{"id":5579,"date":"2023-02-14T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=5579"},"modified":"2023-02-03T01:47:23","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T01:47:23","slug":"our-future-could-be-full-of-undying-self-repairing-robots-heres-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/our-future-could-be-full-of-undying-self-repairing-robots-heres-how\/","title":{"rendered":"Our future could be full of undying, self-repairing robots. Here\u2019s how"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n \n frank60\/Shutterstock<\/span><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\nJonathan Roberts<\/a>, Queensland University of Technology<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

With generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT<\/a> and StableDiffusion<\/a> being the talk of the town right now, it might feel like we\u2019ve taken a giant leap closer to a sci-fi reality where AIs are physical entities all around us.<\/p>\n\n

Indeed, computer-based AI appears to be advancing at an unprecedented rate. But the rate of advancement in robotics \u2013 which we could think of as the potential physical embodiment of AI \u2013 is slow.<\/p>\n\n

Could it be that future AI systems will need robotic \u201cbodies\u201d to interact with the world? If so, will nightmarish ideas like the self-repairing, shape-shifting T-1000 robot<\/a> from the Terminator 2 movie come to fruition? And could a robot be created that could \u201clive\u201d forever?<\/p>\n\n

Energy for \u2018life\u2019<\/h2>\n\n

Biological lifeforms like ourselves need energy to operate. We get ours via a combination of food, water, and oxygen. The majority of plants also need access to light to grow.<\/p>\n\n

By the same token, an everlasting robot needs an ongoing energy supply. Currently, electrical power dominates energy supply in the world of robotics. Most robots are powered by the chemistry of batteries<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

An alternative battery type has been proposed that uses nuclear waste and ultra-thin diamonds at its core<\/a>. The inventors, a San Francisco startup called Nano Diamond Battery<\/a>, claim a possible battery life of tens of thousands of years. Very small robots would be an ideal user of such batteries.<\/p>\n\n

But a more likely long-term solution for powering robots may involve different chemistry \u2013 and even biology. In 2021, scientists from the Berkeley Lab and UMAss Amherst in the US demonstrated tiny nanobots could get their energy from chemicals in the liquid they swim in<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

The researchers are now working out how to scale up this idea to larger robots that can work on solid surfaces.<\/p>\n\n

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