# Self replicating evolving machines
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 17, 2005, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739 "2005-04-17T06:58:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/1 "2005-04-17T06:58:27Z")
[I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.](http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7165&print=true)
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/2 "2005-04-17T07:07:04Z")
Coo-ool.
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### Author:  [@Dinaroozie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinaroozie)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/3 "2005-04-17T07:59:57Z")
We are so screwed.
[Smart dust](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_dust) is also pretty worrying. Still, a species has gotta die of something, right? May as well be something cool.
~ Isaac
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/4 "2005-04-17T08:05:00Z")
> [@Dinaroozie](#):
>
> [Smart dust](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_dust)
In danger of being repetitive: Coo-ool.
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### Author:  [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/5 "2005-04-17T08:12:36Z")
Don’t forget [Grey Goo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo).
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/6 "2005-04-17T08:16:19Z")
Pshaw!
Screwed, I think not.
Y’all may be headed for a giant towering complex where you’ll be hooked up to a system that “with a form of fusion” will feed your cruel machine masters, but I, on the other hand, will learn to repair and nurture the heartless and brutally efficient titanium killers. What’s that you say? They’ll evolve to be able to repair each other… oh… um… I wonder if you get to choose the color of the pod they stick to harvest your energy. I’d like something in a nice forest green.
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/7 "2005-04-17T08:26:23Z")
Hrm… that grey goo stuff sounds pretty nasty. How exactly can I go about offering slavish devotion to a mindless mass of death-via-recycling?
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### Author:  [@EmeraldGrue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmeraldGrue)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/8 "2005-04-17T14:18:19Z")
This is so much cooler than science fiction, 'cause it’s real. That being said, you all know that smartdust and self-replicating 3D printers _will_ eventually subjugate us all to their cold mechanical will, right?
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/9 "2005-04-17T16:58:43Z")
I wonder about that… as far back as mary shelly (and probably earlier) we’ve had this meme that anything we create, if it’s sufficiently advanced, will run wild and cause havok. I’m not sure it’s totally accurate…
But I’d sure like to know how I can most efficiently serve their cold mechanical will.
Either that, or I’d like a plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/10 "2005-04-17T17:11:08Z")
> [@EmeraldGrue](#):
>
> This is so much cooler than science fiction, 'cause it’s real. That being said, you all know that smartdust and self-replicating 3D printers _will_ eventually subjugate us all to their cold mechanical will, right?
At least until the printer cartridge runs out.
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/11 "2005-04-17T17:15:08Z")
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#):
>
> At least until the printer cartridge runs out.
Ah, but that’s the thing. Even though I’m sure your comment was tongue in cheek, if the 3D printer can have something to harvest resources, say some nanobots with evil little red eyes, then it can recharge itself with new material.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/12 "2005-04-17T17:18:36Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> …if the 3D printer can have something to harvest resources, say some nanobots with evil little red eyes, then it can recharge itself with new material.
True. Hey, where’s the cat?
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/13 "2005-04-17T18:24:07Z")
Well, either that or the crafty machines will create Cylon style cats designed to infiltrate and destroy key strategic locations.
Scene: NORAD
“Hey, what’s that tabby doing in the room?”
“Awww, what’s the problem, it’s cute.”
“Hey… why are it’s eyes glowing a baleful red?”
“It’s eyes? What?”
:sound of snapping bones and ripping flesh:
“Oh my God! No! Gods no!!!”
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### Author:  [@EmeraldGrue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmeraldGrue)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/14 "2005-04-17T18:57:42Z")
Aha, I _knew_ there was a Philip K. Dick story this reminded me of! “Autofac”, about unstoppably self-replicating factories.
Then of course there’s “The Second Variety”, in which warring Americans and Russians have a common enemy in, well, self-replicating evolving machines.
> [@](#):
>
> The claws weren’t like other weapons. They were _alive_, from any practical standpoint…They were not machines. They were living things, spinning, reeping, shaking themselves up from the gray ash and darting toward a man, climbing up him, rushing for his throat. And that was what they had been designed to do. Their job.
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### Author:  [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/15 "2005-04-17T19:36:32Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> Pshaw!
> Screwed, I think not.
>
> Y’all may be headed for a giant towering complex where you’ll be hooked up to a system that “with a form of fusion” will feed your cruel machine masters, but I, on the other hand, will learn to repair and nurture the heartless and brutally efficient titanium killers. What’s that you say? They’ll evolve to be able to repair each other… oh… um… I wonder if you get to choose the color of the pod they stick to harvest your energy. I’d like something in a nice forest green.
God, it’s almost like they could make some kind of power grid.
An engine, perhaps.
Some sort of… matrix.
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/16 "2005-04-17T19:39:59Z")
Good gods man, do you want to tip our hand?!?
No, nice sweet machines, we have no idea about your master plan…
~stockpiles explosives~
We think you’re just fine.
~works on EMP technology~
We’d like to exist in peaceful cohabitation of this planet.
~reads “how to kill machines in ten easy steps”~
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### Author:  [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/17 "2005-04-17T20:19:46Z")
Ah, when they come for me, I’ll have my 1920’s style death ray. They’ll never take me alive!
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/18 "2005-04-17T20:25:30Z")
Which begs the question, would a death ray work on something that wasn’t alive?
Possible answer: If it was a 1920’s style death ray.
Other possible answer: If it was a Master of Orion style death ray.
Third possible answer: Not many people know this. But. It worked once. In 1960. For twenty minutes.
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### Author:  [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/19 "2005-04-17T22:31:55Z")
Meh… colour me unimpressed; the thing just smears metal tracks over plastic, all the interesting bits (integrated circuits, batteries, motors, etc) have to be made separately. So it´s not much more than your run off the mill sterolithoghapher.
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-replicating-evolving-machines/299739/20 "2005-04-17T22:43:14Z")
**Ale** in a serious (really!) vein:
This specific machine isn’t going to pose any problems, it’s more a question of what this sort of process can bring about if it’s along the same lines but more advanced. It’s not beyond the pale to posit that it’d be able to build increasingly advanced things. And then take over the world
Well I was serious as long as I could be.
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