How Close Are We To Self-Replicating Robots Conquering Space?

Self-replicating space robots seem to be an obvious way to explore the Universe. How close are we to such a scenario, and what do we need to fill outer space with Von Neumann probes? Figuring out with Professor Alex Ellery.
👉 Realistic Scenario of Interstellar Travel
• Interstellar Travel Wi...
🦄 Support us on Patreon:
/ universetoday
📚 Suggest books in the book club:
/ universe-today-book-club
00:00 Intro
02:07 How sustainable is the Moon
07:44 Self-replicating robots
32:11 How would a mission look like
39:14 Going beyond the Moon
45:19 Realistic future scenario
59:28 Final thoughts and more interviews
📰 EMAIL NEWSLETTER
Read by 60,000 people every Friday. Written by Fraser. No ads.
Subscribe for Free: universetoday.com/newsletter
🎧 PODCASTS
Universe Today: universetoday.fireside.fm/
Astronomy Cast: www.astronomycast.com/
🤳 OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA
Mastodon: astrodon.social/@fcain
Twitter: / fcain
Twitter: / universetoday
Facebook: / universetoday
Instagram: / universetoday
📩 CONTACT FRASER
[e-mail]
⚖️ LICENSE
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
You are free to use my work for any purpose you like, just mention me as the source and link back to this video.

[@theCodyReeder]

I am a self replicating space probe that is, at the moment, stuck on earth.

[@theCodyReeder]

Why bring an astroid to the moon when the moon is absolutely covered in asteroid pieces? Run a magnet over the surface and you will have loads of metallic iron already in convenient dust form.

[@theCodyReeder]

Ooh! You wouldn't need the glass bulb for a vacuum tube because it's already a vacuum! Just the electrodes and heater. That simplifies things. I wonder how tight you could pack them before they start interfering with each other.

[@frasercain]

You're still waiting for your chance to go to Mars and, uh... self-replicate.

[@musicbro8225]

@@theCodyReeder Instead of a glass bulb you put little jerseys on them to save heating energy.

[@sum_rye_hash_321]

@@theCodyReeder I had the same thought, sounds like an interesting video idea. build some circut and place it in a vacuum chamber.. but i guess you would need a pretty powerful setup to get close to the moons vacuum.. i think im not sure haha

[@basilcurrie8138]

Had no idea people at my university were working on this topic. Never expected to learn about it from this channel.

[@76rjackson]

Ottawa, eh?

[@ElectricSheepShepherd]

Only NASA has 20k employees amd budget of 25billion usd. I expect this and much more please :)

[@SwampCityRadio1974]

They're not. It's vaporware in search of a research grant.

[@76rjackson]

Vaporware? Everything is vaporware at first. Watch that probe to Psyche, the metal asteroid. When it gets there it might find some of these replicating robots taking advantage of the resources. Maybe even competing. It's not difficult to believe an alien culture would still view efficiency and economy the same way we do such that they would program their probe to search for the most easily available raw materials and set up shop there. It's just math and the results should be the same regardless of whether the mind considering the problem is human, machine or none of the above. Who knows? There might be probes from more than one culture competing , cannibalizing each other's products where possible, maybe even going to war against each other! I'm old enough to remember when phones were only on walls or in booths and smart phones were vaporware. We have to start somewhere. I just don't think Ottawa in the winter is a good place to start. Evver been to Boca Chica beach? It's warmer than Ottawa. Canada needs a Boca Chica beach. Closest thing I know of is the Northumberland strait between NS and PEI. Water gets real warm for a couple of days in August.

[@lordgarion514]

Some years ago I heard that a cellphone made with vacuum tubes, that had the same processing power of computer chips, would be about the size of the Empire State building. We aren't exploring the galaxy and sending back in information using vacuum tubes. For a machine to land on another world and make a copy of itself, it would need to find, mine, and process a LOT of different elements. It would also require metal foundries to make several different types of metal alloys. Then it would need to turn the metal alloys into high precision parts.....

[@frasercain]

He choose vacuum tubes because it's more realistic than making a chip fab on the Moon.

[@lordgarion514]

@@frasercain That may be the case, but we're still not exploring the Galaxy and sending back information to Earth with millions and millions of vacuum tubes on a spaceship. Never mind how absolutely unreliable that setup would be. ENIAC had a little over 17,000 tubes, and it averaged a tube loss every 2 days. I think I know why we haven't seen these things flying around from alien civilizations yet. And there probably hasn't been enough time for aliens to search the galaxy. Our sun is in the first generation of stars capable of having intelligent life with the resources needed to build infrastructure and go to space. 1st gen stars had no metal. 2nd gen had so little of the heavier elements that they're called "metal poor".

[@lordgarion514]

@@frasercain That may be the case, but we're still not exploring the Galaxy using vacuum tubes due to the insane numbers that would be required. ENIAC had a little over 17,000 tubes, and on average, one had to be replaced every two days. We're talking millions of tubes, for probably years in many cases before the ship gets to the next planet. So I think I understand why we haven't seen them from alien yet. Not to mention, that pop three Stars had no metals, so no life was possible. Population two stars had metals but very little. So little in fact that they're called metal poor. Which means you probably had enough elements to get life, maybe even intelligent life, but not life with technology and infrastructure. Our sun, a pop one star, is in the first generation of stars where life with advanced technology and infrastructure is even possible.

[@Milan_Openfeint]

@@lordgarion514 Perhaps you don't need a supercomputer for replication. They aren't trying to build a GPU, the goal is a bare minimum self-replicator. Once that works, it can receive or read other instructions.

[@hugegamer5988]

It would not need those things if it was on the level of technology life is. Thats what we need, chemical factories on the nanoscale and modular cells that form a larger machine just like life does. Then all we would need is an energy source, like a star, or even a thermal gradient, and the raw materials on or near the surface. They would grow themselves. Unfortunately we are a few thousand years from this level of technology at our current pace even with examples we are reverse engineering.

[@zippythinginvention]

This guy is constantly setting off my BS detector. There's no doubt that he's brilliant. But, he's constantly conflating his goals with actual achievements. When you say that you've 3d printed a motor and then have to clarify that you actually didn't... That's not ideal.

[@exilefaxen4860]

I Feel the same! the Pression requierd for a flywheel can‘t be 3D printed. Good luck building a „chip“ with Vakuum tubes. This guy has no clue how complex manufakturing is. No Word on lubeication, Vakuum welding, or quallity control. This is not going To happen any time soon.

[@rivenwyrm]

Absolutely agree, it seems more an exercise in imagination than a practical engineering and science task.

[@freda5344]

Frazer is way too polite to this so called professor

[@BigD4Real.]

You gotta read “We are legion (We are Bob)” by Dennis E. Taylor.

[@voxsideres]

BAAAHHHBB??? 👁🐽👁

[@theCodyReeder]

I've already preordered the next book in the series. Kinda bummed that it got delayed but I'm sure it will be worth.

[@sulljoh1]

Didn't he?

[@FTADaddio]

Only 20min in to this interview and I’m fully onboard with our steampunk space future.

[@IARRCSim]

Curing the Earth of global warming with a huge cluster of energy collecting satellites is so obviously bogus that it really destroys Dr. Alex Ellery's credibility.

[@peterd9698]

Yeah.. “space age materials” are often the opposite of what we want. Exquisitely difficult to produce with extraordinary strength to weight. That is vital for launching from earth, but not trundling over a low gravity world. Basalt fibre is another interesting material we could probably use for all sorts of things on the moon. Plenty of basalt there. I read somewhere that it’s pretty strong.

[@JamesEdwards780]

Magnetic Rope Memory and Vacuum Tubes come back from Apollo days for the win!

[@RectalRooter]

No no no no Roswell got us to the moon.

[@glenecollins]

I don’t think there were any vacuum tubes used for processing in the Apollo space craft, the guidance computer etc were all transistor based. Vacuum tubes were too large and very unreliable. Vacuum tubes were more Sputnik era and I don’t think any have been used for processing in space.

[@leonmusk1040]

Was just telling someone about flops (huge improvement over pools of mercury) the successful kind as opposed to sales flops :)

[@tjallingdalheuvel126]

I still own a cassette deck and a tube amplifier. They have never been gone.

[@tjallingdalheuvel126]

To be fair, not using them anymore. I do still use the record player though.

[@hcmassey2]

I may have missed this in the talk, but the genius of the vacuum tube idea is that the moon is in a vacuum, which means you can dispense with the tube (which makes it a misnomer) and simply have the internal elements of the tube exposed to space and have them function. Thus you could print whole circuits without having to enclose anything.

[@hugegamer5988]

You really can’t dispense with the tube. The moon has incredibly fine dust that’s electrically charged by the solar wind. You would have your triodes and pentodes covered in dust in no time flat.

[@Steven-jf4cs]

Very interesting conversation. One topic I didn't hear was housekeeping. I just went to my little 3d printer and on the floor was the occasional splinter of PLA. This got me to thinking about the accumulation of micro-debris created by this process. Watching discussions on lunar dust the astronauts were plagued by this dust at it would cling on to everything. I'd be interested to hear of the disposal processes for incomplete builds, collection of micro-debris and control of dust contamination, e.g., from lunar material, processing of that material, movement and positioning of material for introduction into the manufacturing process and all the while maintaining a suitable environment free of dust and debris.

[@leonmusk1040]

Actually most of these printers are lasing the surface so actually making bigger shards of glass easier to clean sieves :)

[@luminousfractal420]

damp robots

[@Attila_Beregi]

i always miss the part where they talk about "step 0", which is the moment a probe arrives to a new star systems. but then what? how's it supposed to scan and inspect all the planets, moons, millions of asteroids etc and find all the resources? that alone seems like a giant challenge when it comes to rare materials you need for microchips, and for fuel, etc. i think this is one of those things that is not impossible, but looks to be such a logistical nightmare that's just not worth it. not even talking about the fact that this entire thing needs to be autonomous (AI?)

[@codyross5364]

I love this. I feel like most astronomers have "Star Trek Brain"... "strange new worlds, new civilizations, where no man has gone before!..." That's been an unconscious imperative for them since childhood, so they can't quite move beyond that rhetoric. They present the (to me impossible) obstacles, then are like "but we'll get there, because of leaps and bounds!" We must find a deflector dish before we can hope to invest inwhat they propose, but they are all Star trek fans, so a deflector dish is a given...

[@luminousfractal420]

give it a few years we'll be there. our ai is barely that atm. its not intelligent still. but it can be programmed in detail. it is very good at finding alternative methods, it just has no use for them.

[@unicorn12345]

We’re still centuries away from a self replicating robot. Von Neumann probes, you’ll still need to figure out a power source and means of propulsion that can function for thousands of years. I don’t even know what that would be.

[@codyross5364]

And I loved how they FINALLY mentioned the waste from such a device, which to me is still more Tolkien than Asimov... Because nuclear power does what it does, we tend to believe that a similar thing would happen with nanotech.

[@hugegamer5988]

@@codyross5364 even self replicating Von Neumann machines need to poop.

[@hugegamer5988]

Came here to comments to say exactly this. We can’t even make the most basic ones possible copying the examples around us. 1000 years+ is my guess.

[@denijane89]

That interview was super cool. I like how at the end, the discussion assumes we did all the other super hard things and have to worry about fail-safes and safeguards :) Pretty cool.

[@GrumblingForesight]

Thank you Frasier for sharing this. Being an Alastair Reynolds fan, I cant stop myself thinking about the book Galactic North as I watch this talk!

[@AndrewJohnson-oy8oj]

Professor Ellory is very right about the challenges of a machine manufacturing a copy of itself. If you take the example of current 3D printing technology, printing metal requires a ruby-tipped nozzle. How do you print that? Do you get into a rabbit hole of needing continuously smaller nozzles? Do you have to print a machine that can hunt down all the materials, another to mine them, another to peocess them? Or do you do a ground-up redesign to much sumpler technologies. (A blacksmith once told me that if you have a hammer and an anvil, you can make as many hammers, or other tools, as you want, but if you don't have both, you can't make anything.)

[@jacklefevre9774]

There's methods of printing metal that don't require a ruby nozzle - WAAM, for instance, which seems very appealing for a self-replicator. You just need to build what is essentially a MIG welder (it's much simpler than on earth even, since it's operating in a vacuum) and you can print pretty much any metal that you can form into a wire.

[@leonmusk1040]

You can use magnesium salts and lasers or microwave to make rubies But most modern ideas for printing are salt electrolysis based for printing multimetal structures and lasing would get you an abundant source of silicon making inflatable domes to make salt pools for doping chips and finding a way to make plastic skins for more pools and those printers only need syringes and a little wire and pumped solar lasers only need plastic and a tiny bit of wire to align.

[@tjallingdalheuvel126]

There is a giant gap in that logic. As there is Hammers and anvils, when once upon a time there wasn't.

[@hugegamer5988]

@@jacklefevre9774 Imagine if this was actually achieved, you would sell one 3-D printer and go out of business. I remember seeing an episode of Star Trek DS9 where they sent 5 replicators to a planet in crisis and I’m thinking why would you send more than one? Only reason I can think of is DRM.

[@steverafferty4114]

Love this video Fraser, thank you

[@inthefade]

This is such an interesting topic. There are so many things I have never considered about the challenges a Von Neumann probe would face.

[@katesmiles4208]

A joy to listen to a person with big ideas for the benefit of earth and not for self interest..

[@williamgalbraith3621]

Very fascinating and thought-provoking! Thanx!

[@frasercain]

Thanks a lot!

[@IARRCSim]

Did he ever mention software or a stored program in the video? The self replication including mining, refining, and assembling parts seems incredibly complicated and needing not only software but pretty sophisticated software. Doing all that autonomously is at the fringes of what is possible on Earth without the self-replicating requirement. It is hard to imagine the complex behaviour working without having the computing power of something like an Apple 2 from the 1980's. He mentioned using vacuum tubes which could act as transistors. 4:05 mentions analog neural networks but it is hard to see that helping significantly with the complex behaviours needed when neural networks are so specialized. Making a computer comparable to an Apple 2 out of vacuum tubes would be extremely huge and likely make this idea impossible. It sounds like his ideas are at the very earliest stages of brain storming and could be 100+ years from actually working on the moon. His estimates around 49:30 are obviously underestimating the time and effort needed to help himself get research funding. Near the end, it sounds like he's talking about sending new software to the moon if the robots mess up. I didn't hear software mentioned elsewhere. If they have a reliable feature to replace the software controlling all the robots, replacing it with software to simply shut down all robots would be easier than having some of the other safeguards he mentioned too.

[@luminousfractal420]

what do you think dna is :) were the planet changers are we not? the self replicators. and all from a little seed of dna.

[@rightcheer5096]

A.I.s, A.S.I.s, self replicating robots, self replicating space probes…. What could go wrong?

[@JamesCairney]

People in the comments really don't like speculative ideas, concise predictable conclusions or its all nonsense! I like the speculation, myself. Ideas have to start somewhere. Good interview!

[@WetDoggo]

To achieve this you need: Energy Mobility Mining Refining Production Assembly Software And the mining plus refining is probably the most difficult part to pull off

[@WetDoggo]

Okay, Assembly is probably very difficult too, since you need massively capable autonomous assembly bots... Which we just aren't anywhere close to pulling of on earth.

[@robertgraybeard3750]

When Professor Ellery said life has been an example of adaptation and exaptation I remembered a response by L. Ron Hubbard to a question about von Neumann probes in the Q an A after he talked about his proposed Starwisp System at a 1982 Spaceweek event. "We, and our society and industry are a self replicating system."

[@damiantedrow3218]

He right bout that, except trapped on earth. VNP will be a society of bots with seperate jobs, not a single superbot that does it all.

[@robertgraybeard3750]

The Starwisp System didn't happen and the similar en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot may happen. At that conference L Ron Hubbard was asked about how his proposed interstellar probes might be decelerated as they approached another solar system so they could study it in detail. "Simple" - send a power beam so the fleet of probes could rendezvous, reassemble themselves into a reflector and a solar system probe, send a decelerating blast so the reflector would be accelerated and the probe decelerated. Then the probe could navigate through the target solar system with a solar sail. It would rendezvous with a series of asteroids and comets and eat them and build a decelerating station and a habitat for the next starship and its crew. No need to restrict ourselves to habitable planets or planets that could be terraformed. The colonized solar system could mature to the point of sending out its own interstellar probes and then crewed starships in a few generations. The interstellar expansion rate might be as fast as settling another solar system in less than 250 years . . . and the galaxy in about 400 million years. And so we have Fermi's Question "Where is everybody?"

[@Chompchompyerded]

We are a long way from a self-replicating robot. Such a robot would need to be able to select the right materials and process them, such as turning ore and scrap into the proper metals, not to mention shape it and assemble it. At present, it takes an assembly line of robots to put the parts together, refineries to make the ingots from which it will be made, various materials to make chip wafers, and still other highly toxic materials to etch the chips. All of those need to be manufactured since none of those chemicals occur in the earth in any usable quantity. All these manufacturing capabilities would need to be miniaturized and so on and so forth. Not only is it unlikely to happen anytime soon, but it also would not be particularly practical, and would also be very inefficient. This isn't something that is right around the corner, or even way down the road. It might be someone's opium pipe dream, but that's kind of it.

[@Ablidmusic]

Love this podcast, gogo Fraser !

[@stanspanish253]

Great show! Thanks

[@gilbertozuniga8063]

In the sixties computers were made with vacuum tubes. I worked with one that was so big it was installed in a warehouse. I would like to see a computer that size transported in a space ship. Whomsoever is suggesting this should have his medulla examined

[@RectalRooter]

I believe this is a science fiction idea. Which is a great idea to work towards. It bring science and science fiction into a recycling loop. A chicken and egg argument. Science feeds off of science fiction, which feeds off science, which in turns feeds science fiction. I picture it -- as the snake eating it's own tail.

[@Hoodlum555]

The father of the Borg, 'Resistance is futile!'

[@istvansipos9940]

I am too pessimistic with my following thought, I hope. Nobody currently working on this will live long enough to see these machines happen. A bit saddening.

[@peterd9698]

I thought I heard something about a current Chinese mission that will experiment with sintering lunar bricks. Obviously that is a long way from building computers, but my point is that nothing is stopping us seeing a constant stream of worthwhile accomplishments.

[@linkgunther1618]

That's a problem with science in general. Very few are willing to spend their entire life working on a project that takes multiple lifetimes to accomplish. There are definitely projects that will take multiple lifetimes to accomplish but they aren't started for this exact reason. At least with this project people will see progress, unlike a project that requires sending a spacecraft somewhere that will take 100+ years.

[@colinp2238]

It's interesting to learn that we are so close. In your closing comments about the Fermi paradox, where you ask where the other probes are, maybe other civilisations aren't interested in exploration and quite content to stay at home? We seem to think that all intelligent life is like us, including their motivations.

[@EinsteinsHair]

That's the key to the Fermi Paradox. Why are all alien civilizations the same? "They destroy themselves before they become interstellar." All of them? "They are not interested in exploration." None of them? In the history of the galaxy there has not been one oddball civilization like ours? If there had been just one, then they should have colonized the galaxy by now. People speculate about one Great Filter that stops them all. I think there are many Big Filters that slow everyone down. Get unlucky on two or three, and your civilization never becomes technological before you either go extinct, or at least get reset to a hunter-gatherer level.

[@DavidHauck-zy6gm]

this not real-talk to soon-but i love this channel

[@edumaker-alexgibson]

Good conversation! I read Alex Ellery's paper 'Are Self-Replicating Machines Feasible?' and enjoyed the reference to the RepRap 3D printers I was already playing with. All of this is an extension of Dr Bowyer's RepRap concept.

[@petergrinbergs8416]

Must confess that I had to lay down after 43 minutes of listening time. Wow! Thank you for this stretch of tape.

[@jkmil4981]

The Code of the Lifemaker's prolog has a great take on this. When the damaged exploitation ship lands on a planet, the damaged machines start an evolutionary system creating an 'artificial' ecosystem, including sentient humanoid robots. But if I remember correctly, there were several initial types of specialized robots that eventually built a factory to build more robots.

[@jack504]

He really understated the complexity of implementing the idea. I don't expect to see self replicating machines in my lifetime. Maybe a machine that can assemble ready made parts into another version of itself, but from scratch? No chance. Also the idea of space based solar power on Earth is garbage. Modern solar panels are typically 20% efficient, lasers are up to 80% efficient, transmission through the atmosphere is about 70% efficient. Just with these you would need 31m2 of panel in orbit to get an extra 1kw of power from a solar array on the ground. Then you have to aim the laser which will not be steady or perfectly collimated and the amount of incoming power (and size of space array) required to get 1kw could go up 100x

[@geroffmilan3328]

The idea of building motors from lunar regolith is funny considering how deadly that regolith is to machinery.

[@bluesteel8376]

There is a big difference between a machine that can replicate itself and a machine that can both replicate itself and a propulsion mechanism capable of interstellar flight.

[@ig2d]

The argument is that if robots are travelling to alpha proxima rather than humans speed becomes less critical. At one point he says " it would only take 1 million years to explore the galaxy.

[@1000dots]

@@ig2d I don't think it would be ethical to create robots that will keep doing things after our species is likely extinct. Also, we currently have a hard time making robots survive the two weeks of cold in the lunar night, these would need to last thousands of years in colder conditions.

[@peterd9698]

I haven’t hit the interstellar reference yet. IMO we are a couple of centuries away from worrying about that yet. We will probably have millions of people living on dozens of worlds/moons in this solar system first.

[@evertjan9479]

​@@1000dotsIf human kind is extinct and those robots still do what they were designed to do is of no consequence. That will most certainly never be a reason not to do it. Dead people don't care, and as long as there is (monetary) profit to be made, most of the (living) powers that be don't care either

[@1000dots]

@@evertjan9479 It's probably not realistic but I worry about a future species finding themselves in a universe filled with old robots and with all the resources used up

[@undertow2142]

A humanoid robot with comparable dexterity is really all you’d need to make a self replicating probe.

[@rtarbinar]

Hey Fraser! I found your podcast a few months ago I guess, and I love it! This is how science journalism should be conducted: by someone with a STEM background, with genuine passion and curiosity. (Of course, credentials aren't crucial, but some knowledge of the relevant subjects is key.) Thanks for enriching my internet experience!🙏

[@frasercain]

Oh great, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

[@tristan7216]

On earth we make technology from materials shipped from all over the planet in complexes of factories and trade networks. I've often thought that a replicator will have to be quite large, and it would need to be a swarm of robots spanning a large area and probably multiple planets or asteroids. We can simplify the technology like he says, but then the things will have very limited capabilities. Computers made of vacuum tubes aren't going to be running much AI. Not sure how vision is going to work, for example, and that seems kind of important for exploring and exploiting your environment. He does seem to be addressing all the right issues, so who knows. Another challenge is that his team has to invent an entire suite of highly specialized technologies that have few earthly market niches (then again, they probably said that about NASA and the ICBM program, and large markets for what they came up with did appear over time). Lunar replicators have two killer apps: manufacturing millions of orbital sun shade foil panels for solar radiation management to counteract AGW, and perhaps manufacturing solar panels and structural components for orbital power stations. If these are going to fan out into the galaxy, it would be nice if they could replicate our best technology, when conditions and cluster sizes are right. Build high level AI robots, somewhere on the other side of the galaxy in 20 million years. Is there some way it can carry instructions for this?

[@bandacatnip]

104 comments, but only 54 show up. KZbin is "better" everyday!

[@frasercain]

Maybe sub comments?

[@bandacatnip]

​@@frasercain If you count all the comments and all the replies to the comments you'll see that's not the case. Many comments only appear if you click on "newest first" but they don't appear at all if you are viewing "top comments". You can check for yourself. Excessive shadow banning is a huge problem which gets worse everyday. I'm amazed that my comment showed up at all, since I'm criticizing the platform.

[@sombra1111]

@@bandacatnip Yes, and there are many comments which say "2 replies", for example, but when you click to see the replies, only one show up and sometimes none. I just wrote a comment which is only visible through the 'Newest first' section for no apparent reason.

[@bandacatnip]

@@sombra1111 Not even you can see your comment on the top comments?

[@sombra1111]

@@bandacatnip I can see it on this channel, but I have another channel and I can't see it there. I decided to check it out after I saw your comment, but I've been noticing this problem very often for a while now.

[@mlcsella]

How do we 3d print a 3d printer? A subset of this is how to 3d print computing components, neurons, transistors, integrated , memory modules? Or lasers? Other huge challenges are to 3d print all of the sensors needed? To 3d print or otherwise manufacture spacecraft, engines and rocket fuel or alternative propulsion technologies. I don’t want to be completely negative just point out how much research & development is needed for this to be demonstrated. As others have stated - maybe centuries from now, if ever.

[@KenMathis1]

There's a lot of hand waving for interstellar Von Neumann probes. First the big one is propulsion. We aren't going to be able to send the heavy payloads needed to travel stellar distances to another solar system, travel within that solar system, and then be able to replicate well enough to do it all again. Oh, and all of that is going to have to be able to work after hundreds, to tens of thousands, of years of inactivity during space travel. For that to be even remotely possible, the probe is going to have to have a ton of redundancy and ability to repair, which is going to add to the weight. More weight means even slower acceleration and deceleration, which means even longer travel time, which means an even greater need for redundancy and repair, which means even more weight... rinse and repeat until you realize it isn't possible. Then there is the grey goo problem. None of the limiting factors apply to self replicating systems that can replicate enough to cover the galaxy. If a replicator can create enough copies to go to billions of stars, then it can create enough copies to completely overwhelm any one star. Either there is a hard limit to replication or there isn't. Trying to do something in between means it is open to Murphy's Law, and is no longer a hard limit.

[@oregonsbragia]

A Von Neuman probe would not be so much a little gadget, as it would be a ginormous armada of hundreds or thousands of factories.

[@zippythinginvention]

Soft landing asteroids on the moon? Oh, please.

[@alienairforce]

Iv had that same thought for years.

[@hugegamer5988]

lol. We are astronomically far away. We can’t even make things that self repair, much less self replicate.

[@thepiper5522]

Before listening to the talk, my estimate to how close we are: it's going to be a while.

[@musicilike69]

The obelisk in Arthur C's 2001 series was a Von Neuman probe by every definition. Something like that is beyond us and is akin to "magic".

[@brantwedel]

For a vision and control system, a central "Eye" that can be higher resolution and do all the computation for an army of robots would really help. Each robot could simply be 3 motors and simple commands completely controlled by central towers, rather than each robot needing hardware for complex computation and control.

[@MARILYNANDERSON88]

With space-freezing temps, likely ice will be a significantly useful material. Doping ice with conductive material and ice with structural qualities may be practical and easier than forging metal components in space

[@northerncaptain855]

Damn I’m feeling old, I remember growing up our TV was full of vacuum tubes.

[@leonmusk1040]

Having the probes only grow on light flat surfaces would help keep the water resources pristine because they wouldn't grow into the meteor craters where the bulk of the water remains un boiled by the sun.

[@alh-xj6gt]

how to get electrical isolation? a motor with coperwire has a thin layer of isolation material to make the coil which predominantly is oilbase for our electronics on earth.

[@HebaruSan]

At some point adding a life support system and a human crew starts to sound like a simpler, easier solution

[@mimetype]

WEN?

[@archmage_of_the_aether]

WAI

[@burgzaza]

VON WEN

[@xINVISIGOTHx]

@@burgzaza HU?

[@peterd9698]

IMO something like nasas Asteroid Retrieval Mission architecture would be a better starting point for ISRU including the ultimate goal of self replication. * You don’t need the lunar architecture, just solar electric tugs. I think these will be cheaper to develop and run long term. * you can grab all different sorts of asteroids, from volatile rich to metal rich, whatever it turns out is useful. * it would probably be much easier to build and run solar furnaces in space than on the moon.

[@robwalker4548]

Or the reason there is no sign of a civilization using self generating robots is it does not work as well as we want to imagine. Because we can partly build something does not mean it will develop as we thought it would. I love the idea of working on this and developing for possible uses in special use cases but betting it will not be a grand scale operational system.

[@DG-mk7kd]

The technology for building self replicating robot probes is about the same, maybe harder, than building self-replicating human habitats. By the time we could send out robust/reliable/flexible robot probes, we will probably just be sending huge ark colonies

[@Scorch428]

We already have Von Neumann machines.... Theyre called HUMANS.

[@miolini]

Thermionic conversion on board is important part of thermomanagment system of spacecraft in space where only black body radiation is the only option to remove heat.

[@gruener_Ritter]

Hi Mr. Cain! I've got a random question for you: How does the "interstellar medium" influence the speed of Light? As in: Light traveling through a Medium has a different speed compared to Light in a perfect vacuum. How are changes in density over interstellar distances compensated(i.e. when calculating distances etc)?

[@gilbertozuniga8063]

Can you imagine robots looking for minerals to use to make metals is chips?

[@brucethomas471]

Frankly, no, I can't.

[@mlcsella]

The robot needs excavating, drilling, refining, smelting, sensors sufficient to know what raw materials exist. I’m concerned about the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Will this general replication robot be able to do all of the above AND repair itself before it degraded and ceased to function.

[@noyfb4769]

This episode has to be an early April Fool's joke.

[@ArianeQube]

Very interesting topic. Also what is the deal with these LLM generated comments from accounts with sexualised pictures?

[@frasercain]

It happens every time I post a new video. Clearly it's beyond KZbin's ability to deal with, so I have to ban them manually every video.

[@lyledal]

It's the current state of KZbin, unfortunately.

[@FirestormX9]

They were here before the LLM's becoming so accessible. It's an entirely unnecessary and taxing task which channel operators need to perform repeatedly only to minimize the spread on each video. Can't even entirely eliminate it on each video.

[@archmage_of_the_aether]

​@@frasercainto paraphrase three other threads, we can't even get a bot filter working and yet we're working on VN probes.

[@leonmusk1040]

Can we report them if they pop up and we see them first does that help or hinder progress at you're end of the great algorithmic gods been meaning to ask for a while @@frasercain

[@gemstone7818]

von neumann probes seem very interesting when paired with breakthrough starshot

[@Jedward108]

I look forward to somebody experimenting with a self-replicating machine here on Earth.

[@frasercain]

Same!

[@lenwhatever4187]

Valves are certainly possible and would not need a sealed envelope. Core memory is a large set of motors set up as memory, we have used them in space already..... smaller than valve based memory by far. Generally more robust as well. However, valves without needing to be sealed and directly Sun powered might be more robust than the ones we have used in the past. There are valves that are around 100 years old (80 for sure) that are still in _good_ working condition. I don't know that aluminum is a good metal to use for electronics due to it's physical properties.... but you use what you have. However, for Apollo, we used the best computers and robots we had.... we called them people. So far people are still the best self-replicating robots we have and they are also the most general builders that are able to build things with plans merely printed on paper.... or some metal sheet. I think that we are at a place where we can build robots that can take the place of the people involved in Apollo.... this is what China is doing. People are still the top of the chain for building and repairing these robots and because the plan is to settle the Moon (or more generally "Space") we will self replicate as a matter of course anyway. Still, step by step.

[@benedictmarshall7031]

Can energy be created using some form of heat pump? There’s a huge temperature difference between a material facing the sun, and that in shade.

[@hamobu]

Forget self-replicating machine, can we even have self-reliant country that would be sanction-proof?

[@toby9999]

No, not generally, that would be highly inefficient. Specialisation increases our standard of living.

[@hamobu]

@@toby9999 yes but globalisation puts you at the risk of sanctions. If a big country like the US or China decides that they don't like your country's policy, they could cut you off by not doing business with any country that does business with yours. This is why Russia is stealing washing machines from Ukraine to get computer chips.

[@RectalRooter]

To me -- that sounds like a StarTrek planet country. I do hope humans get there someday

[@ulicadluga]

05:20 - Can someone please help - is a "thermionic device" more efficient at producing electricity than a "semiconductor-based device" (for example solar panels)?

[@kiosmallwood576]

Semiconductors are more efficient but only with very precise manufacturing. A solar photovoltaic panel made with crappy materials is worse than an equivalent thermionic device.

[@RectalRooter]

Speaking as "we" a collective planet earth are not even close to Artificial Intelligence machine... How are we going to program a self functioning factory to build a self functioning factory ?>

[@macysondheim]

By programming it.

[@macysondheim]

It’s not that hard

[@toby9999]

​@@macysondheimIt is that hard.

[@RectalRooter]

@@macysondheim You might be over rating our "" collective planet earth programming ability"" We are still unable to program a safe and reliable computer operating system that never needs human interaction - Or agree who is responsible when a self driving car wipes out a family crossing the street.

[@istvansipos9940]

"How are we going to program a self functioning factory..." maybe we won't. Maybe it 3d prints everything based on a ton of detailed plans, without making any intelligent decisions

[@adammathisson5119]

Make more sense to have probes building bases we can just move into when we arrive a bit later. from there we can make the next probe decide where it should go and send it. Sending out probes who only build probes is pointless, especially if they go beyond communication range. When it comes to asteriods it makes more sense to have large ships who have their own gravity think the ship in dead space, and can eventually build another copy but is exploring with a lot of smaller probes. No need to land on asteriods if you gobble them up. The larger ship the larger asteriods you can process.

[@JedReynoldsBitratchet]

How does one create insulators on the moon? If Al is the predominant material, is fused quartz the insulation ? How would the O2 not get lost?

[@ConstantContent123]

Analog is a superior signal.

[@tersse]

still he is working on some very interesting stuff with data compression, maybe a new way of programing modular proccessing.

[@TheWadetube]

You can program a robot to Assemble a duplicate, but not to make the computer chips, that requires another set of machines, and tooling. Products are so machine and skill set specific that one robot could not do it all and make everything that it takes to make all the parts that make it up. We are a long way from having robots that can set down and do all the things that we can do. So it comes down to what are the lowest standards you will accept and what are the highest achievements we are capable of now. Duplicate assembly is where we are at. That same robot does not have the skills to make the motors and gears needed, only to assemble them once someone else has made them.

[@CybAtSteam]

I've seen that movie. Scared the crap out of me as a teenager. It's called "Die Insel der Krebse" (based on the book "Crabs on the Island"). Self replicating robots on an island that use anything metal to make larger versions of themselves. Including robot cannibalism.

[@yurinator4411]

Written by a Russian, Anatoly Dneprov, back in 1968...

[@lengould9262]

Every probe carries a power source, a large CO2 laser (eg cutter, can process minerals to extract pure elements). Next, get construction of room-temp superconductors working, then steel will act as an insulator by comparison, eg just lay conductors as tracks of superconductor on steel structure. Given 1000 years with a strong goal, and all required information, should be do-able. Vacume tubes won't work because most interesting targets are not in a vacume, and memory requirements are too huge.

[@Downtownmtb]

I would love to see on-Earth demos of self-replicating devices in labs to better understand how far from fantasy the idea is. I'm a skoptomist, a skeptical-optimist ;-D. Don't tell, show.

[@cacogenicist]

I think _Relativity Space_ has, somewhere in their secret long-term plans, self-replicating constructs, spacecraft or what have you.

[@leonmusk1040]

Think that is more a feedstock space station printer where it plastic welds rolls of plastic and inflatostation unspools.

[@kx4532]

Spiking networks!

[@zrebbesh]

I want them limited to never ever function more than six light years away from the nearest living human. I don't want them going out and harvesting the galaxy with no benefit to us.

[@RectalRooter]

Grey goo hypothesis

[@ulicadluga]

15:00 - Why can't we use transistors - aren't solar panels essentially made from semiconductor transistor technology?

[@daveinpublic]

He mentioned towards the beginning that a self replicating machine created in earth couldn’t be translated to the moon… as each time the process has to be custom fit for the environment… That seems to miss the original goal, to make something that can self replicate across the universe.

[@BigZebraCom]

Von Neumann!!

[@kayakMike1000]

Lets remember that the moon has a pretty good vacuum and you can grow crystals in a pretty good vacuum.

[@johnmullin4175]

Civilization doesn't last long enough for two of them in the galaxy to interact.

[@glenecollins]

With the glass for the solar panels why would it have to be thick enough for the transparency to be a big issue? Presumably it would only have to be thick enough to shake off dust that got kicked up onto it, it wouldn’t be helpful to have it thick because it wouldn’t help it survive an impact from orbit and there is no weather to keep out.

[@blogsfred3187]

Vacuum tubes, should be almost trivial? Can’t we print the cathode, the anode and the grids, no need for the glass, as the vacuum is already present? Does the glass have a ray containment role? If so can’t we use a simpler ray containment? Also simple printed circuit boards, with single transistors should be doable? The 1960s boards had no ic chips, and used discrete transistors, so no chip fab?

[@user-ex2xx1fz8c]

Fraser, look at what a company called Cadence is doing, not so much robots, but machines building machines? you will find it interesting.

[@cpluvsniners70]

While l find this kind of discussion fascinating, l feel it is vitally important that space-faring nations collectively develop a form of the Prime Directive before we begin wholesale exploration, colonization, and or resource exploitation of other worlds. At what level of species development do we say, we can't stay here? We have to respect these creatures' right to develop and we should move on, no matter the ultimate cost of potential resource development, especially when corporate funding is involved.

[@smithtorreysmith]

At this point a Starship looks pretty capable of landing a Fab on the Moon. It seems that a proper V-N probe will have to be a Fab-Fab. Perhaps we focus on micro-fabs rather than reinventing electronics with vacuum tubes.

[@frasercain]

I think that's the traditional approach, Dr. Ellery is wondering if there's a way to do the whole process from start to finish with local resources.

[@KennethJordangnosthiseauton]

Watch out for that grey goo!

[@loopernoodling]

Prof Ellery seemed reluctant to discuss doing a test of concept here on Earth, but wouldn't that be a necessary first step? He said he's concentrating on the Moon, but isn't the *self-replication* the important bit? You could do all the tests with a sand-box of imitation regolith, and then modify for actual Lunar use.

[@RectalRooter]

Were all asking --- When will a Xerox machine print a Xerox machine. I wish I thought up that witty comment earlier lol

[@ulicadluga]

09:50 - What a great topic, and an interesting discourse. Already, at the start of this video, the issue seems to be pointing to AI.

[@sum_rye_hash_321]

I have seen someone 3dprint Fresnel lenses, i think with both filament and resin. I have also seen someone use a Fresnel lens to 3dprint sand in a desert. I think producing Fresnel lenses is doable

[@frasercain]

Yeah, I think that's why Dr. Ellery is focusing on that instead of the solar cells approach.

[@neilgreening9609]

Frasier - I do think it would help if interview videos started with “Interview:” in the title - just to help us scroll through your content and find them…

[@FirestormX9]

I see what you mean, you can use the video time length as a general guide to find the ones which almost certainly have an interview. The title topic would give an idea of the domain of the subject matter expert featured in the video. Would mostly be a professor or researcher in some capacity or its entirety. Or author. Now you have a fair idea in quickly finding an interview you'd be interesting in learning from.

[@MegaWilderness]

Vacuum tubes aren't reliable enough to build computers anywhere

[@JedReynoldsBitratchet]

Really curious how many vacuum tubes would it take to recreate a vacuum tube?

[@andrewkarn9255]

And then when we discover the Stargate we'll be fighting the replicators 😱😱😱