If these things were truly possible on Earth, chances are life-forms based on it would have evolved.
For mostly-self-sufficient organisms in earth's environment, the versatility of carbon appears to outperform silicon on every metric that counts.
The molecular complexity of a single human lung cell still absolutely dwarfs that of even the most modern CPUs we are able to manufacture (apple to oranges, but true).
The evolution of our species was based on the carbon lifecycle. Yet the machines we produce are not evolving in a similar manner at all, just the ability to redraw everything from scratch is a luxury that evolution cannot make use of.
To reiterate, The belief that evolving machines have to match the kind of evolution we're subjected to is illogical. Machines wouldn't be there without us and we wouldn't have what we have now without evolving our machines.
It may be that life forms would have evolved it, but it could be us evolving to be able to create it, like spiders "inventing" their high-tension silk.
They are not talking about developing a life based on silicon but about robots that can repair or improve themselves.
But also don't forget that evolution is not determinist : although you are probably right that silicon based life cannot exist, it's not because it doesn't exist that it is impossible
> The molecular complexity of a single human lung cell still absolutely dwarfs that of even the most modern CPUs we are able to manufacture (apple to oranges, but true).
What are you even measuring with complexity there? We don't go out of our way to make CPUs more complex, either chemically or in terms of circuits, their complexity is just what results from what we want them to do. What we want them to do isn't (yet) "reproduce" or "eat", unless you count the entire larger industrial ecosystem of which they are vital element as well as being a byproduct, as even this paper is in the hypothetical.
Looking at the abstract and skimming the rest, it is suggesting something involving a much bigger system than a silicon chip, but it's still more akin to how a virus hijacks the molecular processes of the actual factory (i.e. the cell it infects), or primates using bones as tools if you prefer a macro-scale analogy.
> First, robot metabolism cannot rely on active physical support from any external system to accomplish its growth; the robot must grow using only its own abilities.
Not only this is extremely restrictive, but it is in contradiction with the second point
> Second, the only external provision to robot metabolism is energy and material in the form of robots or robot parts.
As far as I can tell, neither is the case. The modules are all controlled wirelessly from an outside system, so the individual moving parts have no separate identity.
Just thinking aloud: I've been in this industry for what will be going on 20 years now (startup/tech/venture funded stuff) - my observation is that things have become incredibly abstract over the past 15 years - people are very abstracted away from what they are really doing...in that, the capital is increasingly abstracted far far away from capital providers, capital allocators are increasingly abstracted away from the outcomes of the capital they allocate, and capital deployers are increasingly abstracted away from society at large. I do occasionally still run into people who I think "this is a fully formed sensible thoughtful responsible human" - but it's incredibly few and far between - I think the reason is primarily how decoupled everything in the system has become from it's upstream and downstream effects. The other consequence of this is that the competitive nature of market dynamics shift, things become hyper competitive because the unknowns become deeper. The inevitable geometry of large, scaled systems.
Powerful self assembling machines controlled by artificial intelligence more capable than the average human, not your flavor of the month then I guess?
More seriously, are there public examples where inventors/technologists have ever actually said "we could do this but we won't"?
Common excuse for this kind of behavior is "evil people will do it regardless, so the only option for us is do it too to be prepared for when evil people use it for evil purposes".
Readit News
For mostly-self-sufficient organisms in earth's environment, the versatility of carbon appears to outperform silicon on every metric that counts.
The molecular complexity of a single human lung cell still absolutely dwarfs that of even the most modern CPUs we are able to manufacture (apple to oranges, but true).
To reiterate, The belief that evolving machines have to match the kind of evolution we're subjected to is illogical. Machines wouldn't be there without us and we wouldn't have what we have now without evolving our machines.
We're just way more capable of high complexity.
But also don't forget that evolution is not determinist : although you are probably right that silicon based life cannot exist, it's not because it doesn't exist that it is impossible
What are you even measuring with complexity there? We don't go out of our way to make CPUs more complex, either chemically or in terms of circuits, their complexity is just what results from what we want them to do. What we want them to do isn't (yet) "reproduce" or "eat", unless you count the entire larger industrial ecosystem of which they are vital element as well as being a byproduct, as even this paper is in the hypothetical.
Looking at the abstract and skimming the rest, it is suggesting something involving a much bigger system than a silicon chip, but it's still more akin to how a virus hijacks the molecular processes of the actual factory (i.e. the cell it infects), or primates using bones as tools if you prefer a macro-scale analogy.
Not only this is extremely restrictive, but it is in contradiction with the second point
> Second, the only external provision to robot metabolism is energy and material in the form of robots or robot parts.
(One of my favorite Sci-Fi Young Adult series I read growing up)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Engines
tl;dr = Post apocalypse, cities are giant mobile machines that eat and integrate smaller cities to survive
Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus »
A recent "popular culture" reference to the scenario mentioned in the article is the video game, "Horizon: Zero Dawn."
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More seriously, are there public examples where inventors/technologists have ever actually said "we could do this but we won't"?