[Exclusive] Inside MIT's Self-Replicating Objects | The Creators Project
""We've been thinking about self-replication for a long time," Tibbit says."There's been quite a lot of progress in robotic replication, but it never seemed as elegant as the first time I had seen it."
With less elegant visions of replicating machines in mind, some aren't sure they feel safe with this area of exploration. "The question that a lot of people have is, 'What if it goes out of control? What if you have self-replicating things that take over the world?'" Tibbits says. Combined with AI research at Google, University of Auckland, Harvard, and more, the possibility of a Terminator T-1000 on the loose doesn't seem so far fetched. "We're pretty far from that," Tibbits answers calmly. Whew. "In this case, for example, you have control because you give it food. We're specifically adding food at every step in order to help it keep growing."
Now, the Self-Assembly Lab is working on scaling Self-Replicating Spheres into the hundreds, or even thousands, to see if their magnetic orbs will turn into more complex beings, or just reproduce like rabbits once they've got enough food. But in the long term, Tibbits is already thinking of possible applications. "If you have a system that can control its own growth or performance, or is able to divide itself into two separate parts after a certain amount of time, or understand where an equalibrium is, that's quite an interesting priciple to embed into the everyday world.""
"Pretty far from that." Not "that's impossible and nothing to worry about."
