Xenobots
Xenobots are living machines built from frog embryo cells to shapes designed by AI. Set among loose cells, they shove them into piles that grow into new xenobots.
Most machines are made of steel, concrete and plastic, which wear out and can harm health and ecosystems. Living tissue renews itself, so researchers began building machines from it, using stem cells taken from frog embryos. A plain ball of these cells herded loose cells into working copies for 1.2 rounds on average before the line stopped; an AI-designed half-ring managed 3, and at best 4. The cells were never genetically modified, and no plant or animal had been seen copying itself like this.
Sources
- Kriegman, Blackiston, Levin, Bongard, "A scalable pipeline for designing reconfigurable organisms", PNAS, 2020
- Kriegman, Blackiston, Levin, Bongard, "Kinematic self-replication in reconfigurable organisms", PNAS, 2021
- Gumuskaya et al., "Motile Living Biobots Self-Construct from Adult Human Somatic Progenitor Seed Cells", Advanced Science
- Gumuskaya et al., "The Morphological, Behavioral, and Transcriptomic Life Cycle of Anthrobots", Advanced Science, 2025
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