Baby steps for first living robots

20th January 2020

US researchers have successfully created living machines for the first time. They have assembled tiny robots that can move independently, using cells from African clawed frogs.

The robots, created at the Allen Discovery Research Center in Massachusetts, are less than 1mm long. Designed by a supercomputer using an 'evolutionary algorithm,' director Michael Levin announced that the robots "are living, programmable organisms" and "entirely new lifeforms. They have never before existed on Earth."

One of the most successful robots has two stumpy legs which it uses to push itself along on its 'chest'. Another has a hole in its centre which researchers have adapted to allow it to carry things. Scientists using tweezers and special cauterising tools shaped skin and heart cells from African clawed frog embryos. The robots are named "Xenobots" after the frog's Latin name, Xenopus laevis.

Robots are usually made of metal and plastic since they are strong and durable. However, there are several benefits provided by living robots. Their bodies repair by themselves and when no longer needed, they decay just like other living organisms.

With these unique features, future Xenobots could have wide applications including removing ocean microplastics, digesting toxic chemicals, giving medicines, cleaning arteries, and treating birth defects, cancer and serious diseases. They may be designed with blood vessels, neural pathways and simple eyes, perhaps with mammal cells allowing them to survive on dry land. Levin stated they plan "to make them to scale".

Xenobots raise the ethical question of at what point beings have rights that need to be protected. Their moral status is a serious area of discussion. Thomas Douglas, a Practical Ethics research fellow at Oxford University, in the UK, thinks this starts with "the ability to experience pain," but says others think all living creatures have rights. Whether to classify Xenobots as living creatures or machines is a hugely important debate.