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[TheOMan]

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Forgive me if old - I did a search and didn't see anything on this:

LONDON (Reuters) - Self-replicating robots are no longer the stuff of science fiction.

Scientists at the Cornell University in Ithaca, New York have created small robots that can build copies of themselves.

Each robot consists of several 10-cm (4 inch) cubes which have identical machinery, electromagnets to attach and detach to each other and a computer program for replication. The robots can bend and pick up and stack the cubes.

"Although the machines we have created are still simple compared with biological self-reproduction, they demonstrate that mechanical self-reproduction is possible and not unique to biology," Hod Lipson said in a report in the science journal Nature on Wednesday.

He and his team believe the design principle could be used to make long term, self-repairing robots that could mend themselves and be used in hazardous situations and on space flights.

The experimental robots, which don't do anything else except make copies of themselves, are powered through contacts on the surface of the table and transfer data through their faces. They self-replicate by using additional modules placed in special "feeding locations."

The machines duplicate themselves by bending over and putting their top cube on the table. Then they bend again, pick up another cube, put it on top of the first and repeat the entire process. As the new robot begins to take shape it helps to build itself.

"The four-module robot was able to construct a replica in 2.5 minutes by lifting and assembling cubes from the feeding locations," said Lipson.

While the robots seem rather simplistic this is pretty cool. However, do these scientists not watch movies? We all know where this is heading. Cue Matrix, Terminator and I, Robot worst case scenarios.

 

[miyuru]

That's hot.

 

[Manics]

 

[TheOMan]

What? So few of us sense the impending doom?

You know what these things remind me of? The replicators from Stargate SG-1!

It's just a matter of time now.

 

[MrPing1000]

only a matter of time b4 the planet is a grey mass of goo

 

[ronito]

If I was a robotic engineer my first project would be to build a robot that would walk up to everyone and ask where Sarah Connor was.

 

[Zaptruder]

Call me when computers start designing robots without human input.

 

[UltraMarioMan]

You know what these things remind me of? The replicators from Stargate SG-1!

It's just a matter of time now.

Someone call Richard Dean Anderson!

 

[DarthWoo]

Call me when computers start designing robots without human input.

Didn't they have some program a couple years ago that could assist in the design of circuit-boards and stuff, and it frequently came up with much more efficient and effective designs on its own?

 

[Hitokage]

Didn't they have some program a couple years ago that could assist in the design of circuit-boards and stuff, and it frequently came up with much more efficient and effective designs on its own?

Genetic algorithms, or in other words, evolution simulators. The types of designs produced are a lot like what we find in biology, highly geared toward a specific task while not easily understandable and complete with vestigial parts... highly unlike designs produced manually, or as some would say, intelligently.

 

[BojTrek]

and Data will try to send one down the tunnel but it will break its own flight system. Picard will order Data to make sure that the robots are not sentient... at that point the scientist will force the robot to go in the tunnel...

All the robots will attack and control Data... who will think of some sort of way to save Picard and Geordi on the planet...