Xenobots: AI-created living tissue robots that reproduce.
Researchers at the University of Vermont have been designing and creating 'xenobots': miniature machines made from living frog cells. The xenobots can be made from normal cells taken from frog embryos and can perform predictable, robot-like behaviours, such as herding particles around a Petri dish, cooperating like sheepdogs and even birthing balls of other cells that might be regarded as xenobot babies. The researchers use an AI program to evolve bunches of frog cells to perform whatever task it is they are interested in. The xenobots are capable of self-replication, which opens up a whole suite of potential applications, such as environmental clean-up or technologies that could put out forest fires.