Contributed talk in Autonomous Evolution, Production and Learning in Robotic Eco-Systems 2, Aug. 2, 2019, 11:30 a.m. in room NUBS 2.10

To evolve or not to evolve? That is the question

Alex Ellery, Gusz Eiben

watch Publication To evolve or not to evolve? That is the question: whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of grey goo, or to deny evolution to a sea of self-replicators and by prevention control them? We have been developing a physical self-replicating machine concept, initially by 3D printing certain crucial components: (i) electric motors which has progressed to near completion; (ii) active computational component (vacuum tube) which has yet to be achieved.but efforts are ongoing. We are specifically interested in creating the self-replicating machine for deployment on the Moon to build large numbers of solar power micro-satellites from local resources. We are also concerned with architectural issues; we specifically address the problem of uncontrolled replication. We propose a multitiered approach to prevent this: (i) denial of self-replication through the implementation of centralised mass manufacturing of replicators; (ii) salt contingency – denial of scarce sodium and chlorine from Earth acts as an Earth-controlled kill switch in preventing further replication; (iii) tunicose contingency – denial of centralised supplies of asteroidal metals (tungsten-nickel-cobalt-selenium) at the lunar south pole acts as a Moon-controlled kill switch preventing further replication; (iv) denial of online learning capacity through fixed neural weights controls the machine’s intelligence; (v) denial of growing computing resources through the elimination of transmit communications between self-replicators (receive only); (vi) denial of evolutionary capacity by implementing error detection and correction (EDAC) coding controls the machine’s adaptability. We pay special attention to the first, second, third, fourth and last.