MATTER Magazine: Scientists Create Living Robots
Imagine the day when humans will have mastered their environment so much that they have the power to create their own new life forms—programmable creatures able to fulfill their every command. Sounds like science fiction, right? Well, that time is now.
In the opening days of this year, researchers from Tufts, Vermont and Harvard Universities finally had success in doing so. The university scientists created the world’s first living robots.
While said “commands” only involved crawling in circles, this experiment brought together the worlds of both complex algorithms and microbiology. These rudimentary programmed organisms, named “Xenobots” by the researchers, were constructed out of frog stem cells, using complex evolutionary algorithms allowing them to perform pre-set tasks.
To do this, the researchers took heart stem cells (which repeatedly contract) and skin stem cells (which do not move), creating a computer program that simulated thousands of possible structures and combinations of the two types. In doing so, they found what design completed a set task (e.g. moving in a circle) most efficiently. The researchers could then plug in the task they wanted the organism to perform, and the computer would tell them which arrangement of skin and heart cells would form the organism that would best complete the task. Then, using microscopes and tiny tools, the scientists painstakingly pieced together the cells like a complex Lego set.
Once the “Xenobot” was complete, the contractions of the heart cells “schooched” the organism forward along the pre-programmed path set by the scientists. While the Xenobots were very good at following their programmed orders, they were certainly imperfect and prone to erratic movement.
The Xenobots could only survive for a few days before dying and decomposing without support systems such as lungs or circulation. However, since cells stick together, the Xenobots self-repaired after damage. The researchers proved this by cutting them apart with a microscalpel and watching the cells bind back together.
The creation of these living robots opens the door to a whole world of potential applications and technologies. These applications range from medicine to environmental science, as well as the field of nanotechnology as a whole. While other nanobots designed to say, destroy tumors or deliver drugs, are made of toxic, synthetic materials that do not decompose and would be attacked by the body, living robots could be made of a patient’s own stem cells, so they can avoid detection by the immune system and decompose once they have fulfilled their specific task.
Living robots may also be a solution to the massive problem of microplastics taking over the waterways of the world. They can naturally decompose, while other synthetic, microplastic collecting robots become waste themselves over time. Also, these organisms could be designed as complexly as the evolutionary algorithms could process, even being able to solve problems with rudimentary cognition that would be hard to replicate in a synthetic, battery-powered robot. Because of this, however, a whole new realm of ethical questions and possible liabilities needs to be considered.
While these “Xenobots” are just wriggling piles of cells today, what about the day when these creatures become complex enough to feel pain or even become self-aware? At what point will they deserve rights, too? Another area that will need to be considered is when the organisms could be programmed with the ability to self-replicate, crossing another important barrier for a species: reproduction. This emerging technology will definitely keep bioethicists busy exploring these important questions.
While these little Frankenstein-ish creatures could one day help cure cancer and clean up the world’s oceans, at what point have we gone too far, creating life with a sole programmed purpose to fulfill until it dies? No matter what your ethical standpoint on these “Xenobots” may be, this new technological frontier of living robots will certainly be something to watch over the coming years and decades.
To learn more about the discovery of the “Xenobots”, visit:
https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/team-builds-first-living-robots https://www.pnas.org/content/117/4/1853 https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a30514544/xenobot-programmable-organ ism/ https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/us/living-robot-stem-cells-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html