Scientists create DNA robots that eat and EVOLVE ‘blurring line’ between life and machine
Scientists create DNA robots that eat and EVOLVE
‘blurring line’ between life and machine
SCIENTISTS are blurring the line between life and machine
by creating new DNA-based robots with astonishing lifelike capabilities, a
specialist academic has warned.
By Liam Deacon / Published 4th May 2019
The new human-engineered organic machines can move,
consume "food" for energy, grow, decay, and even evolve, scientists
and engineers at Cornell University in the US said last month.
And now, an expert has told Daily Star Online robots with
“self-sustaining and regenerative systems” could present huge opportunities but
also pose unexpected dangers in the future.
Described as the first "lifelike robots with
artificial metabolism” by the scientists involved, the "DNA-based Assembly
and Synthesis of Hierarchical Material" project has been dubbed DASH.
DNA is the unique biological code that all living things
use to reproduce and grow, and metabolism is the chemical process we all use to
turn food into energy.
“Metabolism is a key process that makes life alive”, a
paper by the Cornell team, revealing the project's findings, claims in the
Science Robotics journal.
Mike Ryder, an Associate Lecturer at Lancaster
University, told Daily Star Online the statement prompts serious questions
about what life is, “where life begins” and if DASH is a robotics or biological
engineering project.
Mr Ryder’s research specialises in the philosophy of
human-machine relations, with a particular focus on military ethics, and the
way we distinguish between humans and machines.
He stressed that manmade machines “have emulated the
behaviour of cells” and other lifeforms for a long time – bionic limbs and
artificial hearts, for example – but said this project seems to “blur the line
between human and machine in a new way” with a “new type of behaviour” which
could herald new advances.
“We are not making
something that’s alive, but we are creating materials that are much more
life-like than have ever been seen before”
Dan Luo, professor
of biological and environmental engineering
Mr Ryder said “the development in itself is not perhaps
‘complex’ as we might understand it.
"However, in the future, it may well underpin a whole
host of different processes and ‘cells’ (or whatever you choose to call them)
that will, in turn, make up far more complex machines.”
The scientists involved appear to recognise the
philosophical lines being blurred, but instead: “We are not making something
that’s alive, but we are creating materials that are much more life-like than
have ever been seen before.”
Speaking to The Stanford Chronicle, Dan Luo, professor of
biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences at Cornell, added: “We are introducing a brand-new, lifelike material
concept powered by its very own artificial metabolism.”
However, Mr Ryder adds that as the lifelike machines
become more advanced, some complex questions will be raised, like the “debates
around abortion and the point at which ‘life’ begins and ends”.
“Don’t forget – as human beings, we’re not really a
‘single’ form of life: much rather, we are made up of millions upon millions of
individual cells working together for a (mostly) unified purpose,” he adds.
He says life-like robots such as DASH could arguably one
day become as complex as simpler lifeforms.
If so, they might need rights in the future – in the way
animals are given animal right today, so we don’t mistreat them or throw them
away like some machines?
“At present, I’d imagine the living robot technology
would most likely be considered in a similar way to any other lab-grown
organism, however… one day these organisms may deserve rights," he said.
“The question is really, at what point do we draw the
line?” Mr Ryder added.
“If we’re going to think of these living robots as
‘alive’ in human, or even animal terms, then we will soon have to start
thinking about these technologies in at least a similar way to the way we think
about lab animals, such as mice and rabbits."
Continuing: “In particular, I think, comes the question
of just how and when we consider the DASH creations as being ‘alive’ and/or
‘dead’, and how we dispose of them.
“There is also then the question, as I’ve hinted at
already, of just when the DASH creations become ‘alive’, and who should be
given the power to grant life and death.”
When asked about the opportunities DASH and similar
advances could represent, he says “there are a whole host of ‘simple’ gains we
could make by replacing existing technologies with biological ones".
Adding that, in “the long term, these may well be cheaper
to produce, and easier to maintain” without the same need for expensive
material and metals that can damage the environment.
“However,” he adds, “the most significant I think, may
well be the new avenues opened up for self-sustaining and regenerative systems.
“If systems can become self-sustaining, then they will
need fewer external inputs, and they may not even need an external energy
source at all.
“If we can cut down on our traditional energy
consumption, and instead rely on metabolism-based process, hybrid, or
wholly-DASH systems may well be able to draw their power from the world around
them.”
But, he warns, there “any invention or technology can
always be used to cause harm, and there will always be people out there who are
able to manipulate the system for their own ends.
“Of course, it’s also very hard to predict where the
technology may take us, and I imagine most of the major technologies will be
driven by corporations and not governments”.
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