This is another post from my failed blog: Transhumanism, the Singularity, and You.
I believe we should develop simple and inexpensive robots that exist
to harvest energy, process data, replicate, and ‘die’ like ordinary life
forms. We need to research already proven biological systems to provide
insight for new directions in the field of robotics. Two great
developing forces are BEAM (Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics, and Mechanics) robotics and a practical commercial outlet of
them at solarbotics.com.
What is important with these types of robots is that there is no
‘brain’ needed to operate. Most species of life don’t have a brain to
speak of, notably jellyfish. They manage to survive and reproduce
effectively without one. With the simplest robot design in mind we can
create a sustainable network of autonomous machines.
Using energy from the sun is obviously the first source. But using
this harvested energy is inefficient for locomotive use. Instead,
chemical energy should replace it while the electricity is used solely
to process information. The fuel should be a digested mass of organic
matter. The resulting composition should be full of potential chemical
energy to be consumed by cell-like chemical engines.
The use of a microcontroller and radio communication can organize
these machines by processing a real-time virtual array. Each robot is
aware of each other and a botmaster signal for reprogramming. Within
this neural net (array) each individual robot will provide statistical
feedback. When a majority of the robots can detect an unexpected drop in
light exposure, for example when a large cloud passes, it will trigger
every machine instantly to go into a low power hibernation. You could
compare this to when a flock of birds take off simultaneously when only
one is startled to flight.
The application of these simplistic robots is not commonly
approached. Their purpose is to exist self sufficiently and provide a
small cloud computing array. Consider the microcontroller as the thought
organ, its radio is a communicating organ, and the chemical actuators
used to move is akin to their muscles. Providing a biological parallel
allows these machines to emulate the proven systems in life today.
Why not consider other uses for these machines? Providing difficult
tasks requires specific programming which makes it less autonomous.
Receiving feedback from the simple data can provide clues to help the
machines to evolve. And as the machines become better at their simple
task of gathering energy and computing, a massive resource of computing
power becomes available. Maybe the PCs of the future will be sprawled
across your lawn, processing this webpage by cutting your grass and
soaking up sun rays. Or maybe the nodes are used globally as brain cells
of an omnipresent digital organism…
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