DARPA Funded Research Helps Team of Scientists Create Xenobots – World’s First AI-Designed, Self-Replicating Living Robots

Can scientists please stop playing God and wrecking things for humanity?

The world has suffered enough from barbaric gain-of-function research that aimed to genetically modify animal viruses to make them more transmissible to humans.

Another field of research I wish egocentric scientists would stop pursuing is artificial intelligence.

Pushing artificial intelligence to the extreme should scare the daylights out of any rational human being.

Just read the definition of artificial intelligence definition on IBM:

Artificial intelligence leverages computers and machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind.

Call me crazy, but I don’t want to give machines decision-making and problem-solving capabilities.

The thought of giving computer-controlled robots human intellectual characteristics, such as reasoning and discernment, doesn’t sound like a smart idea.

As scientists continue to push boundaries, images of sci-fi movies like Terminator and I, Robot come to mind.

Imagine if the machines from those movies had the capability of self-replicating.

That would strike catastrophe for humanity.

Yet, a team of researchers from the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have created the world’s first living, AI-designed robots that can self-replicate.

Say hello to Xenobots:

https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1465429316062351361

The world's first living robots, known as xenobots, can now reproduce — and in a way not seen in plants and animals, scientists say https://t.co/1IwKjZJS2W

— CNN (@CNN) November 29, 2021

Xenobots that self-replicate created by scientistshttps://t.co/ClWJp0tsO9 pic.twitter.com/MR0aaKSTKK

— GKLA-Scientific (@GklaSci) November 30, 2021

Scientists at #UVM, @TuftsUniversity and @wyssinstitute teamed up to create the world’s first self-reproducing living machines.

Say hello to the next generation of #Xenobots

More #UVMresearch: https://t.co/mXQQrMTNhG pic.twitter.com/zVhjJlirib

— University of Vermont (@uvmvermont) November 29, 2021

Scientists made tiny xenobots out of frog cells. Now they say those robots can reproduce. – USA TODAY: Scientists made tiny xenobots out of frog cells. Now they say those robots can reproduce.  USA TODAY https://t.co/YM0UqiIwh8 #AI #artificialintelligence #Finperform pic.twitter.com/MIkzgKbeQZ

— Suriya Subramanian (@SuriyaSubraman) November 30, 2021

Xenobots. No practical applications as of yet but expect this to become an important development in medicine and bio manufacturing. https://t.co/uagTAynbB7

— Wesley Clark (@WesClarkjr) November 29, 2021

"World's first living robots can now reproduce"
I'd like to have a word with the genius that thought using these frogs' stem cells in their xenobots was a good idea. Look at those MURDER CLAWS. Have they not seen Jurassic Park or read Isaac Asimov?https://t.co/sPiiyJqhKU pic.twitter.com/JSiGsp17Rl

— Justin Brower 🌻☠️🌻 (@NaturesPoisons) November 30, 2021

'What could possibly go wrong?': Apparently, scientists have created living robots called 'xenobots' that can reproduce https://t.co/XhSMI2EQ8p

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 30, 2021

Wyss Institute describes the technology:

To persist, life must reproduce. Over billions of years, organisms have evolved many ways of replicating, from budding plants to sexual animals to invading viruses.

Now scientists at the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have discovered an entirely new form of biological reproduction—and applied their discovery to create the first-ever, self-replicating living robots.

The same team that built the first living robots (“Xenobots,” assembled from frog cells—reported in 2020) has discovered that these computer-designed and hand-assembled organisms can swim out into their tiny dish, find single cells, gather hundreds of them together, and assemble “baby” Xenobots inside their Pac-Man-shaped “mouth”—that, a few days later, become new Xenobots that look and move just like themselves.

And then these new Xenobots can go out, find cells, and build copies of themselves. Again and again.

“With the right design—they will spontaneously self-replicate,” says Joshua Bongard, Ph.D., a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research.

The results of the new research were published November 29, 2021, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The University of Vermont uploaded this video to introduce the self-replicating living robots:

“What else is out there?”

Honestly, I’d rather not find out.

The Times noted potential uses of the technology:

“This work is the realisation of a dream of scientists and science fiction authors since the 1940s: self-replicating machines,” Professor Joshua Bongard, of the University of Vermont, one of the project’s leaders, said.

He hopes that similar xenobots could one day be used in medicine, possibly to repair damaged tissue. Each “bot” is formed of frog cells. To reproduce it must be placed in a Petri dish filled with more individual cells.

“The cells on the xenobot’s surface grow small hairs called cilia that act like flexible oars, propelling the bot through water,” Bongard said. “If individual cells are sprinkled in a Petri dish alongside a swarm of parent xenobots, the swarm will push the cells into piles, like tiny bulldozers.”

Another gigantic red flag for this research is the source of its funding.

CNN noted:

The research was partially funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a federal agency that oversees the development of technology for military use.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) develops emerging technologies for military use.

From Wikipedia:

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.^[3][4]

Originally known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the agency was created on February 7, 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in response to the Soviet launching of Sputnik 1 in 1957. By collaborating with academia, industry, and government partners, DARPA formulates and executes research and development projects to expand the frontiers of technology and science, often beyond immediate U.S. military requirements.^[5]

The Economist has called DARPA the agency “that shaped the modern world,” and pointed out that “Moderna’s covid-19 vaccine sits alongside weather satellites, GPS, drones, stealth technology, voice interfaces, the personal computer and the internet on the list of innovations for which DARPA can claim at least partial credit.”^[6] Its track record of success has inspired governments around the world to launch similar research and development agencies.^[6]

As noted in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

We thank the Vermont Advanced Computing Core for providing high-performance computing resources. This research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under Cooperative Agreement No. HR0011-180200022, the Allen Discovery Program through The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group (12171), the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Vermont, the Vice Provost for Research at Tufts University, and Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University.

Anti Media briefly notes the inner workings of DARPA in the military-industrial complex:

In many ways, DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) is the engine of the military-industrial complex, the heart at the center of the Pentagon that keeps America in constant state of weapons innovation and defense spending. Even before the attacks of September 11, 2001, DARPA kept defense contractors lining their pockets; in our post 9/11 surveillance state, DARPA sits at the nexus of corporate war profits, national security, and military innovation.

Cloaked in clandestine secrecy, DARPA has been called the “Oh God Why” branch of the Department of Defense. In the fiscal year of 2015, their requested budget was $2.91 billion, which doesn’t include classified and black budgets. Even still, through Freedom of Information Act requests and intrepid journalism, some of the historical truths and future plans of this nebulous government agency have come to light in recent years.

cont.

1. Hunter-killer robots, guided by advanced artificial intelligence, will wage the wars of the future.

Despite the grand mystery of exactly what DARPA is currently working on, which of course is deeply classified, there have been relatively unambiguous signals that it involves artificial intelligence and the outsourcing of military operations to machines. The future of war will see the rise of unmanned autonomous drones, referred to as hunter-killer robots.

In 2011, the Defense Department released a document entitled “Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap,” which laid out a cursory overview of the next couple decades. It unequivocally states there will be fully self-governing autonomous machines … soon. Currently, DARPA is working on creating an artificial brain.

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According to the undersecretary of defense Ashton B. Carter in 2010:

“Dramatic progress in supporting technologies suggests that unprecedented, perhaps unimagined degrees of autonomy can be introduced into current and future military systems.”

Interesting note, the Department of Defense removed the file for “Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap.”

DARPA also has their hands in gain-of-function research and leaked documents reveal EcoHealth Alliance sought $14 million from the agency.

As reported by RT:

Documents published by a scientist group probing Covid-19’s origins reveal that controversial US non-profit EcoHealth Alliance had sought $14 million in 2018 for a project that would expose Chinese bats to altered coronaviruses.

Some 18 months before the first Covid cases appeared, the three-and-a-half year study had planned to release skin-penetrating particles containing “novel chimeric spike proteins” from bat coronaviruses into bat caves in China’s Yunnan province. The goal was to study and prevent transmission to humans.

The proposal, titled ‘Project Defuse’, was submitted by EcoHealth Alliance for funding consideration as part of an initiative aimed at preventing emerging pathogen threats by the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It was ultimately rejected over safety concerns.

In October 2013, DARPA awarded Moderna up to approximately $25 million to research and develop potential mRNA medicines as a part of DARPA’s Autonomous Diagnostics to Enable Prevention and Therapeutics, or ADEPT, program, which is focused on assisting with the development of technologies to rapidly identify and respond to threats posed by natural and engineered diseases and toxins. This award followed an initial award from DARPA given in March 2013. The DARPA awards have been deployed primarily in support of our vaccine and antibody programs to protect against Chikungunya infection.

https://twitter.com/BackupBackoff/status/1465432759074234372