Wikipedia

Self-replicating machine

Aself-replicating machineis a type ofautonomous robotthat is capable of reproducing itself autonomously using raw materials found in the environment, thus exhibitingself-replicationin a way analogous to that found innature.[1][2][3]The concept of self-replicating machines has been advanced and examined byHomer Jacobson,Edward F. Moore,Freeman Dyson,John von Neumann,Konrad Zuse[4][5]and in more recent times byK. Eric Drexlerin his book onnanotechnology,Engines of Creation(coining the termclanking replicatorfor such machines) and byRobert FreitasandRalph Merklein their reviewKinematic Self-Replicating Machines[6]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 ofmoonsandasteroidbelts for ore and other materials, the creation of lunar factories, and even the construction ofsolar power satellitesin space. Thevon Neumann probe[7]is one theoretical example of such a machine. Von Neumann also worked on what he called theuniversal constructor,a self-replicating machine that would be able to evolve and which he formalized in acellular automataenvironment. Notably,Von Neumann's Self-Reproducing Automata schemeposited 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 byWatsonandCrickand how it is separately translated and replicated in the cell.[8][9]

A simple form of machine self-replication

A self-replicating machine is an artificialself-replicatingsystem that relies on conventional large-scale technology and automation. The concept, first proposed by Von Neumann no later than the 1940s, has attracted a range of different approaches involving various types of technology. Certain idiosyncratic terms are occasionally found in the literature. For example, the term clanking replicator was once used by Drexler[10]to distinguish macroscale replicating systems from the microscopicnanorobotsor "assemblers"thatnanotechnologymay 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 unrelatedcomputer architecturethat von Neumann proposed and so its use is discouraged where accuracy is important.[6]Von Neumann used the termuniversal constructorto describe such self-replicating machines.

Historians ofmachine tools,even before thenumerical controlera, sometimes figuratively said that machine tools were a unique class of machines because they have the ability to "reproduce themselves"[11]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 forRepRaps,which are another class of machines sometimes mentioned in reference to such non-autonomous "self-replication". Such discussions refer to collections of machine tools, and such collections have an ability to reproduce their own parts which is finite and low for one machine, and ascends to nearly 100% with collections of only about a dozen similarly made, but uniquely functioning machines, establishing what authors Frietas and Merkle refer to as matter or material closure. Energy closure is the next most difficult dimension to close, and control the most difficult, noting that there are no other dimensions to the problem. In contrast, machines that aretruly autonomouslyself-replicating (likebiological machines) are the main subject discussed here, and would have closure in each of the three dimensions.

History

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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 philosopherRené Descartes,who suggested to QueenChristina of Swedenthat 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 Butlerproposed in his 1872 novelErewhonthat 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]InGeorge Eliot's1879 bookImpressions 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 1802William Paleyformulated the first knownteleological argumentdepicting machines producing other machines,[16]suggesting that thequestion of who originally made a watchwas rendered moot if it were demonstrated that the watch was able to manufacture a copy of itself.[17]Scientific study of self-reproducing machines was anticipated byJohn Bernalas early as 1929[18]and by mathematicians such asStephen Kleenewho began developingrecursion theoryin 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 byLionel Penrose.[20][21]

Von Neumann's kinematic model

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A detailed conceptual proposal for aself-replicating machinewas first put forward by mathematicianJohn von Neumannin lectures delivered in 1948 and 1949, when he proposed akinematicmodel ofself-reproducing automataas athought experiment.[22][23]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 instructed it to retrieve parts from this "sea" using a manipulator, assemble them into a copy of itself, and then transfer the contents of its memory tape into the new duplicate. The machine was envisioned as consisting of as few as eight different types of components: four logic elements for sending and receiving stimuli and four mechanical elements for providing structural support and mobility. Although qualitatively sound, von Neumann was evidently dissatisfied with this self-replicating machine model due to the difficulty of analyzing it with mathematical precision. He went on to instead develop an even more abstract model self-replicator based oncellular automata.[24]His original kinematic concept remained obscure until it was popularized in a 1955 issue ofScientific American.[25]

Von Neumann's goal for hisself-reproducing automata theory,as specified in his lectures at the University of Illinois in 1949,[22]was to design a machine whose complexity could grow automatically akin to biological organisms undernatural selection.He asked what is thethreshold of complexitythat 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 byWatsonandCrickand how it is separately translated and replicated in the cell.[8][9]

Moore's artificial living plants

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In 1956 mathematicianEdward F. Mooreproposed the first known suggestion for a practical real-world self-replicating machine, also published inScientific 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 asolar batteryor asteam 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

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The next major development of the concept of self-replicating machines was a series of thought experiments proposed by physicistFreeman Dysonin his 1970 Vanuxem Lecture.[28][29]He proposed three large-scale applications of machine replicators. First was to send a self-replicating system toSaturn's moonEnceladus,which in addition to producing copies of itself would also be programmed to manufacture and launchsolar sail-propelled cargo spacecraft. These spacecraft would carry blocks of Enceladean ice toMars,where they would be used toterraform 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

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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,NASAconducted a joint summer study withASEEentitledAdvanced Automation for Space Missionsto produce a detailed proposal for self-replicating factories to developlunarresources without requiring additional launches or human workers on-site. The study was conducted atSanta Clara Universityand ran from June 23 to August 29, with the final report published in 1982.[31]The proposed system would have been capable ofexponentially increasingproductive 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 lunarregolithto melt and sinter it into a hard surface suitable for building on, and robotic front-end loaders forstrip mining.Raw lunar regolith would be refined by a variety of techniques, primarilyhydrofluoric acidleaching.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 "castingrobot"would use sculpting tools and templates to makeplastermolds.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 dioxidelaser cuttingand 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 forasteroid 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 lunarregolith.The element that most limited the growth rate waschlorine,needed to process regolith foraluminium.Chlorine is very rare in lunar regolith.

Lackner-Wendt Auxon replicators

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In 1995, inspired by Dyson's 1970 suggestion of seeding uninhabited deserts on Earth with self-replicating machines for industrial development,Klaus Lacknerand 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, O2and H2) using a high-temperature carbothermic process. This proposal was popularized inDiscovermagazine,featuring solar-powered desalination equipment used to irrigate the desert in which the system was based.[36]They named their machines "Auxons", from theGreekwordauxeinwhich means "to grow".

Recent work

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NIAC studies on self-replicating systems

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In the spirit of the 1980 "Advanced Automation for Space Missions" study, theNASA Institute for Advanced Conceptsbegan several studies of self-replicating system design in 2002 and 2003. Four phase I grants were awarded:

Bootstrapping self-replicating factories in space

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In 2012, NASA researchersMetzger,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 ofIn 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 Kalilof the White HouseOffice of Science and Technology Policypublished 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 technologistMason Peckhas 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 theInternational Space Stationpartner 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

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In 2011, a team of scientists atNew York Universitycreated 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

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

Self-replication of neural circuits

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In 1968,Zellig Harriswrote that "the metalanguage is in the language,"[50]suggesting that self-replication is part of language. In 1977Niklaus Wirthformalized this proposition by publishing a self-replicatingdeterministic context-free grammar.[51]Adding to it probabilities,Bertrand du Castelpublished in 2015 a self-replicatingstochastic grammarand presented a mapping of that grammar toneural networks,thereby presenting amodelfor a self-replicating neural circuit.[52]

Harvard Wyss Institute

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

Self-replicating spacecraft

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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 byMichael A. Arbib,[54][55]but the concept had appeared earlier inscience fictionsuch as the 1967 novelBerserkerbyFred Saberhagenor the 1950 novellette trilogyThe Voyage of the Space BeaglebyA. E. van Vogt.The first quantitative engineering analysis of a self-replicating spacecraft was published in 1980 byRobert Freitas,[56]in which the non-replicatingProject Daedalusdesign 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

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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. AsSamuel Butlerhas pointed out inErewhon,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 asouter space).

An artificial replicator can be considered to be a form ofartificial life.Depending on its design, it might be subject toevolutionover an extended period of time.[59]However, with robusterror correction,and the possibility of external intervention, the commonscience fictionscenario of robotic life run amok will remain extremely unlikely for the foreseeable future.[60]

In fiction

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Authors who have used self-replicating machine in works of fiction include:Phillip K Dick,[2]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],Dennis E. Taylor[61]andE. M. Forster(The Machine Stops(1909)).[1]

Other sources

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  • A number of patents have been granted for self-replicating machine concepts.[62]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:[63]"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 ofK. Eric Drexler's1986 bookEngines of Creation.[10]
  • In 1995,Nick Szaboproposed a challenge to build a macroscale replicator fromLegorobot kits and similar basic parts.[64]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 FreitasandRalph Merklepublished 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 bookKinematic Self-Replicating Machines,which includes 3000+ literature references.[6]This book included a new molecular assembler design,[65]a primer on the mathematics of replication,[66]and the first comprehensive analysis of the entire replicator design space.[67]

See also

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References

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  64. ^Szabo, Nick."Macroscale Replicator".Archived fromthe originalon 2006-03-07.Retrieved2007-03-07.
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Further reading

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  • Colvin, Fred H.(1947),Sixty Years with Men and Machines,New York and London: McGraw-Hill,LCCN47003762.Available as a reprint from Lindsay Publications (ISBN978-0-917914-86-7). Foreword byRalph Flanders.
  • M. Sipper,Fifty years of research on self-replication: An overview,Artificial Life, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 237–257, Summer 1998.
  • Freeman Dysonexpanded upon Neumann's automata theories, and advanced a biotechnology-inspired theory. SeeAstrochicken.
  • The first technical design study of a self-replicating interstellar probe was published in a1980 paperbyRobert Freitas.
  • Clanking replicators are also mentioned briefly in thefourth chapterofK. Eric Drexler's 1986 bookEngines of Creation.
  • Article about a proposed clanking replicator system to be used for developing Earthly deserts in the October 1995Discover Magazine,featuring forests of solar panels that powered desalination equipment to irrigate the land.
  • In 1995,Nick Szaboproposeda 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 Phoenixsuggesteda general idea for a macroscale replicator on the sci.nanotechnewsgroup,operating in a pool ofultraviolet-cured liquidplastic,selectively solidifying the plastic to form solid parts. Computation could be done byfluidic logic.Power for the process could be supplied by a pressurized source of the liquid.
  • In 2001,Peter Wardmentioned an escaped clanking replicator destroying the human race in his bookFuture Evolution.
  • In 2004, General Dynamics completed astudyfor 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 andRalph Merklepublished the first comprehensive review of the field of self-replication, in their bookKinematic Self-Replicating Machines,which includes 3000+ literature references.
  • In 2005,Adrian Bowyerof theUniversity of Bathstarted theRepRapproject to develop arapid prototypingmachine 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 theGNU GPL.[1]
  • In 2015, advances ingrapheneandsilicenesuggested that it could form the basis for a neural network with densities comparable to the human brain if integrated withsilicon carbidebased nanoscale CPUs containingmemristors.

The power source might besolaror possiblyradioisotopebased given that new liquid based compounds can generate substantial power from radioactive decay.

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