Thursday, December 2, 2021

Who had frog robot apocalypse in the pool?

I mean, I know which one I'd prefer...
Scientists took a bold step towards covering the surface of the earth with a carpet of all-consuming grey goo this week with the invention of self-replicating robots. And really, in many ways I suppose I'd prefer this to the many other causes of our own annihilation we're currently the architects of. We can either embrace the robot apocalypse, or we can resign ourselves to an extinction brought upon by our unwillingness to recycle and take public transport.  

"Frogs are literally made of robots."
-Science
But, this is science, so now's the time to walk it back a bit. First of all, when I say "robot" you probably have something very specific in mind. Like, say, a robot. When in reality the "xenobots" (which comes from the frog's taxonomic name, Canopus laevis and not, as it would suggest, space), developed by a team of researchers and described in their just published paper: "Kinematic self-replication in reconfigurable organisms", are organic and not so much robots as they are stem cells harvested from African clawed frog embryos which the team "programed." 

No, I mean the robots are reproducing.
Dumb people have been reproducing for
ages, although they will also be our doom.
"Ok"--you might reasonably ask--"then how are they robots?" Good question. No idea. To me it kind of sounds like the researchers are just screwing around with frog cells, because science is a horror show that loves to poke things. But according to this NewScientist article from earlier this year, these stem cells can be programed to work together and complete tasks. I know, sounds batty, but unlike dumb people, I'm going to trust that the scientists know what they're talking about and don't make up shit like frog-cell robots. Cool. Except now they're reproducing and we're all doomed.

Huh? Oh, it's one of the technical
ones they give out like three weeks early.
So clearly, organic robots made from frog stem cells are weird, and weirder still are organic robots made from frog stem cells that self-replicate. But the Oscar for Best Whatthefuck-ery in a Scientific Breakthrough definitely goes to "organic robots made from stem cells that self-replicate by clumping together instead of cell division like every other organism on earth." Because when the Xenobots shoved loose cells into one another in a Petri dish, the loose cells adhered to one another and then turned into more Xenobots. 

Yeah, these things invented their own method of reproduction. There will soon be no stopping them. Life found a way, and now it's only a matter of time before these mindless, robot frog clumps break free from our control and spread out across the globe assimilating everyone and everything into their hive mind. All will be frog bot. 
Remember that time we all laughed at Asimo? Well whose laughing now?
Not robots, obviously. They have no need of our squishy human emotions.

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