,
Von Neumann's Self-Reproducing Automata scheme posited that open-ended evolution requires inherited information to be copied and passed to offspring separately from the self-replicating machine, an insight that preceded the discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule by
Watson and
Crick
Crick may refer to:
Places
* Crick, Monmouthshire, Wales
* Crick, Northamptonshire, England
* Crick Road, Oxford, England
People with the name
* Crick (surname)
Other uses
* Crick, the cricket from ''Beat Bugs''
* Francis Crick Institute
...
and how it is separately translated and replicated in the cell.
A self-replicating machine is an artificial
self-replicating
Self-replication is any behavior of a dynamical system that yields construction of an identical or similar copy of itself. Biological cells, given suitable environments, reproduce by cell division. During cell division, DNA is replicated and ca ...
system that relies on conventional large-scale technology and automation. Although suggested more than 70 years ago no self-replicating machine has been seen until today. Certain idiosyncratic terms are occasionally found in the literature. For example, the term clanking replicator was once used by Drexler
to distinguish macroscale replicating systems from the microscopic
nanorobot
Nanoid robotics, or for short, nanorobotics or nanobotics, is an emerging technology field creating machines or robots whose components are at or near the scale of a nanometer (10−9 meters). More specifically, nanorobotics (as opposed to mic ...
s or "
assemblers
Assembler may refer to:
Arts and media
* Nobukazu Takemura, avant-garde electronic musician, stage name Assembler
* Assemblers, a fictional race in the ''Star Wars'' universe
* Assemblers, an alternative name of the superhero group Champions of A ...
" that
nanotechnology
Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...
may make possible, but the term is informal and is rarely used by others in popular or technical discussions. Replicators have also been called "von Neumann machines" after John von Neumann, who first rigorously studied the idea. However, the term "von Neumann machine" is less specific and also refers to a completely unrelated
computer architecture
In computer engineering, computer architecture is a description of the structure of a computer system made from component parts. It can sometimes be a high-level description that ignores details of the implementation. At a more detailed level, t ...
that von Neumann proposed and so its use is discouraged where accuracy is important.
Von Neumann himself used the term
universal constructor to describe such self-replicating machines.
Historians of
machine tool
A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some sort of tool that does the cutting or shaping. All m ...
s, even before the
numerical control
Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes a pi ...
era, sometimes figuratively said that machine tools were a unique class of machines because they have the ability to "reproduce themselves"
[.] by copying all of their parts. Implicit in these discussions is that a human would direct the cutting processes (later planning and programming the machines), and would then assemble the parts. The same is true for
RepRaps, which are another class of machines sometimes mentioned in reference to such non-autonomous "self-replication". In contrast, machines that are ''truly autonomously'' self-replicating (like
biological machines) are the main subject discussed here.
History
The general concept of artificial machines capable of producing copies of themselves dates back at least several hundred years. An early reference is an anecdote regarding the philosopher
René Descartes
René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathem ...
, who suggested to Queen
Christina of Sweden
Christina ( sv, Kristina, 18 December ( New Style) 1626 – 19 April 1689), a member of the House of Vasa, was Queen of Sweden in her own right from 1632 until her abdication in 1654. She succeeded her father Gustavus Adolphus upon his death ...
that the human body could be regarded as a machine; she responded by pointing to a clock and ordering "see to it that it reproduces offspring." Several other variations on this anecdotal response also exist.
Samuel Butler proposed in his 1872 novel ''
Erewhon
''Erewhon: or, Over the Range'' () is a novel by English writer Samuel Butler, first published anonymously in 1872, set in a fictional country discovered and explored by the protagonist. The book is a satire on Victorian society.
The firs ...
'' that machines were already capable of reproducing themselves but it was man who made them do so, and added that ''"machines which reproduce machinery do not reproduce machines after their own kind"''. In
George Eliot's 1879 book ''
Impressions of Theophrastus Such
''Impressions of Theophrastus Such'' is a work of fiction by George Eliot (Marian Evans), first published in 1879. It was Eliot's last published writing and her most experimental, taking the form of a series of literary essays by an imaginary mino ...
'', a series of essays that she wrote in the character of a fictional scholar named Theophrastus, the essay "Shadows of the Coming Race" speculated about self-replicating machines, with Theophrastus asking "how do I know that they may not be ultimately made to carry, or may not in themselves evolve, conditions of self-supply, self-repair, and reproduction".
In 1802
William Paley
William Paley (July 174325 May 1805) was an English clergyman, Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work ''Natural T ...
formulated the first known
teleological argument
The teleological argument (from ; also known as physico-theological argument, argument from design, or intelligent design argument) is an argument for the existence of God or, more generally, that complex functionality in the natural world wh ...
depicting machines producing other machines, suggesting that the
question of who originally made a watch was rendered moot if it were demonstrated that the watch was able to manufacture a copy of itself. Scientific study of self-reproducing machines was anticipated by
John Bernal as early as 1929 and by mathematicians such as
Stephen Kleene
Stephen Cole Kleene ( ; January 5, 1909 – January 25, 1994) was an American mathematician. One of the students of Alonzo Church, Kleene, along with Rózsa Péter, Alan Turing, Emil Post, and others, is best known as a founder of the branch of ...
who began developing
recursion theory
Computability theory, also known as recursion theory, is a branch of mathematical logic, computer science, and the theory of computation that originated in the 1930s with the study of computable functions and Turing degrees. The field has since e ...
in the 1930s. Much of this latter work was motivated by interest in information processing and algorithms rather than physical implementation of such a system, however. In the course of the 1950s, suggestions of several increasingly simple mechanical systems capable of self-reproduction were made — notably by
Lionel Penrose
Lionel Sharples Penrose, FRS (11 June 1898 – 12 May 1972) was an English psychiatrist, medical geneticist, paediatrician, mathematician and chess theorist, who carried out pioneering work on the genetics of intellectual disability. Penrose w ...
.
Von Neumann's kinematic model
A detailed conceptual proposal for a
self-replicating machine
A self-replicating machine is a type of autonomous robot that is capable of reproducing itself autonomously using raw materials found in the environment, thus exhibiting self-replication in a way analogous to that found in nature. The concept of ...
was first put forward by mathematician
John von Neumann
John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...
in lectures delivered in 1948 and 1949, when he proposed a
kinematic
Kinematics is a subfield of physics, developed in classical mechanics, that describes the motion of points, bodies (objects), and systems of bodies (groups of objects) without considering the forces that cause them to move. Kinematics, as a fie ...
model of
self-reproducing automata as a
thought experiment
A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences.
History
The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anci ...
.
Von Neumann's concept of a physical self-replicating machine was dealt with only abstractly, with the hypothetical machine using a "sea" or stockroom of spare parts as its source of raw materials. The machine had a program stored on a memory tape that directed it to retrieve parts from this "sea" using a manipulator, assemble them into a duplicate of itself, and then copy the contents of its memory tape into the empty duplicate's. The machine was envisioned as consisting of as few as eight different types of components; four logic elements that send and receive stimuli and four mechanical elements used to provide a structural skeleton and mobility. While qualitatively sound, von Neumann was evidently dissatisfied with this model of a self-replicating machine due to the difficulty of analyzing it with mathematical rigor. He went on to instead develop an even more abstract model self-replicator based on
cellular automata
A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...
. His original kinematic concept remained obscure until it was popularized in a 1955 issue of ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
''.
Von Neummann's goal for his
self-reproducing automata theory, as specified in his lectures at the University of Illinois in 1949,
was to design a machine whose complexity could grow automatically akin to biological organisms under
natural selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...
. He asked what is the ''threshold of complexity'' that must be crossed for machines to be able to evolve.
His answer was to design an abstract machine which, when run, would replicate itself. Notably, his design implies that open-ended evolution requires inherited information to be copied and passed to offspring separately from the self-replicating machine, an insight that preceded the discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule by
Watson and
Crick
Crick may refer to:
Places
* Crick, Monmouthshire, Wales
* Crick, Northamptonshire, England
* Crick Road, Oxford, England
People with the name
* Crick (surname)
Other uses
* Crick, the cricket from ''Beat Bugs''
* Francis Crick Institute
...
and how it is separately translated and replicated in the cell.
Moore's artificial living plants
In 1956 mathematician
Edward F. Moore
Edward Forrest Moore (November 23, 1925 in Baltimore, Maryland – June 14, 2003 in Madison, Wisconsin) was an American professor of mathematics and computer science, the inventor of the Moore machine, Moore finite state machine, and an early pione ...
proposed the first known suggestion for a practical real-world self-replicating machine, also published in ''Scientific American''. Moore's "artificial living plants" were proposed as machines able to use air, water and soil as sources of raw materials and to draw its energy from sunlight via a
solar battery
A rechargeable battery, storage battery, or secondary cell (formally a type of energy accumulator), is a type of electrical battery which can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times, as opposed to a disposable or prim ...
or a
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
. He chose the seashore as an initial habitat for such machines, giving them easy access to the chemicals in seawater, and suggested that later generations of the machine could be designed to float freely on the ocean's surface as self-replicating factory barges or to be placed in barren desert terrain that was otherwise useless for industrial purposes. The self-replicators would be "harvested" for their component parts, to be used by humanity in other non-replicating machines.
Dyson's replicating systems
The next major development of the concept of self-replicating machines was a series of thought experiments proposed by physicist
Freeman Dyson
Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was an English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum m ...
in his 1970 Vanuxem Lecture. He proposed three large-scale applications of machine replicators. First was to send a self-replicating system to
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
's moon
Enceladus
Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn (19th largest in the Solar System). It is about in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most refl ...
, which in addition to producing copies of itself would also be programmed to manufacture and launch
solar sail
Solar sails (also known as light sails and photon sails) are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors. A number of spaceflight missions to test solar propulsion and navigation have been p ...
-propelled cargo spacecraft. These spacecraft would carry blocks of Enceladean ice to
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...
, where they would be used to
terraform the planet. His second proposal was a solar-powered factory system designed for a terrestrial desert environment, and his third was an "industrial development kit" based on this replicator that could be sold to developing countries to provide them with as much industrial capacity as desired. When Dyson revised and reprinted his lecture in 1979 he added proposals for a modified version of Moore's seagoing artificial living plants that was designed to distill and store fresh water for human use and the "
Astrochicken."
''Advanced Automation for Space Missions''
![Advanced Automation for Space Missions figure 5-19](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Advanced_Automation_for_Space_Missions_figure_5-19.jpg)
In 1980, inspired by a 1979 "New Directions Workshop" held at Wood's Hole,
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
conducted a joint summer study with
ASEE
The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) is a non-profit member association, founded in 1893, dedicated to promoting and improving engineering and engineering technology education. The purpose of ASEE is the advancement of education ...
entitled
Advanced Automation for Space Missions to produce a detailed proposal for self-replicating factories to develop
lunar
Lunar most commonly means "of or relating to the Moon".
Lunar may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Lunar'' (series), a series of video games
* "Lunar" (song), by David Guetta
* "Lunar", a song by Priestess from the 2009 album ''Prior t ...
resources without requiring additional launches or human workers on-site. The study was conducted at
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...
and ran from June 23 to August 29, with the final report published in 1982. The proposed system would have been capable of
exponentially increasing productive capacity and the design could be modified to build self-replicating probes to explore the galaxy.
The reference design included small computer-controlled electric carts running on rails inside the factory, mobile "paving machines" that used large parabolic mirrors to focus sunlight on lunar
regolith
Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestria ...
to melt and sinter it into a hard surface suitable for building on, and robotic front-end loaders for
strip mining
Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which ...
. Raw lunar regolith would be refined by a variety of techniques, primarily
hydrofluoric acid
Hydrofluoric acid is a Solution (chemistry), solution of hydrogen fluoride (HF) in water. Solutions of HF are colourless, acidic and highly Corrosive substance, corrosive. It is used to make most fluorine-containing compounds; examples include th ...
leaching
Leaching is the loss or extraction of certain materials from a carrier into a liquid (usually, but not always a solvent). and may refer to:
* Leaching (agriculture), the loss of water-soluble plant nutrients from the soil; or applying a small amou ...
. Large transports with a variety of manipulator arms and tools were proposed as the constructors that would put together new factories from parts and assemblies produced by its parent.
Power would be provided by a "canopy" of solar cells supported on pillars. The other machinery would be placed under the canopy.
A "
casting
Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a ''casting'', which is ejected ...
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...
" would use sculpting tools and templates to make
plaster
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...
molds. Plaster was selected because the molds are easy to make, can make precise parts with good surface finishes, and the plaster can be easily recycled afterward using an oven to bake the water back out. The robot would then cast most of the parts either from nonconductive molten rock (
basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
) or purified metals. A carbon dioxide
laser cutting
Laser cutting is a technology that uses a laser to vaporize materials, resulting in a cut edge. While typically used for industrial manufacturing applications, it is now used by schools, small businesses, architecture, and hobbyists. Laser cutt ...
and welding system was also included.
A more speculative, more complex microchip fabricator was specified to produce the computer and electronic systems, but the designers also said that it might prove practical to ship the chips from Earth as if they were "vitamins."
A 2004 study supported by NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts took this idea further. Some experts are beginning to consider self-replicating machines for
asteroid mining
Asteroid mining is the hypothetical exploitation of materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects.
Notable asteroid mining challenges include the high cost of spaceflight, unreliable identification of asteroids ...
.
Much of the design study was concerned with a simple, flexible chemical system for processing the ores, and the differences between the ratio of elements needed by the replicator, and the ratios available in lunar
regolith
Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestria ...
. The element that most limited the growth rate was
chlorine
Chlorine is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate betwee ...
, needed to process regolith for
aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...
. Chlorine is very rare in lunar regolith.
Lackner-Wendt Auxon replicators
In 1995, inspired by Dyson's 1970 suggestion of seeding uninhabited deserts on Earth with self-replicating machines for industrial development,
Klaus Lackner
Klaus S. Lackner is the Founding Director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions (CNCE) and a professor in School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University. He is scientific advisor to Carbon Collect ...
and Christopher Wendt developed a more detailed outline for such a system. They proposed a colony of cooperating mobile robots 10–30 cm in size running on a grid of electrified ceramic tracks around stationary manufacturing equipment and fields of solar cells. Their proposal didn't include a complete analysis of the system's material requirements, but described a novel method for extracting the ten most common chemical elements found in raw desert topsoil (Na, Fe, Mg, Si, Ca, Ti, Al, C, O
2 and H
2) using a high-temperature carbothermic process. This proposal was popularized in
''Discover'' magazine, featuring solar-powered desalination equipment used to irrigate the desert in which the system was based. They named their machines "Auxons", from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
word ''auxein'' which means "to grow".
Recent work
NIAC studies on self-replicating systems
In the spirit of the 1980 "Advanced Automation for Space Missions" study, the
NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts
The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is a NASA program for development of far reaching, long term advanced concepts by "creating breakthroughs, radically better or entirely new aerospace concepts". The program operated under the name ...
began several studies of self-replicating system design in 2002 and 2003. Four phase I grants were awarded:
*
Hod Lipson
Hod Lipson (born 1967) is an Israeli - American robotics engineer. He is the director of Columbia University's Creative Machines Lab. Lipson's work focuses on evolutionary robotics, design automation, rapid prototyping, artificial life, and creat ...
(
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
), "Autonomous Self-Extending Machines for Accelerating Space Exploration"
*
Gregory Chirikjian (
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
), "Architecture for Unmanned Self-Replicating Lunar Factories"
*
Paul Todd (Space Hardware Optimization Technology Inc.), "Robotic Lunar Ecopoiesis"
*
Tihamer Toth-Fejel (
General Dynamics
General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded, aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales, and 5th largest in the Uni ...
), "Modeling Kinematic Cellular Automata: An Approach to Self-Replication" The study concluded that complexity of the development was equal to that of a Pentium 4, and promoted a design based on cellular automata.
Bootstrapping self-replicating factories in space
In 2012, NASA researchers Metzger, Muscatello, Mueller, and Mantovani argued for a so-called "bootstrapping approach" to start self-replicating factories in space. They developed this concept on the basis of
In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) technologies that NASA has been developing to "live off the land" on the Moon or Mars. Their modeling showed that in just 20 to 40 years this industry could become self-sufficient then grow to large size, enabling greater exploration in space as well as providing benefits back to Earth. In 2014,
Thomas Kalil
Thomas Amadeus Kalil (born October 4, 1963) is an expert on technology and innovation policy, and is currently the Chief Innovation Officer at Schmidt Futures. He was previously Deputy Director for Policy in the White House Office of Science and Te ...
of the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy
An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...
published on the White House blog an interview with Metzger on bootstrapping solar system civilization through self-replicating space industry. Kalil requested the public submit ideas for how "the Administration, the private sector, philanthropists, the research community, and storytellers can further these goals." Kalil connected this concept to what former NASA Chief technologist
Mason Peck Mason Peck is an associate professor at Cornell University and former NASA Chief Technologist.} His immediate predecessor in the NASA position was Bobby Braun.
Peck has published in various aerospace sub-disciplines including; air-bearing spac ...
has dubbed "Massless Exploration", the ability to make everything in space so that you do not need to launch it from Earth. Peck has said, "...all the mass we need to explore the solar system is already in space. It's just in the wrong shape." In 2016, Metzger argued that fully self-replicating industry can be started over several decades by astronauts at a lunar outpost for a total cost (outpost plus starting the industry) of about a third of the space budgets of the
International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...
partner nations, and that this industry would solve Earth's energy and environmental problems in addition to providing massless exploration.
New York University artificial DNA tile motifs
In 2011, a team of scientists at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
created a structure called 'BTX' (bent triple helix) based around three double helix molecules, each made from a short strand of DNA. Treating each group of three double-helices as a code letter, they can (in principle) build up self-replicating structures that encode large quantities of information.
Self-replication of magnetic polymers
In 2001, Jarle Breivik at
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...
created a system of magnetic building blocks, which in response to temperature fluctuations, spontaneously form self-replicating polymers.
Self-replication of neural circuits
In 1968,
Zellig Harris
Zellig Sabbettai Harris (; October 23, 1909 – May 22, 1992) was an influential American linguist, mathematical syntactician, and methodologist of science. Originally a Semiticist, he is best known for his work in structural linguistics and dis ...
wrote that "the metalanguage is in the language," suggesting that self-replication is part of language. In 1977
Niklaus Wirth
Niklaus Emil Wirth (born 15 February 1934) is a Swiss computer scientist. He has designed several programming languages, including Pascal (programming language), Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he w ...
formalized this proposition by publishing a self-replicating
deterministic context-free grammar In formal grammar theory, the deterministic context-free grammars (DCFGs) are a proper subset of the context-free grammars. They are the subset of context-free grammars that can be derived from deterministic pushdown automata, and they generate the ...
. Adding to it probabilities,
Bertrand du Castel
Bertrand du Castel is a French-American author and scientist who won in 2005 the Visionary Award
from Card Technology Magazine for pioneering the Java Card, which by 2007 had sold more than 3.5 billion
units worldwide. In 2008, du Castel a ...
published in 2015 a self-replicating
stochastic grammar
Stochastic (, ) refers to the property of being well described by a random probability distribution. Although stochasticity and randomness are distinct in that the former refers to a modeling approach and the latter refers to phenomena themselv ...
and presented a mapping of that grammar to
neural networks
A neural network is a network or circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up of biological ...
, thereby presenting a
model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the Plan_(drawing), plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a mea ...
for a self-replicating neural circuit.
Harvard Wyss Institute
November 29, 2021 a team at Harvard Wyss Institute built the first living robots that can reproduce.
Self-replicating spacecraft
The idea of an automated spacecraft capable of constructing copies of itself was first proposed in scientific literature in 1974 by
Michael A. Arbib, but the concept had appeared earlier in
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
such as the 1967 novel ''
Berserker
In the Old Norse written corpus, berserker were those who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English word '' berserk'' (meaning "furiously violent or out of control"). Berserkers ...
'' by
Fred Saberhagen
Fred Thomas Saberhagen (May 18, 1930 – June 29, 2007) was an American science fiction and fantasy author most famous for his ''Berserker'' series of science fiction short stories and novels.
Saberhagen also wrote a series of vampire novels in ...
or the 1950 novellette trilogy ''
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
''The Voyage of the Space Beagle'' (1950) is a science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt. An example of space opera subgenre, the novel is a "fix-up" compilation of four previously published stories:
*"Black Destroyer" ...
'' by
A. E. van Vogt
Alfred Elton van Vogt ( ; April 26, 1912 – January 26, 2000) was a Canadian-born American science fiction author. His fragmented, bizarre narrative style influenced later science fiction writers, notably Philip K. Dick. He was one of the ...
. The first quantitative engineering analysis of a self-replicating spacecraft was published in 1980 by
Robert Freitas
Robert A. Freitas Jr. (born 1952) is an American nanotechnologist.
Career
In 1974, Freitas earned a bachelor's degree in both physics and psychology from Harvey Mudd College, and in 1978, he received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Santa Clara U ...
, in which the non-replicating
Project Daedalus
Project Daedalus (named after Daedalus, the Greek mythological designer who crafted wings for human flight) was a study conducted between 1973 and 1978 by the British Interplanetary Society to design a plausible uncrewed interstellar probe.Proj ...
design was modified to include all subsystems necessary for self-replication. The design's strategy was to use the probe to deliver a "seed" factory with a mass of about 443 tons to a distant site, have the seed factory replicate many copies of itself there to increase its total manufacturing capacity, and then use the resulting automated industrial complex to construct more probes with a single seed factory on board each.
Prospects for implementation
As the use of industrial automation has expanded over time, some factories have begun to approach a semblance of self-sufficiency that is suggestive of self-replicating machines. However, such factories are unlikely to achieve "full closure" until the cost and flexibility of automated machinery comes close to that of human labour and the manufacture of spare parts and other components locally becomes more economical than transporting them from elsewhere. As
Samuel Butler has pointed out in ''
Erewhon
''Erewhon: or, Over the Range'' () is a novel by English writer Samuel Butler, first published anonymously in 1872, set in a fictional country discovered and explored by the protagonist. The book is a satire on Victorian society.
The firs ...
'', replication of partially closed universal machine tool factories is already possible. Since safety is a primary goal of all legislative consideration of regulation of such development, future development efforts may be limited to systems which lack either control, matter, or energy closure. Fully capable machine replicators are most useful for developing resources in dangerous environments which are not easily reached by existing transportation systems (such as
outer space
Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...
).
An artificial replicator can be considered to be a form of
artificial life
Artificial life (often abbreviated ALife or A-Life) is a field of study wherein researchers examine systems related to natural life, its processes, and its evolution, through the use of simulations with computer models, robotics, and biochemistry ...
. Depending on its design, it might be subject to
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
over an extended period of time. However, with robust
error correction
In information theory and coding theory with applications in computer science and telecommunication, error detection and correction (EDAC) or error control are techniques that enable reliable delivery of digital data over unreliable communica ...
, and the possibility of external intervention, the common
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
scenario of robotic life run amok will remain extremely unlikely for the foreseeable future.
Other sources
* A number of patents have been granted for self-replicating machine concepts. "Self reproducing fundamental fabricating machines (F-Units)" Inventor: Collins; Charles M. (Burke, Va.) (August 1997), " Self reproducing fundamental fabricating machine system" Inventor: Collins; Charles M. (Burke, Va.)(June 1998); and Collins' PCT patent WO 96/20453: "Method and system for self-replicating manufacturing stations" Inventors: Merkle; Ralph C. (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Parker; Eric G. (Wylie, Tex.), Skidmore; George D. (Plano, Tex.) (January 2003).
*Macroscopic replicators are mentioned briefly in the fourth chapter of
K. Eric Drexler's 1986 book ''
Engines of Creation
''Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology'' is a 1986 molecular nanotechnology book written by K. Eric Drexler with a foreword by Marvin Minsky. An updated version was released in 2007. The book has been translated into Japanese, F ...
''.
* In 1995,
Nick Szabo
Nicholas Szabo is a computer scientist, legal scholar, and cryptographer known for his research in digital contracts and digital currency. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in computer science and received a Ju ...
proposed a challenge to build a macroscale replicator from
Lego
Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocking ...
robot kits and similar basic parts. Szabo wrote that this approach was easier than previous proposals for macroscale replicators, but successfully predicted that even this method would not lead to a macroscale replicator within ten years.
* In 2004,
Robert Freitas
Robert A. Freitas Jr. (born 1952) is an American nanotechnologist.
Career
In 1974, Freitas earned a bachelor's degree in both physics and psychology from Harvey Mudd College, and in 1978, he received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Santa Clara U ...
and
Ralph Merkle
Ralph C. Merkle (born February 2, 1952) is a computer scientist and mathematician. He is one of the inventors of public-key cryptography, the inventor of cryptographic hashing, and more recently a researcher and speaker on cryonics.
Contribution ...
published the first comprehensive review of the field of self-replication (from which much of the material in this article is derived, with permission of the authors), in their book ''
Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines'', which includes 3000+ literature references.
This book included a new molecular assembler design, a primer on the mathematics of replication, and the first comprehensive analysis of the entire replicator design space.
See also
*
Autopoiesis
The term autopoiesis () refers to a system capable of producing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts.
The term was introduced in the 1972 publication '' Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living'' by Chilean biologist ...
*
Grey goo scenario
*
Self-reconfiguring modular robot
Modular self-reconfiguring robotic systems or self-reconfigurable modular robots are autonomous kinematic machines with variable morphology. Beyond conventional actuation, sensing and control typically found in fixed-morphology robots, self-recon ...
*
AI takeover
An AI takeover is a hypothetical scenario in which an artificial intelligence (AI) becomes the dominant form of intelligence on Earth, as computer programs or robots effectively take the control of the planet away from the human species. Possible ...
*
3D printing
3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...
*
Computer virus
A computer virus is a type of computer program that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a compu ...
*
Computer worm
A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It wil ...
*
Ecophagy
Ecophagy is a term coined by Robert Freitas that means the literal consumption of an ecosystem. It derives from the Greek "οἶκος" (), which refers to a "house" or "household", and the Greek "φαγεῖν" (), "to eat".
Freitas used the te ...
*
Existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence
Existential risk from artificial general intelligence is the hypothesis that substantial progress in artificial general intelligence (AGI) could result in human extinction or some other unrecoverable global catastrophe. It is argued that the hum ...
*
Astrochicken
*
Lights out (manufacturing)
Lights-out manufacturing is a manufacturing methodology (or philosophy), not a specific process.
Factories that employ "lights-out manufacturing" are fully automated and require no human presence on-site. These factories are considered to be able ...
*
Nanorobotics
Nanoid robotics, or for short, nanorobotics or nanobotics, is an emerging technology field creating machines or robots whose components are at or near the scale of a nanometer (10−9 meters). More specifically, nanorobotics (as opposed to mic ...
*
Spiegelman's Monster
*
Self-replicating machines in fiction
A self-replicating machine is a type of autonomous robot that is capable of reproducing itself autonomously using raw materials found in the environment, thus exhibiting self-replication in a way analogous to that found in nature. Such machines are ...
*
Self-replicating spacecraft
The concept of Self-replicating spacecraft, as envisioned by mathematician John von Neumann, has been described by futurists including physicist Michio Kaku and discussed across a wide breadth of hard science fiction novels and stories. Self-rep ...
*
RepRap project
The RepRap project started in England in 2005 as a University of Bath initiative to develop a low-cost 3D printer that can print most of its own components, but it is now made up of hundreds of collaborators worldwide. RepRap is short for rep''lic ...
*
Self-reconfiguring and self-reproducing molecube robots
*
Quine
References
Further reading
*
* M. Sipper
Fifty years of research on self-replication: An overview Artificial Life, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 237–257, Summer 1998.
*
Freeman Dyson
Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was an English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum m ...
expanded upon Neumann's automata theories, and advanced a biotechnology-inspired theory. See
Astrochicken.
* The first technical design study of a self-replicating interstellar probe was published in
1980 paperby
Robert Freitas
Robert A. Freitas Jr. (born 1952) is an American nanotechnologist.
Career
In 1974, Freitas earned a bachelor's degree in both physics and psychology from Harvey Mudd College, and in 1978, he received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Santa Clara U ...
.
* Clanking replicators are also mentioned briefly in th
fourth chapterof
K. Eric Drexler
Kim Eric Drexler (born April 25, 1955) is an American engineer best known for studies of the potential of molecular nanotechnology (MNT), from the 1970s and 1980s. His 1991 doctoral thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was revised and ...
's 1986 book ''
Engines of Creation
''Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology'' is a 1986 molecular nanotechnology book written by K. Eric Drexler with a foreword by Marvin Minsky. An updated version was released in 2007. The book has been translated into Japanese, F ...
''.
* Article about a proposed clanking replicator system to be used for developing Earthly deserts in the October 1995
Discover Magazine
''Discover'' is an American general audience science magazine launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It has been owned by Kalmbach Publishing since 2010.
History
Founding
''Discover'' was created primarily through the efforts of ''Time'' mag ...
, featuring forests of solar panels that powered desalination equipment to irrigate the land.
* In 1995,
Nick Szabo
Nicholas Szabo is a computer scientist, legal scholar, and cryptographer known for his research in digital contracts and digital currency. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in computer science and received a Ju ...
br>
proposeda challenge to build a macroscale replicator from Lego(tm) robot kits and similar basic parts. Szabo wrote that this approach was easier than previous proposals for macroscale replicators, but successfully predicted that even this method would not lead to a macroscale replicator within ten years.
* In 1998,
Chris Phoenixbr>
suggesteda general idea for a macroscale replicator on the sci.nanotech
newsgroup
A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct ...
, operating in a pool of
ultraviolet
Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nanometer, nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 Hertz, PHz) to 400 nm (750 Hertz, THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than ...
-cured liquid
plastic
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...
, selectively solidifying the plastic to form solid parts. Computation could be done by
fluidic logic
Fluidics, or fluidic logic, is the use of a fluid to perform analog or digital operations similar to those performed with electronics.
The physical basis of fluidics is pneumatics and hydraulics, based on the theoretical foundation of fluid dyn ...
. Power for the process could be supplied by a pressurized source of the liquid.
* In 2001,
Peter Ward mentioned an escaped clanking replicator destroying the human race in his book ''
Future Evolution
''Future Evolution'' is a book written by paleontologist Peter Ward and illustrated by Alexis Rockman. He addresses his own opinion of future evolution and compares it with Dougal Dixon's '' After Man: A Zoology of the Future'' and H. G. Wells's ...
''.
* In 2004, General Dynamics completed
studyfor NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts. It concluded that complexity of the development was equal to that of a Pentium 4, and promoted a design based on cellular automata.
* In 2004, Robert Freitas and
Ralph Merkle
Ralph C. Merkle (born February 2, 1952) is a computer scientist and mathematician. He is one of the inventors of public-key cryptography, the inventor of cryptographic hashing, and more recently a researcher and speaker on cryonics.
Contribution ...
published the first comprehensive review of the field of self-replication, in their boo
Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines which includes 3000+ literature references.
* In 2005,
Adrian Bowyer
Adrian Bowyer is an English engineer and mathematician, formerly an academic at the University of Bath.
Born in 1952 in London, Bowyer is the older child of the late Rosemary and John Bowyer; the latter was a writer, painter and one of the fo ...
of the
University of Bath
(Virgil, Georgics II)
, mottoeng = Learn the culture proper to each after its kind
, established = 1886 (Merchant Venturers Technical College) 1960 (Bristol College of Science and Technology) 1966 (Bath University of Technology) 1971 (univ ...
started the
RepRap
The RepRap project started in England in 2005 as a University of Bath initiative to develop a low-cost 3D printer that can print most of its own components, but it is now made up of hundreds of collaborators worldwide. RepRap is short for rep''lic ...
project to develop a
rapid prototyping
Rapid prototyping is a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional computer aided design (CAD) data.
Construction of the part or assembly is usually done using 3D printin ...
machine that would be able to replicate itself, making such machines cheap enough for people to buy and use in their homes. The project is releasing material under the
GNU GPL
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...
* In 2015, advances in
graphene
Graphene () is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure. and
silicene
Silicene is a two-dimensional allotrope of silicon, with a hexagonal honeycomb structure similar to that of graphene. Contrary to graphene, silicene is not flat, but has a periodically buckled topology; the coupling between layers in silicene is ...
suggested that it could form the basis for a neural network with densities comparable to the human brain if integrated with
silicon carbide
Silicon carbide (SiC), also known as carborundum (), is a hard chemical compound containing silicon and carbon. A semiconductor, it occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite, but has been mass-produced as a powder and crystal sin ...
based nanoscale CPUs containing
memristors
A memristor (; a portmanteau of ''memory resistor'') is a non-linear two-terminal electrical component relating electric charge and magnetic flux linkage. It was described and named in 1971 by Leon Chua, completing a theoretical quartet of fu ...
.
The power source might be
solar or possibly
radioisotope
A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferr ...
based given that new liquid based compounds can generate substantial power from radioactive decay.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Self-Replicating Machine
Artificial life
Robotics concepts
Self-organization
Reproduction
Machines
Thought experiments