IFLS: “Mother” Robot Builds Evolving Babies

The end is nigh: we have taught robots to create other robots, and not only that, but for each successive generation to be more efficient and effective than the last.

I am not the first to comment that teaching robots to not only build, but improve upon, themselves might not be the best idea. I seem to recall a line from I, Robot that also lamented this lack of foresight. The Stargate series also had robots called Replicators that could do this that frequently threatened to kill everything, everywhere.

But still, this is really cool. Maybe we can learn more about intelligent evolution and how to better design and breed things. And of course, it will save us time and energy if we can work alongside machines to the same end.

Providing it’s the same end, and they don’t decide we’re taking up too much space and resources and start a robot apocalypse.

But this is just a first step. The assembly-line “Mama” robot is given a few pieces and creates her “babies” with those pieces. Then “she” watches them walk down the table. “Better” babies are able to walk further, faster. After 10 generations of babies, there is a distinct improvement in their efficiency.

Meet the instrument of our demise:

What do you think, readers?