How We Accidentally Started Making Infinite Robots

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Twitter: / stephaniesamma
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Credits:
Narrator/Writer: Stephanie Sammann
Editor: Dylan Hennessy (www.behance.net/dylanhennessy1)
Illustrator/Animator: Kirtan Patel (kpatart.com/illustrations)
Animator: Mike Ridolfi (www.moboxgraphics.com/)
Sound: Graham Haerther (haerther.net)
Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster ( / forgottentowel )
Producer: Brian McManus ( / realengineering )
Imagery courtesy of Getty Images
Additional Footage and huge thanks to:
University of Vermont
Tufts University
Sam Kriegman
Doug Blackiston
Michael Levin
Music:
Anti-Gravity by Philip Logan
Ripples by Tamuz Dekel
Beat Dream by Tengrams
Odd Numbers by Curtis Cole
The Shoulder Tap by Tamuz Dekel
This Glass no lead vocals by Luminar
Premonition by Evgeny Bardyuzha
References:
[1] www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...)
[2] archive.org/details/isbn_9780...
[3] www.pnas.org/content/pnas/111...
[4] link.springer.com/chapter/10....
[5] www.science.org/doi/abs/10.11...
[6] www.nature.com/articles/nbt.2269
[7] www.science.org/doi/abs/10.11...
[8] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
[9] • Xenobots - The World's...
[10] citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/...
[11] www.pnas.org/content/118/49/e...
[12] scitechdaily.com/xenobots-2-0...

[@Mark-Wilson]

Everybody chillin' until they start mass replicating and eating everything

[@whitefeather8387]

THATS WHERE YOUR ROLE COMES NEW SCP FOUND

[@Mark-Wilson]

@@whitefeather8387 NK-CLASS "GREY GOO SCENARIO"

[@whitefeather8387]

@@Mark-Wilson hehe

[@zyansheep]

So, like all the other types of life?

[@crappymeal]

glad someone cares

[@vivaankhabya]

Jaw-dropping developments. Btw I’m assuming at 9:48 “half a nanometre” was a mistake as that would mean smaller than the width of two water molecules, or also one quarter the width of DNA, which is clearly wrong. Probably meant to mean “half a micrometre”

[@botondban2290]

Agreed. But that’s not that great mistake, I mean quality content attracts “kinda-expert” viewers. I wouldn’t spot a mistake like that if I weren’t learning biochemistry and physics. Shit happens

[@realscience]

yeah my bad! didn't catch that in time.

[@zombiedemon1762]

@@botondban2290 . Please give me all your knowledge.

[@vivaankhabya]

@@realscience yes yes no worries loved the video thanks for the content, was just a umm wait a second moment

[@fackeyutub-emael6545]

I think this was obvious due to their obvious large size

[@berrycade]

Zenobots are most definitely alive. Even though they are really just a Frankenstein of random frog stem cells, the cells have been shown to work together to move and heal. This displays a definite cohesion between the cells; regardless if the bots can eat or reproduce normally, these xenobots are living, multi-cellular organisms.

[@IXSuperRadGamerXI]

The same energy accesses all life forms after all.

[@anthonyw3717]

Imagine them cleaning their work place washing things off and where all this microscopic left over goes!

[@anthonyw3717]

They would need laser blasters to rid the planet of those things if they ever got so intelligent to become human like things in full form from baby form

[@pushingthroughthepaperthin9616]

Ah! They are made from frog cells? Well then, they were already alive. This is NOT a case of sceintists creating a new life form from non-living chemichals.

[@lucykelly7152]

They are probably suffering.

[@rexstocephirxiii4263]

Never thought a world like the environment of Scorn was possible, till now.

[@schonkigplavuis8850]

MAN. I had to read that twice. I don't like this at all.

[@subliminalfalllenangel2108]

Oh no....

[@bluthammer1442]

dont be afraid.

[@midwestairway]

i just hope that we treat our moldmen better

[@cnut7383]

Technology and biotechnology are the same and can achieve the same things. Think robots and animal bodies and brains and computers and ai etc etc. Tasers electric eels you get it.

[@astraregulus2672]

Makes you wonder how this tech might look like in a few decades or so

[@Silver_Sage663]

Well we both know that the only logical answer is accurate to life anime waifus.

[@abhijitleihaorambam3763]

@@Silver_Sage663 Fund this things quickly so we can have our own anime waifu not just only for our childrens.

[@oneone8318]

Just wait for corporations to cut your limbs off so they can add them to some robot machine to make more profit.

[@Computing_Brain]

I wouldn’t think decades. As a one of my favorite creators says: “Just think were things will be two papers down the line!”

[@ddp4923]

Like a slave for humanity

[@StepBaum]

As a biology student I have never heard of this. This is completely insane to me and I love it! Gotta say you guys are one of the inspirations for starting my own channel. The quality of your videos are just too good

[@unusuario5173]

Your channel was made 8 years ago and it only has 1 video. From a video game. Bummer.

[@StepBaum]

@@unusuario5173 Un Usuario. The vids are on a different channel and I just started out. It'll premier the first video soon (not later than April) and it will be about a taxa called Placozoa and why it's important to research. If you want me I can link it for you. This is my "screw around" account lol

[@moumous87]

You will not read this in school textbooks ‘cause this so recent… but the news were everywhere for quite sometimes. Maybe just follow the right channels and pages on social media to get interesting news ad they come out.

[@iraqi3612]

It's really unbelievable

[@StepBaum]

@Universal Love Ofc the later being the cause of Creutzfeld-Jacob-Syndrome. But what're you trynna say?

[@danielhanawalt4998]

About 40 years ago I think, I read an article in a magazine, maybe Popular Science, about this. Very interesting to see the new developments in this.

[@josephharden5592]

You must have read about Nanobots . Richard Feynman predicted/suggested Nanobots in the late 50s but people didn't catch up until the early to mid-80s

[@danielhanawalt4998]

@@josephharden5592 Yes, it was a article about nanobots. I think it was in Popular Science magazine.

[@petermontgomery638]

I remember seeing an apocalyptic scenario with rogue nanobots eating the world's organic matter... Always wondered how the prequel would start

[@bowenmadden6122]

I don't think frog cells will cause the apocalypse. XD

[@andresfernandez6437]

It's astounding that even synthetic life actively opposes entropy.

[@mknomad5]

I now am wondering if the will to live is encoded in dna. Or is that already known? Not that I know of.

[@Zadamanim]

I don't think these actively oppose entropy, since they can't eat. It's just taking the life force from the frog eggs and burning it until it runs out. It's like a ball rolling down a hill, if it has enough momentum it can roll UP a smaller hill momentarily, and if you look at just that part of the timeline you might think it's defying physics. But the ball will eventually come to a rest below its actual starting point (higher entropy, lower potential energy). With frog eggs you could start with just a few and end up with handfuls after a few generations, which is the entropy-defying miracle of life. These robots do not exhibit this yet.

[@TheNullNumber]

All life has no choice but to oppose entropy to some random degree of effectiveness because those that do not die out. We ourselves are merely the descendants of lottery winners in random chance genetics and environment.

[@mknomad5]

@@Zadamanim Define "life force". Physics does not deal with "miracles".

[@Zadamanim]

@@mknomad5 When I mean life force I mean the opposite of entropy. The complexity of life, which tends to make things even more complex. Life can reproduce and spread. If entropy leads the universe to become as chaotic as TV static, then life is a coherent form that contrasts that static, and actively opposes it. This is just my personal viewpoint. The artificial beings in the video I think just take the potential order/structure that could become a frog, and makes something less complex out of it, which eventually decays into entropic chaos. Since it naturally decays back into chaos, it's hard for me to see it as a living creature. It's like a dead fish that still twitches.

[@jalexwheeler7751]

Most engineers become greatly concerned when they accidently write code that replicates in an unforeseen manner. And that's in an environment where the underlying operating system is widely studied and the interactions are well known. These guys: "Ohh cool, it's making more of itself. That's unexpected." I think I've already seen this movie. Hey, who hid the remote?

[@stevenswitzer5154]

I thought the same thing. Every experiment should end with terminate the sample...

[@Dewkeeper]

While that's true, it's important to keep in mind they literally had to dump more of those frog stem cells into the petri dish for it to happen at all. Hardly a path to a grey goo scenario, stem cells are built for this sort of thing.

[@jalexwheeler7751]

@@Dewkeeper What other environments continuously produce new stem cells? Maybe... biological systems?

[@Dewkeeper]

@@jalexwheeler7751 you make it sound so easy to just do that in synthetic biology. Also if we're going to look at natural biological life, I'll point out the microbes and various microscopic organisms that have evolved for billions of years would, almost certainly, literally eat ANY human designed organism for breakfast. The immense sophistication and ruthlessness of the biosphere is not something to casually underestimate.

[@jalexwheeler7751]

@@Dewkeeper Oh so how do biological systems respond to novel stimuli? If only there was a recent mass experimentation we could look at for clues...

[@MP-lz1xb]

"if zenobot raw material could be continually added to the environment ... could be a real force for good". I like your positivism on the matter. I think though that if these entities were released to nature and were capable to survive they would seriously endanger the stability of the ecosystem.

[@bowenmadden6122]

I think they'd just be like bacteria, amoeba, or other microorganisms, but they'd ideally behave however we programmed them to, so they could be useful.

[@drewmandan]

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should...

[@thetruthexperiment]

Doctor Moreau in the original work created his hybrids through vivisection. Subsequently this was dismissed as impossible and the movie changed it to genetic Engineering. This is truly vivisection. It’s fascinating but creepy as hell.

[@travisl5790]

As you may recall Dr. Moreau was a literary creation. Not a real person. And as you may recall the Island of Dr. Moreau ended up being a living hell of a place with the tortured animals rebelling and attacking. It was one of the most memorable dystopias of literary history. And also a very interesting book to bring up in this discussion. I noticed in the video nobody mentioned the dystopian possibilities involved in this kind of engineering. It could end up being a complete horror show.

[@NightmareFuelsYou]

Anything is legal as long as its medical research...

[@hmroid6884]

@@travisl5790 eh I'd rather a flesh hivemind future then all the other dystopias At least everyone can be a part of the world wide biomass

[@Blake22022]

@@WemplesTemple what stops them from evolving or mutating, or getting better at assembling or dissembling. Say you release a number of these in the ocean, some might find frog particles, some might find things that are similar to frog molecules and try to assemble them anyways and it creates something new that can also replicate, but using different organisms. Or a frog sees these little giblets, eats a couple and becomes a frog cell producing machine, transfering the symbiotic parasites to other frogs. I dont see how they can accurately what these things are capable of. They did not program these things, evolution/life did, they're just using building blocks that life already created and then gave more building blocks to said creation and here is the crucial part, they waited to see what happened. They didnt tell this thing or program it so that it made more of itself, that's just what it did on it's own accord, whether that was our hypothesis or not

[@cameronsitton501]

@@NightmareFuelsYou That is objectively, demonstrably untrue, but go off I guess

[@wumboism]

This is both fascinating and terrifying. I love it

[@warpdrive9229]

Then it becomes a massive organic blob that spreads, comsuming everything in its path, until all of earth is devoured triggering a convergence event, birth of a brother moon. Prologue of Dead Space

[@morganstarchild5359]

Agreed!!

[@rohitwankhede9153]

@@warpdrive9229 that's basically grey goo territory

[@meltedyakkystick3891]

Everybody gansta until xenobots evolve into xenomorphs

[@Forcoy]

How is it terrifying

[@andysmith6124]

OK, so firstly, the scientists haven't created life, they've put some actual already live animal cells together and watched them do what cells do. The cells are not synthetic, the form look like is irrelevant, but they have been put together my humans, not their parent(s). It is amazing though, to watch how life persists and adapts and evolves.

[@TheCommanderFluffy]

The past nearly 30 years of my life we went to dreaming about stuff like reversing aging thinking maybe in 200 years we could crack the code to today where we are watching the clock wondering when cancer will be beat and we are actually close. I sometimes get that weird feeling of a deer in headlights and burst into tears thinking about how far we've come in nearly no time at all.

[@unculturedmeat]

Edit: This is so good. Sharing it with my prof (Josh Bongard) at UVM who is one of the primary researchers on this. Will let you know what he thinks! He said: "This is expertly done. Exciting, accessible to all, yet it doesn’t overly gloss over the scientific details."

[@yasyasmarangoz3577]

WHAAAT

[@leonlenizmolina8021]

you're extremely lucky!!

[@danielli3288]

what does he think?

[@oneone8318]

Gay..

[@yasyasmarangoz3577]

@@oneone8318 ok

[@Manjinkendo]

Cells themselves are living systems. Most of these properties are likely emerging from the fact they are systems made out of already living systems, Cells, each one of which contains all of the properties of life. It's probably like taking a bunch of human specialists and tying them all together at the waste, and then trying to get them to move or collect stuff. Still very brilliant though.

[@HowIsAsh]

Exactly!!! Everyone is like "wow they created life" even though all they did was reuse already living tissue

[@peppermintgal4302]

I think these are mostly interesting from the perspective if what they say about tissue repair and development pathways in complex animals, or from what we might be able to engineer these things to do. Outside of that, not that novel... they don't really reproduce themselves, not from scratch like an actual frog does, they need a bunch of stem cells already. It's just cells organizing and propagating their behavior.

[@jacobkudrowich]

Waist not waste

[@RogerBarraud]

Good analogy... and I think we all know that *some* specialists richly deserve it! ;-)

[@HomesteadAce]

Quality content! This has the potential to be very dangerous

[@bjornheidemann2783]

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.” Jurassic Park But seriously wow amazing Video

[@ZentaBon]

I do think this applies xD I'm waiting

[@Dx-Dm]

That quote seems profound at first glance, but then one realizes that whether one "should" relates to whether there is a worthwhile cost or benefit. Here, the cost is apparent and low because it requires a limited resources in the environment to replicate, ie, stem cells of its own kind. The benefit is apparent and high because it has potential applications in promoting human health. Low cost, high benefit. So, they "should."

[@juhotuho10]

@@Dx-Dm The should relates an as an ought not as a cost/benefit analysis. The ought coming from the moral foundation of the society. There is no cost/benefit calculation in the phrase: you should not kill.

[@Dx-Dm]

@@juhotuho10 Assuming everyone agrees that, generally, we "ought" to pursue beneficial things and "ought" to avoid harmful things, of course cost/benefit analyses are prescriptive. The very concept of benefit presupposes value.

[@tonynussbaum]

@@Dx-Dm It's also about unforeseen consequences. Tinkering with delicately balanced and complex systems always has unforeseen consequences. The ones we can imagine are terrifying and the ones we can't, probably even more so.

[@GheddoBreaker]

Hey Real Science, super interesting and well produced video overall! A few comments and questions. 1. Misleading title: These "Robots" are not infinitely reproducing. This was commented by others also: There was no statement in the video on the functionality of the aggregated cell blobs, but I can only assume that there is no organisation of cell types as in the "parent" blobs. So please, correct me if I'm wrong here as I have not read the publications. There is a lot of hype already about this and I have read increadibly misleading articles. The vast majority of people do not have a background in biology , making non-sensationalized reporting so important. 2. After reorganizing the frog embryos, it seems weird to me to call them robots now, because they are basically the same as before: An embryo with rearranged cell types. 3. Did the embryonic cells stop dividing after rearrangement? It appears so, because as you stated, they died after 10 days. Could you explain why that is? Meaning, why did the cells lose their ability to divide and grow into a big tumour blob? After all, they are still stem cells and basically an embryo that "wants" to be a frog. 4. Everybody getting intimidated/overwhelmed by this and calling the next bio-apocalypse, consider this: The cells needed a sterile and well controlled environment to stay alive (animal cells grown in the lab frequently contaminate if you are not careful (molecular biologist speaking from experience). They need an energy source to perform movement long term. Releasing these into the wild would not do anything. They would die instantly, get eaten by anything larger or overgrown by some bacteria. Life is increadibly complex and the outside world is harsh on everyone. Competition is fierce. Just rearranging an increadibly vulnerable embryonic cell clump into a "robot" will not make it more powerful or lead to some emergent behavior that will overthrow the biosphere. 5. Being careful with AI-designed life-forms is important and I am fully with you on the statement that we simply cannot imagine how alternatively designed life would look like. Therefore, and despite point 4 above, we as a species have to be extra diligent about it.

[@ClaustroPasta]

Exactly my thoughts on that point no. 2. All I get from that explained building process are just them being a deformed frog/tadpoles. It's a relief to know that they're not actually alive or else I'll just feel sad for the frog to be mutilated pre birth and machined for 10 days max.

[@korstmahler]

Thank you for providing reason where hype has otherwise taken it's place. It's amazing work to be sure, but this is giving me vibes of when the media went nuts over 'Scientists teleporting a photon' during some neat superposition tests years back.(might have been an entanglement test actually now I think) Like sure, I'm glad the public is enthusiastic but it ought not to come from misinformation. That's what drives people towards other misinformation that leads to real harm.

[@priyathammanoharkoka4300]

Your comment needs to be on top unlike the useless jokes that people make

[@billyhill986]

I feel like every video ive been watching have misleading titles

[@dawsonhall2151]

it is compelling though to think the strength of a young heart, to turn nearby stem cells it comes into contact with, becoming their own heart! fascinating to me. definitely not infinite because the initial energy is reliant on the ‘half-life or state of degradation’ of the initial cells used..probably shii im just smokin weed

[@LargeBlueCircle]

awesome. Cant wait. I deeply appreciate that you did not go down the sci-fi horror rabbit hole immediately. I believe human projection really colors our views of things, and just as there is a potential for Skynet, there is an equal potential for the Positronic Robots, that only wanted to save us.

[@tommychappell6359]

How do we know?

[@eloquentsarcasm]

The humble beginnings of our future Replicants, calling all Blade Runners.

[@YagamiKou]

As the architects in Subnautia said "You still see a difference between technology and biology? how interesting..." it is very easy to see life as something binary but I think its becoming more apparent that life isnt a *yes or no* charactistic life comes in a spectrum of totally non-living to totally living when thought of as a spectrum, its very easy to place creatures like this it would be like learning there is a number between 0 and 1 you can always get more granular in a scale the biggest difference to me, between the living and non-living, is complexity "eventually a difference in scale, becomes a difference in kind"

[@hrishikeshaggrawal]

Zamn

[@Survivalist_Redo]

@@hrishikeshaggrawal >:(

[@Survivalist_Redo]

:)

[@dusk_and_dawn2187]

fascinating line of thinking! I'm glad to have read the comment.

[@rds7696]

So life as an emergent property?

[@UncleRJ]

Damn, even robots have more action than me.

[@oneone8318]

They are not robots, lust lumps of flesh doing mindless motion.. Basically zombies.

[@drsharkboy6568]

@@oneone8318 zombie implies something used to have a working brain. By your definition, all naturally brainless invertebrates would be zombies.

[@siyacer]

@@drsharkboy6568 it's a simile, sharkboy.

[@drsharkboy6568]

@@siyacer there’s no use of “like” or “as,” so it would really be a metaphor.

[@siyacer]

@@drsharkboy6568 no, a metaphor specifically uses "like" or "as", a simile does not.

[@andysmith6124]

To reiterate - these are not robots that have life, they are already living cells that are acting a bit like robots perhaps.

[@calmdown.8213]

imagine the immortality of these machines - the soul of an organism never able to die due to the persistence of the eternal robot, enslaving whatever living soul that comes with placing human brain tissue on a circuit board

[@abrikos1100]

9:47 half a nanometer? Can't be true because it is length of just 5 water molecules and it is much less than visible light wavelength. Maybe you mean half a micrometer?

[@techstuff9198]

They have acknowledged this mistake in another reply.

[@Nekomesha]

Someone already said this.

[@entombedmachine]

If you think about it it makes perfect sense. We're taking something that already works insanely well, restructuring it to work in predictable ways, and adding features with further iterations. It's only natural that unpredictable advantages would crop up, considering the medium is biological tissue effectively being repurposed.

[@mitchellsteindler]

Cool... predict something else then

[@entombedmachine]

@@mitchellsteindler Why don't you help me brother?

[@chaosdweller]

@@entombedmachine yer name lol! ....hey is that where ? there putting that ol 🤖 ghost 👻 ?

[@chaosdweller]

Wow that sounded incredibly smart, haha cool....., I'm probably going to have to read that twice.

[@entombedmachine]

@@chaosdweller It only SOUNDED smart, I assure you lol. And yes, the ghost is in this machine haha

[@howzany6832]

This type of thing usually make me think "cool science!" but somehow this crosses a line for me and goes into uncanny valley and I couldn't stop thinking "abomination".

[@MemesnShet]

This seems like foreshadowing of a future where they are everywhere and get out of control

[@Chindogu42]

What if you used cells from the immortal jellyfish? As well as the other tissues used to develop this biobot. Maybe another scary thought?

[@ddogthepimp]

It’s immortality comes from it regressing in age under certain conditions. So the immortality is theoretical.

[@tristanmisja]

They aren't immortal in the way that we typically want. An organism that is are Hydras, they're very small (not quite microscopic) aquatic organisms that are similar to sea anemones, and they are _actually_ immortal.

[@burninghotdogs4876]

@@tristanmisja just looked them up and they’re amazing

[@katherinegordon8088]

and add inorganic graphene the hardest single molecule we have found.

[@tristanmisja]

@@katherinegordon8088 What does that have to do with anything?

[@SebastianLopez-nh1rr]

This is both amazing and underwhelming, I think that’s how true science often feels like.

[@xzonia1]

I felt overwhelmed trying to understand how anyone even figured out how to design these bots in the first place, much less to then observe them do this sort of emergent behavior. I'm intelligent, but watching this made me feel really ignorant. Kudos to the scientists who figured this out!

[@quitlife9279]

i think that is the perfect way to put it, we see just enough to notice potentials, but nothing will ever come out of it in our lifetime. And perhaps it never will, but we'll never know anyways.

[@kjohn5224]

@@quitlife9279 Depends on how old you are. This is going to be astounding in two decades.

[@anandsuralkar2947]

I am overwhelmed somehow lol. I mean some living robot randomly starts reproducing wtf lol.

[@kjohn5224]

@@anandsuralkar2947 It's not really reproducing. It's just turning the stem cells the scientists added into copies of themselves.

[@andylifer5302]

I actually find this terrifying. Just the kind of research that will create something that will eat us all.

[@machinevsanything1963]

they do not eat though

[@bowenmadden6122]

They're just embryonic frog cells...

[@a.sanaie2460]

Amazing video. Thanks!

[@qzbnyv]

It’s fine. I don’t have to worry about this dystopia. Between the Nukes and Boston Dynamics’ Terminators, we surely don’t have to wait as long as it will take for this to inevitably become an existential problem.

[@stanislaviliev6305]

This is exactly how they get you, never loose them from sight

[@juhotuho10]

casually sleepwalking into dystopian nightmares using science, not the first time we have done it, and this probably wont be the last

[@navukailagisigidrigi641]

@@stanislaviliev6305 tt

[@vagrant1943]

Man being edgy and pessimistic is so cool these days. A+ for following the herd.

[@GTAjedi]

@@vagrant1943 Because Putin isn't trying to start WW3 or anything...

[@LukeTramps]

I often find myself wondering how far we've come as a species, considering how stupid we are as a species.

[@valkey7487]

Our progress going forward is based on having smart and stupid people. Smart people invent, stupid people work and the accumulation of both of their effort took us this far. When I say stupid people that's only a reference to what you would view as stupid in our species which is by far the smartest we know to exist for thousands of years.

[@LukeTramps]

@@valkey7487 I see your point, but you talk about individuals; categorizing them. But I literally mean us, as a species. We can work together to create artificial intelligence that instructs us in creating new forms of life but we can't save the planet from our self despite all we'd need to do is work together on it. And just to be clear, A) that's not the fault of the working class and B) we're the smartest species we've Ever known.

[@voreincorporated3056]

The smartest 1% move things forward for humanity

[@LukeTramps]

@@voreincorporated3056 can't argue with that...

[@DarkAngelEU]

@@LukeTramps I was thinking the same. We're pretty close to figuring out eternal life, or at least elongating our lifespans by a several hundred years, but doing so would only cause further harm to the planet. What's the point of having a 400 year old lifespan if your environment won't allow you to reach 50?

[@spyder001]

Closed captions for these would be great. And a label for the speakers shown. Each scientist and such.

[@soloqVenu]

This channel is a Gem! I love all the videos and the effort that goes into it. This is a real deal. Thank you for keeping us curious.

[@sapelesteve]

Very interesting video RS! This falls under the category of both "phenomenal and terrifying" at the same time! Let's hope that it will be a benefit to human kind going forward!

[@xMorogothx]

Famous last words.

[@Maysy787]

Yeah true aye for some reason my mind went straight too grey goo type shit🤣

[@oneone8318]

This is just a sick experiment made by some sociopath.

[@drsharkboy6568]

@@oneone8318 at least they were only using stem cells that didn’t yet figure out their purpose, from a frog I might add, as opposed to using human brain cells with the potential to give the creation its own advanced consciousness.

[@oneone8318]

@@drsharkboy6568 i doubt pieces of brain can create conciousness.

[@evelynong3483]

What if life on Earth were actually biological robots created by an ancient alien civilization who dumped their experiments on a random planet to grow and thrive, which happened to be Earth

[@bazpearce9993]

I've always been fond of the alien seeder ship traveling the galaxy, dropping living cells onto suitable planets idea. If JWST finds a series of interconnected Earths in the Milky Way's spiral arms. All showing strong biosignatures. The we will have compelling evidence that the hypothesis is true.

[@DeeS8]

Prometheus dude

[@aleisterlavey9716]

" You thought about sterilising our biowaste before dumping on that space rock?" " ...uhm..."

[@xenophagia]

@@aleisterlavey9716 🤣

[@dzanderallison]

What if the ancient alien civilization were biological robots created by an ancient alien civilization who dumped their experiments on a random planet

[@poulthomas469]

Owl feathers have given inspiration to a coating for the blades of a jet engine dramatically cutting the noise they produce.

[@eutytoalba]

"freed of their evolutionary fate" A veeeeeery nice way of saying you smushed it: like a making origami out of a bug that hit your windshield and then saying "hay, look, it can still fly....sort of....this could be useful!"

[@cmw3737]

I've thought the ability to battle entropy to preserve internal order by taking energy from their surroundings has been a pretty good definition of life.

[@joejones9520]

yes, it does seem to be and i never realized it until right before i got to your comment and was listening to the vid. Fascinating stuff.

[@peppermintgal4302]

I dunno about that, life's relationship with entropy is a lot more complex than that. For one thing, entropy isn't the same as chaos, (many scientists no longer use the term since it causes confusion,) it's simply a metric defining the number of microstates a macrostate can be in. Life actually has a lot of entropy within itself, particularly within the genome, since information itself is entropy. (See Shannon Information Theory.)

[@joejones9520]

@@peppermintgal4302 but inanimate, non-living things, like say, a rock, cannot ever rebuild, replace or prevent decay of themselves but living things can, even the simplest forms of life do to some degree.

[@mtlicq]

@@joejones9520 actually that is not so. Calcium compounds can rebuild/replace/prevent decay of themselves and some of the most intelligent or informed stone masons / bricklayers will know of autogenous-healing of mortar joints that are built with lime-based mortar instead of regular masonry cement. Also, spelunkers and geologists and hobbyists know about stalactites....but they are inanimate / non-living things.

[@joejones9520]

@@mtlicq I think you know deep down that your examples are erroneous.

[@ratrider8093]

Oh sweet, man made horrors beyond my comprehension

[@matthewcantrell5289]

This is awesome to see! My only thought is when do we hit the ‘we were so occupied if we could do something we never asked if we should” moment.

[@rev.jonathanwint6038]

Remarkable is one word for it terrifying is another.

[@zerophoenix6758]

This mix of synthetic biology and robotics is truly wanderers, with enough innovation they could prove useful in ways that few could even imagine. Yes it's kinda a bit scary as well but it is only human for us to focus on the potential harm rather than the benefits. As will all innovation, it could very well hit a brick wall tomorrow and none of this will go anywhere soon or maybe someday soon somebody will make a breakthrough that changes the way we think about these technologies, we will have to see.

[@nlight8769]

With this tech, we are litterally playing with biological life. And life is unpredictable. Well it may be predictable in some ways, but never ceases to surprise us. We constantly catches new stuff that we did not anticipate... therefore playing gods has quite a big chance to grow out of control, but now the pandora's box has been opened, good luck closing it.

[@jellysquiddles3194]

@@nlight8769 I'm not scared of this technology. In itself it is just as harmless as a rock. But thanks to "enough innovation" we managed to make nuclear bombs out of those rocks. As it is with any breakthrough technology - the first time we will see it applied in the real world will be as a bio weapon.

[@nlight8769]

@@jellysquiddles3194 that or with unexpected behaviors generating ill effects and spreading out of the lab with us trying to find way to control it. It is so bothering to see our specie playing God when our specie is not wise enough, especially people holding power who are notorious sociopaths.

[@fouadmas5413]

This amazing technology which WILL be weaponized, I'm sure DARPA and others have ahead with this technology

[@AndyChamberlainMusic]

"they aren't a product of millions of years evolution" *ten seconds later* "they're made from cells taken from a frog"

[@poulthomas469]

Humans evolve->Humans design A.I.->A.I. becomes sentient->A.I. destroys humanity->A.I designs and creates a more perfect Humanoid -> Humanoids rebel against A.I.->Humanoids forget they were 'created'. This would make a good SciFi show.

[@Canigetanawwwwyyyyeeeah]

David icke talked about this in bovine cultures as a delivery system quite a few years ago. Now that’s the not so nuts part…

[@Demongordon]

I wonder if the xenobot turning pile of stem cells into new xenobots, has to do with the fact that in the action of touching and rounding them they unknowly maneged to "imprint" their own behaviour on the steam cell. Akin to a paper filled with wet ink touching a white paper and transfer some of it's written on it. Maybe we could do the oposite, put human stem cell under contact with what type of cell we want to reproduce(heart cells for example) and the motion will turn then into the same cell we desire, in the same manner that touching xenobot turned then into copies of itself. The research will need to focus on "how" and "why" steam cell react in such way.

[@iminumst7827]

"put human stem cell under contact with what type of cell we want to reproduce(heart cells for example) and the motion will turn then into the same cell we desire" That's pretty much already being done. As soon as Stem cells were discovered, scientists have been working with human stem cells in an attempt to heal many types of damage, you can look up a paper titled "Current state of stem cell-based therapies: an overview" by Riham Mohamed Aly made in 2020 to get a relatively up-to-date idea of where the tech is at. Stem cells are miraculous, but they aren't without risk, because you can easily imagine how stem cells can be an issue, such as causing tumors. They aren't yet approved for regular human use because of the lack of clinical trials and the current risks, but it seems optimistic that these will be able to be worked out in the future. I think an even more remarkable application of this xenobot idea would be the ability to create living human cells from raw materials.

[@RiftVaulter]

Actually feasible, mass production though?

[@ez_company9325]

see they left out the part where the new ones functioned just like the manufactured ones.... remember it was said that these things were carefully crafted to move in circles or whatever.... with that in mind, if you throw a bunch of materials in with them, yea, they will pile them up and it will generate a new one, but i bet it doesnt behave the same. If it does behave the same then..... holy shit this is already nearly out of control. Furthermore, releasing anything like this in the near term would be insanity. Even something simple like this is one mutation away from being an actual ecological disaster. Its like the plot of some sci fi horror film.

[@felipematheus853]

@@ez_company9325 or maybe turn into fish food

[@skylermikalson6159]

@@ez_company9325 You’re the only other person that seems to have noticed this. They’re not reproducing per se. Maybe you could say they’re producing infertile children that are just random blobs as opposed to sophisticated machines. Also, their being “released” wouldn’t be a big deal even if they could truly reproduce because outside of a Petri dish there aren’t a bunch of frog stem cells laying around everywhere.

[@durgun8247]

Story idea: the story is set in a civilization on earth a very long time after humans go extinct and the natural world is almost completely different from today. It follows a biologist who finds proof/evidence that kinematic reproduction didn't evolve naturally, but rather was designed by an ancient civilization from before his own species gained intelligence.

[@Raj-gr6dy]

How about instead of going extinct, we leave the planet to "make space for other intelligent species that may evolve".Of course, idea is set when Humanity becomes a type 2 ( or maybe crosses 2, but not reaching 3) civilization on the Kardashev scale. I mean, type 2 civs have energy output of a star, so civilizations above type 2 might control their star's output? So I suppose humans extend the lifespan of the Sun and leave, while also leaving behind artifacts of great value for their successors, reminding them of the great Human Civilization.

[@ok0_0]

cool as fuck

[@EdgarAllan2pointPoe]

I appreciate that you specifically singled out animals as being multicellular. I don't know anything about fungi but I do know that some scientists have been questioning whether or not plants can truly considered be called multicellular when their "cells" don't actually meet the requirements needed to be considered to be a cell. That isn't to say that they aren't an extremely complex form of life, it's just that our main models of cells are ultimately derived from the original studies of animal cells. The models are of course far more complex and numerous than they once were but that doesn't change the fact they we may being using the inappropriate label of multicellular for something that deserved its own terminology.

[@Christianmingle420]

This is extremely intriguing yet simultaneously unsettling

[@fanman421]

I remember a story about a self replicating robot that was designed to make a half size copy of itself. The inventor left the robot to do it’s job at the end of the day. When he tried to return to work the next day, his car quit running as he approached the lab which had been reduced to a shell of cement rubble. He had made the error in instruction to the robot programming it to make 10 half size copies and the now microscopic robots were consuming every bit of metal they could find.

[@warpspeed8305]

Futurama when bander creates 2 smaller copies of himself to help him do things he doesn't want to do

[@russellhenderson4833]

If you say so

[@LutraLovegood]

Sounds like something Asimov would write.

[@annemaria5126]

They were so hungry!.....😒

[@fanman421]

@@annemaria5126 You wouldn’t happen to be from Latina Italy would you?

[@choco2482]

It's kinda scary to think about how this tech could be weaponized.

[@PoiColle]

Or u can like, not instantly start fearmongering. U know?

[@CheriBerry1]

I thought i heard DARPA was into this type of work. I listened to Annie Jacobsen talk about it on joe Rogan podcast

[@Ten_Bears]

Weaponized,or vaccinized,either way it's a true abomination, if we change the dna of humans,are we still human And what kind of new diseases may be born,things that make you go hmmmm

[@cupriferouscatalyst3708]

It's the double-edged sword of innovation, as anything useful enough to help us could also be made to hinder us. I'd call it a triple-edged sword honestly, the third edge being the unintended side effects, like how it took us decades to realize how some of our inventions were also doing things like breaking up the ozone layer and heating up the Earth.

[@Phreno_Xeno]

I know how this story ends. I've watched enough budget horror movies to know as much.

[@jaredfisher1618]

(zee-no-bot) incredible advancements in biotech. When I was a boy, we had African Clawed Frogs as pets in our family fish tank( they lived entirely underwater), and they were some of the most exciting animals during feeding time. They would eat their tank mates if not fed regularly. They loved live food, like fish. Their scientific name is xenopus laevis which sounds like ZEE-NO-PUS

[@fred_e]

And here I thought it was actually made from scratch. Using cells from an already existing organism and saying that it's man made is like saying that we created wooden furniture by taking a tree branch and just sitting on it.

[@Unitedwithin1]

It seems the devil in the detail is just a mere bastardisation of our creators masterpiece. ❤🙏

[@fred_e]

@@Unitedwithin1 I understand where you are coming from. It’s alright if you say it more plainly.

[@Unitedwithin1]

@@fred_e , I am praying you will assist with a simplification of defining the true soul frequency. 🤔

[@Unitedwithin1]

@@fred_e, I believe I should of expressed it as harmonic rather than a simple frequency or energy distortion.

[@fred_e]

@@Unitedwithin1 🧐

[@Dx-Dm]

Cool video, as always, Real Science. I have one criticism based on the responses. Looking through the comments, there are two major categories: 1. Comments about science fiction references to human extinction. It's sad that this is how many people relate to advances in science. I think this will happen regardless of the quality of the video, but perhaps it can be mitigated with more understanding, which leads me to the second point: 2. Comments about whether the "progeny" organoids are capable of "replication." I wish that Real Science did a better job at explaining this part of the video. It's not clear to me whether the resulting "progeny" are capable of further "replication." I think that any movement would be the result of differentiation after juxtacrine signaling and/or factors present in the media. In short, the movement of the "progeny" is probably random, so they can't make more of themselves. If that's true, then they are not "progeny" and this is not "replication." I haven't yet read any papers pertaining to xenobots, however, so this is speculation on my part. If you're reading this, Real Science, thank you for making a wonderful video and bringing the subject to my attention, but please do clarify vital information so as to create more understanding and less fear in laypeople. You did mention the limited survival time and need for fresh stem cells, so that was good, but describing supposed "replication" without mentioning all of the limitations can bring out the worst in people's imaginations.

[@jamesgabor9284]

The progeny can make more of themselves, but if I remember correctly no more than ~10 generations or something around that.

[@Dx-Dm]

@@jamesgabor9284 that is very much unanticipated. Thank you for informing me. I'm guessing there's some kind of cardiomyocyte differentiation, and that the media causes random contractions. A good control would be to have randomly moving inert substance that aggregates the stem cells similarly to see if they form supposed progeny. If they ruled that out already, then I'm clueless.

[@Dx-Dm]

@@Myden59 Thanks! Hopefully Real Science replies lol

[@beckyd3546]

Maybe people relate so badly to advances in science because all the scientific advances to date have only led to more destructive weapons and zero that will end pollution, hunger or the biggest killer: dehydration and diarrhea from contaminated water. Seemingly so smart but so out of touch with reality.

[@KyleReeseCel2029]

@D M Eventually elites turns most societies to shit. There are scientist out here already that are transhumanist and talking changing humanity into non-humans. This is no conspiracy theory. To people are "sad" about possibly human extinction is completely naive of you.

[@GoldenRockefeller]

I can imagine the scientist, working for hours to build each of these "living robots", murmuring to themselves, " *the* *mutation* *must* *survive* "

[@DeeS8]

:))

[@VS-Violet]

Glorious Evolution...

[@chloesibilla8199]

This thing is an enigma of life and ethics

[@RobertLee337CancelProof]

I would be interested in finding out why the preference for smooth cardiac muscle over skeletal muscle when designing something to to be the equivalent of skeletal muscle like in the examples of improving motility which you would think would be well within the domain of skeletal muscle rather than smooth cardiac muscle not to mention smooth cardiac muscle cannot be regenerated like skeletal muscle can

[@TurkishKS]

All this video showed me was that we have terribly limited imaginations when it comes to what the words "artificial," "technology," and "living" mean.

[@wren7195]

Thumbs up. Pleasure to meet you. Their definition of "artificial" AND "technology" are based on the interactions, rates of said interactions, and volume of prior said interactions. That other entities interact with other entities? Check! Definitely not artificial. That that interaction can be leveraged by said entities or even OTHER entities towards ANY purpose? "Check" in that we do see that sometimes, mostly behaviourly (large gaps in questions regarding is this culture, instinctual, instinctual culture [wtf is that] even though we see these symbiosis a lot). Biologically we have expected parameters regarding how cells behave. You CAN manipulate those behaviours, the same way as I could interfere with your daily life by existing in proximity to you and irritate you. You will likely react in a way that will force me to act in a behaviour (IE get away from me). If we zoom out massively, we see common microscopic interactions of appropriate scale. Listen Kyle, you're going to think I'm just some bat-shit girl trolling your comment months later. If you philosophize hard enough, there is (perhaps no) little difference between living (natural), technological (all interpretations of interaction with "natural"), and artificial (all cogent attempts at replicating [or perhaps experimenting with?]) forms of ... "agency," or "interactuals." I don't know what to call it yet. Nice to meet you Kyle. Be safe sir.

[@johnmichael9713]

You did not define articulation accurately. It's not having arms and legs; it's having joints, or other points of axial motion. The more joints you have in your limbs or hands, the more points of articulation you have.

[@clairvaux8459]

The bio student in me is going "oh this is amazing, it could revolutionary!" but the other part of me is like..."is this...going to become a 2 hour epic blockbuster movie about humanity's end"

[@ChinchillaBONK]

This Frankenstein sequel wasn't what i expected.

[@doggedout]

Well, that was both frightening and scary af..

[@BigBinky_Gaming]

I haven't been shocked by a video in a very long time but this is amazing.

[@fernando7650]

So basically they just chopped an organism into pieces, then used an evolution simulation to put them back together into a different shape and marveled on it. I mean this is not more surprising than moluscs, or plant cuttings. What's the lifespan of this thing, and how much time and effort takes to create one? and by the way how does it feed itself out the petri dish? It seems very tied to its medium, and very time demanding.

[@samueltok9130]

You guys realizing this kinda is necromancy in a twisted way.

[@Jordan-vl8wm]

This channel has some great quality documentaries. Please keep on!

[@CwL-1984]

Awesome subject

[@chaosdweller]

I know right

[@shize9ine]

3:07 - check out the size of that b-roll turbocharger from that inline 8 cyl diesel. And the lil baby turbo and exhaust manifold to the left of it.

[@ndld4955]

Forced Evaluation... AI designed... Forced compliance... What could go wrong... Also look like they're... playing which is form of learning ... kinda Mm this is hopefully exciting and terrifying all in one 😳😳😳

[@russellknight7729]

Wow. Truly remarkable subject, I had no idea this was even a thing. Awesome content & (I've said it before), excellent research/presentation. Congratulations.

[@RedSonja.]

Watching this makes me ponder on the origins of life on earth. Maybe we did this along time ago??

[@Jack-gn4gl]

The truth is coming

[@LutraLovegood]

The fact that we could one day live in living organisms, and using organic computers and other bio-machines to do everything, sounds both fascinating and repulsive at the same time.

[@vect0rwolf]

This is gonna be funny to loo back on after we’ve all been assimilated into the grey goo.

[@nuttmann]

they finally did it... those mad lads absolutely did it. they "made life" in a lab... I hope this doesn't go down the path of any sci-fi movies & video games history has made us watch and/or play (Jurassic Park, Terminator, Matrix, Horizon ZD/FW, etc). and I absolutely hope that the military doesn't make this into weapons the first they hear of it... that would be horrifying.

[@ZentaBon]

Of course they will...you know these are tools. Tools are used to do both good and bad.

[@pinkgoergefloyd8340]

All I’m asking myself is “how can I invest in thisl

[@TruthWillFreeYou]

Nothing new was created. They manipulated what was already there.

[@nuttmann]

@@ZentaBon such is the fate of humanity.

[@nuttmann]

@@pinkgoergefloyd8340 that's what you're thinking about, really? well... at least you've your priorities straight.

[@pilotavery]

I'm just imagining a robot with a battery that lasts months since all the muscles operate off of a sugar reservoir...

[@chaosdweller]

Wow! Cool!

[@shaunmckenzie5509]

Great idea

[@z7gu3]

its more like a "froggy Frankenstein" than a robot isn't it? if those are bots than "life" gets foggy and the question of what makes things alive gets flipped on its head.

[@katrinascarlet5637]

I don't quite understand what exactly makes them robots. They're just frog cells moving around aren't they?

[@rgonzalo511]

​@@katrinascarlet5637 because they have no agency they only do what we program them to do ie a robot

[@ianmartinesq]

If anything, what this demonstrates is the amazing unknown properties of the organic material that was used. Surprise! We didn’t know frog cells in frog embryonic fluid could do that.

[@bicskeibalint]

Spoilers: this is literally how Horizon Zero Dawn started, humanity made robots that could operate with biomass and they destroyed life on the planet.

[@dariustanz7603]

The fact that they just made new xeno bots not by asexual methods scares the fuck out of me this is like a plot to a robot being sentient and decides it'll make more of it but great work by the scientists

[@oneone8318]

They actually made no such things.. The frogs are still providing the embryos for the experiment and the scientist still needs to cut the pieces and add them to the petri dish.. The lumps of zombie flesh just randomly end up compressing the tissue made by frogs and added and cut by men, into small lumps, that eventually take the shape of another zombie flesh lump.

[@maythesciencebewithyou]

They didn't make new xeno bots. They just pushed the xenopus (frog) stem cells around, just like they push anything else around while moving as they do not evade stuff. Without those stemm cells in solution they won't be making more. Also, they don't make anything. The cells are just pushed together, the cells themselves stick together and keep growing together. What is created that way isn't exactly the same as the original ones pushing. Calling these robots is dumb and only serves the purpose of selling it.

[@oneone8318]

@@maythesciencebewithyou Exactly.. I don´t understand how people fail to see something so simple.

[@TheFirstManticore]

making piles looks like ant behavior. When an and finds a dead ant, it picks it up and carries it. When it comes to a pile, it puts the dead ant down. Hence the phenomenon of ant graveyards within the colony.

[@Agent86th]

I can see a whole new genre of movies and tv entertainment just from this bio-robotics theme alone

[@ApocalypticAnarchy01]

my confusion is how this counts a robot of any degree, as its just manipulated biological cells? theres no ai or anything, just a similar movement and behaviors between the two as evolution aims for. i definitely do wonder about more testing on different kinds of cells past the frogs we tested from

[@lunamageice]

5:30 also the deeper you go into robotics and bio, the more similar the two being to look ngl just made from different "building blocks"

[@YagamiKou]

robot and AI can be very broad sweeping terms robot is basically anything designed to do something automated, that is it so it can be anything, no programming needed, no AI needed just needs to automate something (typically with motion) xenobots are automated and they use motion, so they are a good fit for robots tbh some people define robots as "looking human" but thats pretty stupid so xenobots are allg it maybe worth noting, that it has the intelligence to move, gather objects and follow tracks its a totally faked intelligence thoe, which is basically textbook Artificial Intelligence as well the terms dont really relate to programming, chemical composition and task difficulty but luna is right, the line blurs sometimes, as subnautica once said "Your species still sees a difference between technology and biology? how interesting..."

[@nutzhazel]

Exactly. Nothing that they've "programmed" into this thing. Seems like a baseless and arrogant claim tbh.

[@maythesciencebewithyou]

Of course these aren't robots. They just call them like that, becaues that sells. This way they can get more money for their research. Also, they didn't really need any sort of AI modeling, but throwing AI at something also increases your chance of getting published in high impact journals, getting media attention and getting money for research. These are just cell clumps that do what cells do. They aren't programmed in any way by the researchers.

[@chaosdweller]

Interesting name

[@sprocket9200]

I swear, I've seen this movie before, or this is how the movie started . And it'll only be used for good 👍

[@RogerBarraud]

Some/many amphibians will regenerate lost/truncated limbs, tails, maybe other parts. So the ability to generate new bits (perhaps up to and including a complete replica of the whole?) shouldn't surprise us much. Taking credit for the ability as "scientists" is Max Hubris.

[@bilbobaggins9765]

If left alone in a sea of the substance it needs to thrive for a million years it would evolve , probably back into some sort of frog like creature

[@alehaim]

Great, yet another step closer to the Faro swarm

[@blistlelo1700]

This reminds me of these strange living lump of flesh that sometimes appears as one of many artificial creature cliches that are associates with typical stereotypical science labs in media since anything could happen inside science labs according to fiction, especially obscurely bizarre things similar to these. At least these are not large and emotionally expressive yet.

[@shelbiadams8325]

Like splice 😅

[@layoutkimsstudio2341]

what i wanna know is if the scientist responsible for these bots been given an award already? this is amazing.

[@Zick635]

6:39 - 9:15 criação dos xenobots 10:17 - 10:39 regeneração 10:54 - 13:22 reprodução

[@Manuel-gu9ls]

Biotechnology at its wonder

[@TheGamermouse]

I want to express my live for this channel again ♥ thank you so much for the great content, Stef !

[@RobertLee337CancelProof]

One of the criteria traditionally used to qualify something as living is the ability to procreate and make more of itself which is worthy of note considering it excludes things that many people do consider life like viruses which are not alive as they require a host cell of something that is a lie in order to reproduce

[@thibaultjoan8268]

Well... If you exclude organisms that REQUIRE other living organisms to procreate, plenty of organisms have been declassified as living. Starting with us (humans), we cannot sustain ourselves long enough to procreate if we don't eat other living organisms, that is, plants (or animals), try sustaining yourself only on inorganic components for a while... I know the argument for saying that viruses aren't "alive", but from a functional point of view, they figured out a way of replicating themselves in a given environment (without another organism actively (or purposefully or symbiotically) maintaining them alive). From my point of view, not considering viruses as alive, is a poor human attempt to put the bar of "living organism" so high that not too many things reach it.

[@nullemail5025]

is "grey ooze" on the top 10 ways earth is going to be destroyed? Thanks for making that nightmare come true.