Self-Replicating Robots and Galactic Domination

We’ll soon be capable of building self-replicating robots. This will not only change humanity’s future but reshape the galaxy as we know it.

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Self-assembling robots are referred to as von Neumann machines after the man responsible for originally proposing them, John von Neumann. Since then, the potential of these machines and their ability to proliferate throughout known space has made galactic colonization seem not only possible but perhaps inevitable.

Written and hosted by Matt O’Dowd

References:
von Neumann, John The Theory of Self-reproducing Automata, Urbana, IL: Univ. of Illinois Press. ed. A. Burks, 1966

Robert A. Freitas Jr., Ralph C. Merkle, Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines, Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, TX, 2004;

Robo3D R1 printing an upgrade for itself

[MrMakae]

_"What is the point of a machine that has the only purpose of self-replication"_ <- slowly turns around, faces a mirror, and falls into an existential crisis.

[TimmacTR]

What is a really funny thought is that if there is a first contact event between two galactic civilizations it will probably physically happen between two robots..

[igorkornienko]

I like how every episode ends with words 'space time'. Thats what I call good TV.

[MocharaidThree]

You should read "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)".

A great book by Dennis E. Taylor about a guy called Bob who becomes the AI for a Von Neumann probe :P

[ethanwagner]

We are the Precursors. It is our job to seed the galaxies around us with life and find an heir to take up the Mantle of Responsibility.

[hexadecim]

It’s soo cool experiencing our intellectual growth as a species and how much new knowledge we’ve gained even in just the short amount of time that we've all been alive. Can't wait to see what's next.

[shadrack]

I absolutely love this channel. So good, can't get enough. Great topics, great content and a great host.

[thomasr.jackson]

Another great video and a fun topic! One critique, I don't think it is valid to dismiss the "no one has implemented it" explanation just because we arbitrarily decide it is unlikely. Perhaps civilizations are common, but civilizations which are composed of autonomous agents capable of random, non productive rogue acts are not. It seems to me that these sorts of civilizations might face survival challenges that a more integrated and self regulating civilization would not.

If there are lots of civilizations, but they are not colonizing the galaxy or contacting us, we might want to think of why that would be. Perhaps galactic expansion is not the self evident good we think it is.

Or then again, maybe we thought of it first.

[kamenborisov]

Let's hope SG1 will be here to save us when the replicators go rogue.

[bornestellar]

Do you want Reapers? Because this is how you get Reapers.

[RudeAlert]

What if the level of technology required to build effective VNM probes also renders them obsolete. So in a few hundred years we might be able to send out waves of VNM probes but by then we may also have far more interesting options at our disposal, hence a lack of VNM probes altogether.

[tau-ceti]

What an awesome series of lectures. Visual, well explained and to the point - brilliant stuff.

[RyanCelsiusMusic]

Isn't biological life essentially a particular implementation of von neumann probes?

[thecrazylovelyboy]

I get excited like a kid every time I see a notification of a new "PBS Space Time" upload

[mohammadbazzi]

I love your channel man. Your argumentation is grown up, and you don't buy into rediculous explanations because someone famous came up with them. Your views on the Fermi paradox are an example of this, but if there is something we can learn from this, its that we should build these probes very soon, before someone else does.

[jamiequinn]

I don't know if I want to live in a galaxy where humans are the most advanced creatures.

[bandaloudog]

Another possible solution to the Fermi paradox: The first advanced civilization to emerge in our galaxy was a "benevolent"* one (characteristic that might be necessary or at least helpful in the process of becoming a type 2 or 3 civilization) and didn't felt the need to create probes that would disrupt any other ecosystem or show their existence to the universe, but envisioned that it could be a problem if other civilizations did so. They might have come up with ways to solve that problem millions of years before any other civilization was advanced enough to create probes. One of the ways could be by spreading undetectable (or almost undetectable), highly intelligent probes (A.I.), across the galaxy, making sure that no civilization could launch "harmful" technology into deep space, while also evading any detection in ways we can't conceive yet. They would do this as a security measure since they would have no reason to trust other civilizations that could emerge in the galaxy.
To those who say that stealth in space is impossible I say this: Mankind has just started to study the laws that govern our universe, and many things that we thought impossible a few years ago, turned out to be possible, and vice versa. Who knows in what ways a type 3 civilization would manage to erase their footprints? Maybe by avoiding any conscious beings, directing any detectable information into intergalactic space, through interstellar space. Of course, it's probably not it, but if I can think of something now, maybe hundreds of millions of years of intelligent beings working together would probably yield a working result. Some would suggest that all of this is just too hard to be worth doing. Well, it might not be hard at all for beings who spent enough time studying the universe, which would likely be the case of a type 3 civilization.
I think this is possible and should at least be considered, even if unlikely.
*Note: When I say "benevolent", I'm applying the general notion that humans apply to benevolence. I am aware that benevolence is subjective.

[officialDragonMap]

“Resistance is futile!” – von Neumann probe

[Temirkul]

iPhone 7 is the reason why aliens don't visit us

[Ceelvain]

Stargate called them the Replicators. And they were not fun to deal with.