Self-replicating machine

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Self-replicating machines in fiction
)

A simple form of machine self-replication

A self-replicating machine is a type of

von Neumann probe[7] 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 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 and how it is separately translated and replicated in the cell.[8][9]

A self-replicating machine is an artificial

assemblers" that nanotechnology 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 that von Neumann proposed and so its use is discouraged where accuracy is important.[6] Von Neumann used the term universal constructor
to describe such self-replicating machines.

Historians of

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

Christina of Sweden 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."[12] Several other variations on this anecdotal response also exist. Samuel Butler proposed in his 1872 novel Erewhon that machines were already capable of reproducing themselves but it was man who made them do so,[13] and added that "machines which reproduce machinery do not reproduce machines after their own kind".[14] In George Eliot's 1879 book Impressions of Theophrastus Such, 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".[15]

In 1802

recursion theory in the 1930s.[19] 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.[20][21]

Von Neumann's kinematic model

A detailed conceptual proposal for a

cellular automata.[24] His original kinematic concept remained obscure until it was popularized in a 1955 issue of Scientific American.[25]

Von Neumann's goal for his

natural selection. He asked what is the threshold of complexity that must be crossed for machines to be able to evolve.[8] 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 and how it is separately translated and replicated in the cell.[8][9]

Moore's artificial living plants

In 1956 mathematician Edward F. Moore proposed the first known suggestion for a practical real-world self-replicating machine, also published in Scientific American.[26][27] 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 or a steam engine. 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

Enceladus, which in addition to producing copies of itself would also be programmed to manufacture and launch solar sail-propelled cargo spacecraft. These spacecraft would carry blocks of Enceladean ice to Mars, 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[30] and the "Astrochicken
."

Advanced Automation for Space Missions

An artist's conception of a "self-growing" robotic lunar factory

In 1980, inspired by a 1979 "New Directions Workshop" held at Wood's Hole,

ASEE entitled Advanced Automation for Space Missions to produce a detailed proposal for self-replicating factories to develop lunar resources without requiring additional launches or human workers on-site. The study was conducted at Santa Clara University and ran from June 23 to August 29, with the final report published in 1982.[31] 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

strip mining. Raw lunar regolith would be refined by a variety of techniques, primarily hydrofluoric acid leaching
. 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 robot" would use sculpting tools and templates to make plaster 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) or purified metals. A carbon dioxide laser cutting 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.[32] Some experts are beginning to consider self-replicating machines for asteroid mining.

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. The element that most limited the growth rate was chlorine, needed to process regolith for aluminium. 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 and Christopher Wendt developed a more detailed outline for such a system.[33][34][35] 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, O2 and H2) 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.[36] They named their machines "Auxons", from the Greek 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 began several studies of self-replicating system design in 2002 and 2003. Four phase I grants were awarded:

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.[43] 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 of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy published on the White House blog an interview with Metzger on bootstrapping solar system civilization through self-replicating space industry.[44] 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 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."[45] 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 partner nations, and that this industry would solve Earth's energy and environmental problems in addition to providing massless exploration.[46]

New York University artificial DNA tile motifs

In 2011, a team of scientists at New York University 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.[47][48]

Self-replication of magnetic polymers

In 2001, Jarle Breivik at University of Oslo created a system of magnetic building blocks, which in response to temperature fluctuations, spontaneously form self-replicating polymers.[49]

Self-replication of neural circuits

In 1968,

neural networks, thereby presenting a model for a self-replicating neural circuit.[52]

Harvard Wyss Institute

November 29, 2021 a team at Harvard Wyss Institute built the first living robots that can reproduce.[53]

Self-replicating spacecraft

Main article: Self-replicating spacecraft

The idea of an automated spacecraft capable of constructing copies of itself was first proposed in scientific literature in 1974 by

Berserker by Fred Saberhagen or the 1950 novellette trilogy The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A. E. van Vogt. The first quantitative engineering analysis of a self-replicating spacecraft was published in 1980 by Robert Freitas,[56] in which the non-replicating Project Daedalus
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.[57] However, such factories are unlikely to achieve "full closure"[58] 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, 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).

An artificial replicator can be considered to be a form of

error correction, and the possibility of external intervention, the common science fiction scenario of robotic life run amok will remain extremely unlikely for the foreseeable future.[60]

In fiction

Authors who have used self-replicating machine in works of fiction include:

Arthur C Clarke,[2] Karel Čapek: (R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots (1920)),[2][1] John Sladek (The Reproductive System),[2], Samuel Butler (Erewhon),[2] and E. M. Forster (The Machine Stops (1909)).[1]

Other sources

  • A number of patents have been granted for self-replicating machine concepts.[61] U.S. patent 5,659,477 "Self reproducing fundamental fabricating machines (F-Units)" Inventor: Collins; Charles M. (Burke, Va.) (August 1997), U.S. patent 5,764,518 " Self reproducing fundamental fabricating machine system" Inventor: Collins; Charles M. (Burke, Va.)(June 1998); and Collins' PCT patent WO 96/20453:[62] "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.[10]
  • In 1995, Nick Szabo proposed a challenge to build a macroscale replicator from Lego robot kits and similar basic parts.[63] 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 and Ralph Merkle 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.[6] This book included a new molecular assembler design,[64] a primer on the mathematics of replication,[65] and the first comprehensive analysis of the entire replicator design space.[66]

See also

References

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Further reading

  • ISBN 978-0-917914-86-7). Foreword by Ralph Flanders
    .
  • M. Sipper, Fifty years of research on self-replication: An overview, Artificial Life, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 237–257, Summer 1998.
  • Freeman Dyson 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 a 1980 paper by Robert Freitas.
  • Clanking replicators are also mentioned briefly in the fourth chapter of K. Eric Drexler's 1986 book Engines of Creation.
  • Article about a proposed clanking replicator system to be used for developing Earthly deserts in the October 1995
    Discover Magazine
    , featuring forests of solar panels that powered desalination equipment to irrigate the land.
  • In 1995, Nick Szabo proposed a 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,
    fluidic logic
    . 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.
  • In 2004, General Dynamics completed a study for 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 published the first comprehensive review of the field of self-replication, in their book Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines, which includes 3000+ literature references.
  • In 2005,
    GNU GPL. [1]
  • In 2015, advances in
    memristors
    .

The power source might be

radioisotope
based given that new liquid based compounds can generate substantial power from radioactive decay.

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