14 comments

  • virtualritz23 小时前
    Read "The Invincible"[1] from Stanisław Lem.

    Particularly the chapter called "Lauda's hypothesis" about the evolution of the planet's 'necrosphere' of self-organizing insect-like machines.

    Curiously magnetism also plays a role in the book.

    It's from 1963.

    Lem was always eerily accurate with many of his futurist ideas. Even though he didn't want to be seen as a futurist but just as a sci-fi author.

    "Weapon systems of the 21st century"[2] is another one of those of his works. Written in 1986 it predicts satellite-mounted use of lasers and 'synsects' (synthetic insects) with swarm intelligence. It also predicts that powerful AI is not needed but (superior) swarm intelligence is enough for battlefield superiority.

    I dunno if the latter is even available in English but I guess nowadays you can just ask an LLM to translate the Polish original or the very good German translation to English, if you want to read it. :)

    [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible

    [2] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffensysteme_des_21._Jahrhu...

  • erulabs1 天前
    Extremely cool, but also terrifying. Anyone else read all the lore in the Horizon games? It was AI and nano-bot swarms that ended the world there, escaping from a research lab and consuming all organic matter on the surface of the earth. Once the nano bot swarm can build more nano bots…

    Still, think of the cool robots we’ll get just before the end!

    • YeGoblynQueenne7 小时前
      In Horizon the catastrophic decision was to endow robots with the ability to draw energy from animal and plant matter, that's why they consumed all organic matter.

      Self-replicating nanobots alone wouldn't cause the end of the world. To end the world you really need something that can consume resources many times faster than the entire biosphere combined- without forgetting that the biosphere includes us.

    • zakki1 天前
      I just watched a Stargate Episode when Asgard can't beat the Replicator.
      • moffkalast14 小时前
        Look there's nothing cruvus with me!
    • devmor4 小时前
      It is prudent to remember that all life, and even many things that aren't considered life, such as viruses, are powered by self replicating swarms of machines - made of proteins.

      Self replication itself does not spell a crisis. It would have to be efficient, self-directed and most importantly, fast.

    • caycep11 小时前
      also an episode of black mirror w/ the flies and stuff
  • biomcgary1 天前
    Evidently someone is a fan of Big Hero 6.
  • sebmellen1 天前
    Has anyone here read Micro or Prey by Michael Crichton?

    > In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles—micro-robots—has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive.

    • portaouflop1 天前
      Prey was so good, really entertaining read.

      I think that we are a long way from this level of nanobots - we don’t even have a regular robot that is somewhat self sustaining (e.g. charges itself with solar power) - so we probably won’t need to lose hair over this anytime soon…

    • Jerrrry17 小时前
      I'm convinced Michael Crichton was the greatest sci-fi writer after Isaac Asimov.
  • jnichols3519 小时前
    If this technology keeps evolving, football[0] could get real interesting.

    [0] https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football/

  • dsjoerg1 天前
    A more accurate (but less flashy) title might be: "Magnetically actuated swarm assemblies of mass-produced microrobots for task execution" This strips away the unnecessary anthropomorphism and focuses on what the system actually does.

    ===

    https://chatgpt.com/share/676e293f-f51c-8007-b07a-2cb9d89e9a...

    • ecosystem1 天前
      "Swarm intelligence" doesn't seem a very anthrocentric/anthromorphic concept and the swarm coordination across tasks is the interesting aspect of this paper. Do you think this claim is unfounded? (Edited: typo)
    • TJSomething1 天前
      I'm not sure they're really "actuated". They're definitely programmed by a smart magnet, and then powered by a dumb magnet.
  • notjoemama17 小时前
    When exactly will world leaders realize that this new wave of military research is risky enough to destroy them in their wealthy gated communities? Do they actually have to die and take a percentage of life on this planet with them before they can agree to some form of of altruistic peace agreement? Even if they have escape islands, I think too many people have seen Mad Max and that never ends well for the leaders.
    • istorical16 小时前
      Current economic and political systems reward baseless confidence, believing you are better than others (and speaking and acting that way), and hubris.

      So maybe it makes sense that our political and economic leaders have false confidence that "everything will be fine, it always has been for me".

      • bilbo0s15 小时前
        I think they are more confident that most of the people in society believe in the same hubris. They can all point to some class of people that are lower than them. Don’t underestimate the power of that kind of motivation on the masses.

        The classes of people on the bottom are usually not numerous nor educated enough to cause a real issue. And if you get really lucky, the hierarchy is somewhat based in ethnicity. People will fight vehemently to support such structures.

        Taking advantage of these sorts of motivations has worked to organize and control human societies for millennia. There is absolutely no reason for elites to think it will fail now.

  • devmor1 天前
    Very interesting and cool experiments, but I feel like this is stretching the limits of the term "robot" beyond its useful definition, as does the usage of the word "intelligence" for what are assuredly complex little machines, but are ultimately useless without being directly manipulated by a magnet.
  • dmje20 小时前
    I can't see "bot" and "swarm" in the same sentence without thinking of Black Mirror and wondering how we went so obviously, terribly wrong
  • 383toast16 小时前
    Seems like this would be a first step towards grey goo...
  • reynaldi1 天前
    If you can think it, the Microbots can do it. The only limit is your imagination. Microbots!
  • shiroiushi1 天前
    This sounds much like the "Replicators" from Stargate: SG1.