
Team Builds the First Living Robots - jonbaer
https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/team-builds-first-living-robots
======
mattxxx
Something about this is interesting:

    
    
      used an evolutionary algorithm to create thousands of candidate designs for the new life-forms
    

Basically, "find a way to combine living tissue together to exhibit this
behavior"... maybe the beginning of research into designing "meat compilers."
x_x

~~~
Hydraulix989
Essentially that’s how nature works, starting at the encoded amino acid level
and building itself up to increasingly complex structures and life forms.

------
1e-9
It seems they cut up frog embryos and stitched the pieces back together to
move in a certain way through involuntary muscle contractions. Maybe I'm being
shortsighted, but I have a hard time thinking of this as anything but a rather
nauseating bit of Frankensteinian experimentation.

~~~
colordrops
How far removed would this have to be from an embryo for you to no longer have
an emotional reaction? What if they only used proteins? Do you wear leather?

~~~
cmroanirgo
The article itself is claiming 'Living', which is to state that it is
something more than a simple protein chain reaction. However to conflate
what's been done here and compare it to wearing leather, just doesn't compute.
I don't think anyone would reasonably compare a leather jacket to a Hannibal
Lecter style 'skin suit'.

I think the parent post's comment is very astute, as the article mentions how
it's taking frog cells and passing electricity through them and calling it
alive. How is that not Frankensteinian? It's kind of the definition of it.

There is also the argument of making the assumption that there's an emotional
reaction...

Morals and ethics classes are taught in nearly all university degrees these
days to try and highlight the issues around this stuff, and I think it unfair
to bluntly force it into black and white. For some people it's a question of
how deep into the murky quagmire one goes, whereas for others "it's just
science" is completely sufficient. But, it's clear that the latter will never
have complete approval, nor will the former ever have its way entirely.

For me, I look at this experiment as such: Were any frogs killed in doing this
experiment? If so, how is the destruction of a life-form comparable to making
a laboratory made one? Do the two actually have the same 'life' in them?
Philosophically speaking, I'd say not, and as such I call this experimentation
a 'dark pattern' and should be avoided: no matter the perceived marketing
benefit.

~~~
s1artibartfast
I'm curious what part of the experiment you find objectionable and why.

Is it the destruction of a life-form? Is it the creation of a different life
form? Why does it matter if they are equivalent?

------
tudorw
Rare that a headline is so worthy, these are novel living things that are not
from nature. Quite an achievement, well done, I think, obviously terrifying
and disturbing too, what could possibly go wrong...

------
fl0under
Very interesting and exciting work. Michael Levin (one of the scientists in
this study) has some amazing things going on in his lab. There is a few talks
of him on YouTube, I have seen the following one from May this year

[https://youtu.be/4sFpJF0dp8Y](https://youtu.be/4sFpJF0dp8Y)

All sorts of work about setting the electrical potential between cells/parts
of the body to certain states to induce the desired growth. E.g. growing a eye
on the gut of a tadpoles.

------
carapace
Ah! The penny drops! Dr. Michael Levin hinted at these back in his amazing
talk: "What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Outside the Nervous
System" (youtube.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736698)

This is the _true_ Information Revolution: when we learn to "talk" to the
four-billion-year-old nanotech that the world and _we ourselves_ are made of.

------
tyscorp
Michael Levin gave a talk about the reprogramming tech used in this around a
year ago:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjD1aLm4Thg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjD1aLm4Thg)

------
blaeks
So, now I imagine a softy squishy and alive bed, breathing living room, and my
wires, computers, keyboards, all that old pre-VR hardware finally floating in
a living womb. Organic Internauting iz now.

~~~
potta_coffee
Reminiscent of Dune, which had living "chairdogs".

~~~
satori99
Or Red Dwarf (novel);

    
    
        The trend spread. GELFs, Genetically Engineered Life Forms, were everywhere,
        and soon virtually every consumer product was made of living tissue. Gelf 
        armchairs, which could sense your mood, and massage your shoulders when 
        you were feeling tense, became a part of everyday life. Gelf vacuum 
        cleaners, which were half kitchen appliance, half family pet, 
        waddled around on their squat little legs, doing the household chores and 
        amusing the children. [...]
    
        The rebellion started in the Austrian town of Salzburg, when a vacuum cleaner
        and Gelf Volkswagen Beetle robbed a high street bank. They took the manager
        and a security guard hostage, agreeing to release them only if Valter Holman
        was brought to justice for murder.
    
        Valter Holman had killed his armchair, and the whole of the Gelf community
        was up in arms, those that had arms, because the law courts refused to accept
        that a crime had been committed.

~~~
potta_coffee
Cool. My friend's mom was a huge Red Dwarf fan (tv show) but I didn't realize
there was a novel. I'll have to check it out.

------
jessaustin
One is reminded of the Primordials from _Twig_. In that crapsack world, they
were considered the most horrible things with which humanity could ever have
the misfortune to coexist. Maybe it will work out better IRL!

------
ohiovr
H.R. Giger would dig it.

------
29athrowaway
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo)

~~~
carapace
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_bacteriophage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_bacteriophage)

Blue goo.

------
shalasaska
So when can I expect to be able to order myself my very own Pikachu?

------
darepublic
Pretty incredible but could these be programmed to do harm?

~~~
carapace
Sure. There are already efforts to create "Daleks" from human brain organoids.

