How We Accidentally Started Making Infinite Robots 

Everybody chillin' until they start mass replicating and eating everything

Jaw-dropping developments. Btw I’m assuming at 9:48 “half a nanometre” was a mistake as that would mean smaller than the width of two water molecules, or also one quarter the width of DNA, which is clearly wrong. Probably meant to mean “half a micrometre”

Zenobots are most definitely alive. Even though they are really just a Frankenstein of random frog stem cells, the cells have been shown to work together to move and heal. This displays a definite cohesion between the cells; regardless if the bots can eat or reproduce normally, these xenobots are living, multi-cellular organisms.

Never thought a world like the environment of Scorn was possible, till now.

Makes you wonder how this tech might look like in a few decades or so

It's astounding that even synthetic life actively opposes entropy.

About 40 years ago I think, I read an article in a magazine, maybe Popular Science, about this. Very interesting to see the new developments in this.

I remember seeing an apocalyptic scenario with rogue nanobots eating the world's organic matter... Always wondered how the prequel would start

As a biology student I have never heard of this. This is completely insane to me and I love it! Gotta say you guys are one of the inspirations for starting my own channel. The quality of your videos are just too good

Doctor Moreau in the original work created his hybrids through vivisection. Subsequently this was dismissed as impossible and the movie changed it to genetic Engineering. This is truly vivisection. It’s fascinating but creepy as hell.

This channel is a Gem! I love all the videos and the effort that goes into it. This is a real deal. Thank you for keeping us curious.

Amazing video. Thanks!

This is both fascinating and terrifying. I love it

Most engineers become greatly concerned when they accidently write code that replicates in an unforeseen manner. And that's in an environment where the underlying operating system is widely studied and the interactions are well known. These guys: "Ohh cool, it's making more of itself. That's unexpected." I think I've already seen this movie. Hey, who hid the remote?

Great platform for summer school. Thank you!

Quality content! This has the potential to be very dangerous

Cells themselves are living systems. Most of these properties are likely emerging from the fact they are systems made out of already living systems, Cells, each one of which contains all of the properties of life. It's probably like taking a bunch of human specialists and tying them all together at the waste, and then trying to get them to move or collect stuff. Still very brilliant though.

Edit: This is so good. Sharing it with my prof (Josh Bongard) at UVM who is one of the primary researchers on this. Will let you know what he thinks! He said: "This is expertly done. Exciting, accessible to all, yet it doesn’t overly gloss over the scientific details."

OK, so firstly, the scientists haven't created life, they've put some actual already live animal cells together and watched them do what cells do. The cells are not synthetic, the form look like is irrelevant, but they have been put together my humans, not their parent(s). It is amazing though, to watch how life persists and adapts and evolves.

Wow very good episode subscribed!!

Damn, even robots have more action than me.

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.” Jurassic Park But seriously wow amazing Video

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should...

"if zenobot raw material could be continually added to the environment ... could be a real force for good". I like your positivism on the matter. I think though that if these entities were released to nature and were capable to survive they would seriously endanger the stability of the ecosystem.

What if you used cells from the immortal jellyfish? As well as the other tissues used to develop this biobot. Maybe another scary thought?

Very interesting video RS! This falls under the category of both "phenomenal and terrifying" at the same time! Let's hope that it will be a benefit to human kind going forward!

awesome. Cant wait. I deeply appreciate that you did not go down the sci-fi horror rabbit hole immediately. I believe human projection really colors our views of things, and just as there is a potential for Skynet, there is an equal potential for the Positronic Robots, that only wanted to save us.

Closed captions for these would be great. And a label for the speakers shown. Each scientist and such.

As the architects in Subnautia said "You still see a difference between technology and biology? how interesting..." it is very easy to see life as something binary but I think its becoming more apparent that life isnt a *yes or no* charactistic life comes in a spectrum of totally non-living to totally living when thought of as a spectrum, its very easy to place creatures like this it would be like learning there is a number between 0 and 1 you can always get more granular in a scale the biggest difference to me, between the living and non-living, is complexity "eventually a difference in scale, becomes a difference in kind"

9:47 half a nanometer? Can't be true because it is length of just 5 water molecules and it is much less than visible light wavelength. Maybe you mean half a micrometer?

"freed of their evolutionary fate" A veeeeeery nice way of saying you smushed it: like a making origami out of a bug that hit your windshield and then saying "hay, look, it can still fly....sort of....this could be useful!"

well, in quantum mechanics, you could use quantum field theory to count energy fluctuation possibilities; simply substitute all the Time it took for us to come into existence and create these 'xenobot' forms of Life (in terms of radioactive half-lives, uranium and thorium are good places to look), and understand that we can also substitute our own evolutionary Time-line, from analogous common ancestors, and calculate that as the upper limit of how long we may expect them to come to conscious awareness (sentience/sapience). we can also begin calculating the inverse of this as the value of what they may yet surprise us with, assuming inordinate amounts of fortuitous outcomes that begin to mimic 'cosmic divinity', by exposing less superdeterminism than previously thought, each Time it occurs, and so on. therefore, you have at least three camps of estimates that can give you a reasonable 'guesstimate', or 'educated guess'. really excited to see where these technologies can lead

This is both amazing and underwhelming, I think that’s how true science often feels like.

If you think about it it makes perfect sense. We're taking something that already works insanely well, restructuring it to work in predictable ways, and adding features with further iterations. It's only natural that unpredictable advantages would crop up, considering the medium is biological tissue effectively being repurposed.

The past nearly 30 years of my life we went to dreaming about stuff like reversing aging thinking maybe in 200 years we could crack the code to today where we are watching the clock wondering when cancer will be beat and we are actually close. I sometimes get that weird feeling of a deer in headlights and burst into tears thinking about how far we've come in nearly no time at all.

I often find myself wondering how far we've come as a species, considering how stupid we are as a species.

Hey Real Science, super interesting and well produced video overall! A few comments and questions. 1. Misleading title: These "Robots" are not infinitely reproducing. This was commented by others also: There was no statement in the video on the functionality of the aggregated cell blobs, but I can only assume that there is no organisation of cell types as in the "parent" blobs. So please, correct me if I'm wrong here as I have not read the publications. There is a lot of hype already about this and I have read increadibly misleading articles. The vast majority of people do not have a background in biology , making non-sensationalized reporting so important. 2. After reorganizing the frog embryos, it seems weird to me to call them robots now, because they are basically the same as before: An embryo with rearranged cell types. 3. Did the embryonic cells stop dividing after rearrangement? It appears so, because as you stated, they died after 10 days. Could you explain why that is? Meaning, why did the cells lose their ability to divide and grow into a big tumour blob? After all, they are still stem cells and basically an embryo that "wants" to be a frog. 4. Everybody getting intimidated/overwhelmed by this and calling the next bio-apocalypse, consider this: The cells needed a sterile and well controlled environment to stay alive (animal cells grown in the lab frequently contaminate if you are not careful (molecular biologist speaking from experience). They need an energy source to perform movement long term. Releasing these into the wild would not do anything. They would die instantly, get eaten by anything larger or overgrown by some bacteria. Life is increadibly complex and the outside world is harsh on everyone. Competition is fierce. Just rearranging an increadibly vulnerable embryonic cell clump into a "robot" will not make it more powerful or lead to some emergent behavior that will overthrow the biosphere. 5. Being careful with AI-designed life-forms is important and I am fully with you on the statement that we simply cannot imagine how alternatively designed life would look like. Therefore, and despite point 4 above, we as a species have to be extra diligent about it.

3:07 - check out the size of that b-roll turbocharger from that inline 8 cyl diesel. And the lil baby turbo and exhaust manifold to the left of it.

This is awesome to see! My only thought is when do we hit the ‘we were so occupied if we could do something we never asked if we should” moment.

It’s fine. I don’t have to worry about this dystopia. Between the Nukes and Boston Dynamics’ Terminators, we surely don’t have to wait as long as it will take for this to inevitably become an existential problem.

What if life on Earth were actually biological robots created by an ancient alien civilization who dumped their experiments on a random planet to grow and thrive, which happened to be Earth

The humble beginnings of our future Replicants, calling all Blade Runners.

If you got artificial cells that can reproduce a certain pattern of pre-determined action, but requires an external stimulus (input) to enable the action, then you "just" need to introduce cells that can produce said stimulus (input) when affected by the something like the movements generated by the first branch of cells. If all is well coordinated, you would create a form of perpetual actions. I know that this is thousands of times more complex than that to implement, but that remains the principle required to make use of artificial cells. For example, what if you had cells that has a precise task of producing certain proteins required for the human body. If someone has a body that doesn't produce enough of that protein or any at all, you could introduce this cells into the host body, then introduce the "stimulus cells" with a "loop" action (based on the host's need) and initiate one of the 2 cells which would initiate the other cell. Then, through periodical verification, if the body ends up being able to create the protein by itself, then you could introduce a 3rd short lived cell that basically shutdown the "stimulus cells" which would disable the 1st (production cells). If, later, the body fails again to generate the protein, you can just verify the concentration of 1st gen cell, add more if necessary and then introduce and activate a new batch of "stimulus cells".

I've thought the ability to battle entropy to preserve internal order by taking energy from their surroundings has been a pretty good definition of life.

This mix of synthetic biology and robotics is truly wanderers, with enough innovation they could prove useful in ways that few could even imagine. Yes it's kinda a bit scary as well but it is only human for us to focus on the potential harm rather than the benefits. As will all innovation, it could very well hit a brick wall tomorrow and none of this will go anywhere soon or maybe someday soon somebody will make a breakthrough that changes the way we think about these technologies, we will have to see.

Do you want Xenomorphs? Because that's how you get Xenomorphs.

This is extremely intriguing yet simultaneously unsettling

I wonder if the xenobot turning pile of stem cells into new xenobots, has to do with the fact that in the action of touching and rounding them they unknowly maneged to "imprint" their own behaviour on the steam cell. Akin to a paper filled with wet ink touching a white paper and transfer some of it's written on it. Maybe we could do the oposite, put human stem cell under contact with what type of cell we want to reproduce(heart cells for example) and the motion will turn then into the same cell we desire, in the same manner that touching xenobot turned then into copies of itself. The research will need to focus on "how" and "why" steam cell react in such way.

Oh sweet, man made horrors beyond my comprehension

imagine the immortality of these machines - the soul of an organism never able to die due to the persistence of the eternal robot, enslaving whatever living soul that comes with placing human brain tissue on a circuit board

Humans evolve->Humans design A.I.->A.I. becomes sentient->A.I. destroys humanity->A.I designs and creates a more perfect Humanoid -> Humanoids rebel against A.I.->Humanoids forget they were 'created'. This would make a good SciFi show.

This channel has some great quality documentaries. Please keep on!

Wow. Truly remarkable subject, I had no idea this was even a thing. Awesome content & (I've said it before), excellent research/presentation. Congratulations.

14:25 yeah, experimental frankenstein super Gmos being continously added to the environment, force for good, right.

Anybody know what that voxel program is at 7:53? Interested to know

I remember a story about a self replicating robot that was designed to make a half size copy of itself. The inventor left the robot to do it’s job at the end of the day. When he tried to return to work the next day, his car quit running as he approached the lab which had been reduced to a shell of cement rubble. He had made the error in instruction to the robot programming it to make 10 half size copies and the now microscopic robots were consuming every bit of metal they could find.

Story idea: the story is set in a civilization on earth a very long time after humans go extinct and the natural world is almost completely different from today. It follows a biologist who finds proof/evidence that kinematic reproduction didn't evolve naturally, but rather was designed by an ancient civilization from before his own species gained intelligence.

I would be interested in finding out why the preference for smooth cardiac muscle over skeletal muscle when designing something to to be the equivalent of skeletal muscle like in the examples of improving motility which you would think would be well within the domain of skeletal muscle rather than smooth cardiac muscle not to mention smooth cardiac muscle cannot be regenerated like skeletal muscle can

Fascinating

"they aren't a product of millions of years evolution" *ten seconds later* "they're made from cells taken from a frog"

All this video showed me was that we have terribly limited imaginations when it comes to what the words "artificial," "technology," and "living" mean.

The bio student in me is going "oh this is amazing, it could revolutionary!" but the other part of me is like..."is this...going to become a 2 hour epic blockbuster movie about humanity's end"

This type of thing usually make me think "cool science!" but somehow this crosses a line for me and goes into uncanny valley and I couldn't stop thinking "abomination".

I haven't been shocked by a video in a very long time but this is amazing.

I can imagine the scientist, working for hours to build each of these "living robots", murmuring to themselves, " *the* *mutation* *must* *survive* "

Beyond anything this is still pretty wild and cool and amazing and freaky

To reiterate - these are not robots that have life, they are already living cells that are acting a bit like robots perhaps.

It's kinda scary to think about how this tech could be weaponized.

Well, that was both frightening and scary af..

I appreciate that you specifically singled out animals as being multicellular. I don't know anything about fungi but I do know that some scientists have been questioning whether or not plants can truly considered be called multicellular when their "cells" don't actually meet the requirements needed to be considered to be a cell. That isn't to say that they aren't an extremely complex form of life, it's just that our main models of cells are ultimately derived from the original studies of animal cells. The models are of course far more complex and numerous than they once were but that doesn't change the fact they we may being using the inappropriate label of multicellular for something that deserved its own terminology.

I know how this story ends. I've watched enough budget horror movies to know as much.

I want to express my live for this channel again ♥ thank you so much for the great content, Stef !

Wow, this is highly captivating! Thank you!

Owl feathers have given inspiration to a coating for the blades of a jet engine dramatically cutting the noise they produce.

David icke talked about this in bovine cultures as a delivery system quite a few years ago. Now that’s the not so nuts part…

You did not define articulation accurately. It's not having arms and legs; it's having joints, or other points of axial motion. The more joints you have in your limbs or hands, the more points of articulation you have.

Cool video, as always, Real Science. I have one criticism based on the responses. Looking through the comments, there are two major categories: 1. Comments about science fiction references to human extinction. It's sad that this is how many people relate to advances in science. I think this will happen regardless of the quality of the video, but perhaps it can be mitigated with more understanding, which leads me to the second point: 2. Comments about whether the "progeny" organoids are capable of "replication." I wish that Real Science did a better job at explaining this part of the video. It's not clear to me whether the resulting "progeny" are capable of further "replication." I think that any movement would be the result of differentiation after juxtacrine signaling and/or factors present in the media. In short, the movement of the "progeny" is probably random, so they can't make more of themselves. If that's true, then they are not "progeny" and this is not "replication." I haven't yet read any papers pertaining to xenobots, however, so this is speculation on my part. If you're reading this, Real Science, thank you for making a wonderful video and bringing the subject to my attention, but please do clarify vital information so as to create more understanding and less fear in laypeople. You did mention the limited survival time and need for fresh stem cells, so that was good, but describing supposed "replication" without mentioning all of the limitations can bring out the worst in people's imaginations.

Some/many amphibians will regenerate lost/truncated limbs, tails, maybe other parts. So the ability to generate new bits (perhaps up to and including a complete replica of the whole?) shouldn't surprise us much. Taking credit for the ability as "scientists" is Max Hubris.

This seems like foreshadowing of a future where they are everywhere and get out of control

Awesome subject

I'm just imagining a robot with a battery that lasts months since all the muscles operate off of a sugar reservoir...

its more like a "froggy Frankenstein" than a robot isn't it? if those are bots than "life" gets foggy and the question of what makes things alive gets flipped on its head.

"They keep pushing bits around until they cannot" = boom! mind blown! OK, not actually blown because I do understand emergence and although I know this is the kind of thing that just happens with these systems, so see it actually happen in action is totally fascinating. Thanks for posting this video, it's one of your best so far!

I swear, I've seen this movie before, or this is how the movie started . And it'll only be used for good 👍

Watching this makes me ponder on the origins of life on earth. Maybe we did this along time ago??

I can see a whole new genre of movies and tv entertainment just from this bio-robotics theme alone

Forced Evaluation... AI designed... Forced compliance... What could go wrong... Also look like they're... playing which is form of learning ... kinda Mm this is hopefully exciting and terrifying all in one 😳😳😳

14:21 Has anyone considered looking for correlations between this and orbital mechanics? I have a feeling we may be witnessing galaxies form...

my confusion is how this counts a robot of any degree, as its just manipulated biological cells? theres no ai or anything, just a similar movement and behaviors between the two as evolution aims for. i definitely do wonder about more testing on different kinds of cells past the frogs we tested from

so awesome!

Yeah the start out small, gather together... Turn green, and the next thing you know... Godzilla pops out of the ocean and eats Tokyo.

This reminds me of these strange living lump of flesh that sometimes appears as one of many artificial creature cliches that are associates with typical stereotypical science labs in media since anything could happen inside science labs according to fiction, especially obscurely bizarre things similar to these. At least these are not large and emotionally expressive yet.

Could u just imagine this being in somthing like a tank or some other weapon and to have it heal and repair its self its just mad.

it heals cause harmonic resonancfe and you can siumply blueprint it with static in an emp field

I actually find this terrifying. Just the kind of research that will create something that will eat us all.

they finally did it... those mad lads absolutely did it. they "made life" in a lab... I hope this doesn't go down the path of any sci-fi movies & video games history has made us watch and/or play (Jurassic Park, Terminator, Matrix, Horizon ZD/FW, etc). and I absolutely hope that the military doesn't make this into weapons the first they hear of it... that would be horrifying.

The fact that they just made new xeno bots not by asexual methods scares the fuck out of me this is like a plot to a robot being sentient and decides it'll make more of it but great work by the scientists

what i wanna know is if the scientist responsible for these bots been given an award already? this is amazing.

this blew my mind. life is so interesting

Our proficiency with bioengineering increases. Just like nuclear technology, this will bring the potential for incredible good and incredible evil. I don't know if we'll have learned our lesson by the time we reach that point.