Neil Gershenfeld: Self-Replicating Robots and the Future of Fabrication | Lex Fridman Podcast #380

The video is about Neil Gershenfeld, the director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, discussing his work on self-replicating robots and the future of fabrication. He talks about how robots can make copies of themselves and self-assemble into complex structures, and how this technology has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering. Gershenfeld also discusses his work on the boundary between the digital and physical worlds, and how he has learned important lessons about engineering and nature from this work.

This video by Lex Fridman was published on May 28, 2023.
Video length: 02:07:05.

The video is about Neil Gershenfeld, the director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, discussing his work on self-replicating robots and the future of fabrication.

Gershenfeld talks about how robots can make copies of themselves and self-assemble into complex structures, and how this technology has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering. He also discusses his work with Andy Gleason and Marvin Minsky, and how their insights helped him understand the difference between computer science and physical science.

Gershenfeld emphasizes the importance of understanding the physical nature of computing and how it can lead to more efficient and effective solutions to some of the world's most important problems.

• Self-replicating robots can make copies of themselves and self-assemble into complex structures.
• These robots have the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering.
• Robots can make copies of themselves, which increases their capacity for building complex structures.
• The robots can be made out of the parts they are assembling, allowing for efficient use of resources.
• Neil Gershenfeld and his students have inspired millions of people to build cool stuff.
• Turing's machine is the foundation of modern computing.
• The head of the machine is distinct from the tape, which means persistence of information is separate from interaction with information.
• Van Neumann wrote a horrible memo called the first draft of a report in the edvac, which is how you program a very early computer.
• Computer science has a ridiculous taxonomy of about a hundred different models of computation, but they are all fictions in physics.

Neil Gershenfeld: Self-Replicating Robots and the Future of Fabrication | Lex Fridman Podcast #380 - YouTube

Section 1: Self-Replicating Robots

• Self-replicating robots can make copies of themselves and self-assemble into complex structures.
• These robots have the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering.
• Robots can make copies of themselves, which increases their capacity for building complex structures.
• The robots can be made out of the parts they are assembling, allowing for efficient use of resources.
• The work of Neil Gershenfeld and his students has inspired millions of people to build cool stuff.

Section 2: Fabrication at the Boundary of Digital and Physical Worlds

• Neil Gershenfeld has spent his life working at the boundary between bits and atoms.
• Working at this divide has taught him important lessons about engineering and nature.
• Gershenfeld learned that Von Neumann and Turing made fundamental mistakes.
• He learned the secret of life and how to solve many of the world's most important problems.
• Gershenfeld's work has inspired many people to bridge the divide between the digital and physical worlds.

Section 3: Turing's Machine and Computing

• Turing's machine is the foundation of modern computing.
• The head of the machine is distinct from the tape, which means persistence of information is separate from interaction with information.
• Van Neumann wrote a horrible memo called the first draft of a report in the edvac, which is how you program a very early computer.
• The legacy of van Neumann's work is that computers spend much of their effort moving information from storage to processing transistors.
• Computer science has a ridiculous taxonomy of about a hundred different models of computation, but they are all fictions in physics.

Neil Gershenfeld: Self-Replicating Robots and the Future of Fabrication | Lex Fridman Podcast #380 - YouTube

Section 4: The Physical Model of Computation

• A patch of space occupies space, stores state, and takes time to transit.
• This is the only model of computation that is physical.
• Everything else is a fiction.
• Gershenfeld came to appreciate the physical model of computation when he did a keynote for the annual meeting of the supercomputer industry.
• He spent time with the supercomputer builders and came to appreciate the way computing exists today, with people frolicking upstairs in the gardens and moving levers downstairs.

The Canon of Computer Science

• The Canon of Computer Science is based on the idea that bits are not constrained by atoms and scaling issues.
• Computing comes from the boundary between the digital and physical worlds.
• Turing and Von Neumann both knew this, but they ended their lives studying how software becomes hardware.
• Von Neumann studied self-reproducing automata and morphogenesis.
• The embodiment of computation is embodied in profound ways in biology and physics at the lowest level.

The Origin Story of CBA

• The MIT Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) was created by Neil Gershenfeld.
• Gershenfeld was a high school student who wanted to go to vocational school but was told no.
• He worked at Bell Labs before MIT and faced union grievances for trying to make things in the workshop.
• CBA started at MIT and Gershenfeld came to understand the mistake that dates back to the Renaissance.
• The liberal arts emerged during the Renaissance and led to the concept of the ill liberal arts.

The Difference between Computer Science and Physical Science

• The path that led Gershenfeld to create CBA was his interest in the physics of musical instruments.
• Micro machining or embedded coding is every bit as expressive as painting a painting or writing a sonnet.
• Gershenfeld never understood the difference between computer science and physical science.
• The means of expression changed since the Renaissance.
• The path that led Gershenfeld to create CBA was his visit to Harvard and MIT through Marvin.

The Creation of CBA

• Gershenfeld was a junior fellow at Harvard and visited MIT through Marvin.
• He studied physics and music at Cornell and discovered David Borden, the first electronic musician.
• Bob Moog, who invented Moog synthesizers, was also a physics student at Cornell.
• Gershenfeld's experience in the music department got him thinking about behaving as a scientist in the music department but not in the physics department.
• Gershenfeld's experience at Cornell led him to create CBA with colleagues.

Computational Capacity of Musical Instruments

• The computational capacity of a musical instrument refers to its ability to process and manipulate data.
• The yoyo was used as an example to understand the computational capacity of musical instruments.
• The yoyo's performance as a controller was used to manipulate it as an interface device.
• The yoyo's question was about resolution and bandwidth, not operations per second.
• The bandwidth and resolution of detecting the yoyo's controls were found to be important.

Instrumenticello

• Instrumenticello was a project that extracted data from the yoyo and brought it out into computational environments.
• The project was a collaboration between the yoyo and Todd mackover at the media lab.
• The project led to the development of a piece that used the yoyo as an interface device.
• The project was successful and led to the development of a hundred million dollar a year auto safety business.

Auto Safety Business

• The auto safety business was developed from the yoyo's cello and the question of computational capacity.
• The business was a collaboration with Penn and Teller, who did a magic trick in Las Vegas.
• The magic trick was used to contact Houdini and the fields were used to see in 3D.
• The business became Ellisis and was a leading auto safety sensor.

MIT and Media Lab

• The speaker spent a lot of time outside of MIT at IBM research.
• The speaker pivoted and came to MIT to take a position in the media lab.
• The speaker started what became a leading auto safety sensor at MIT.
• The speaker was always expected to go to IBM to take over a lab.

The Predecessor to CBA Media Lab

• The predecessor to CBA Media Lab was well known for Nicholas Negroponte.
• Jerry Wiesner was MIT's president before that, and was frustrated by how knowledge was segregated.
• He wanted to create a department for work that didn't fit in departments.
• The Media Lab in a sense was a cover story for him to hide a department.
• Jerry explained that the department was called Media Arts and Sciences.

Coming to MIT

• The students who helped create Quantum Computing and synthetic life got degrees from Media Arts and Sciences.
• This led to coming to MIT with Todd and Joe Paradiso and his colleague.
• They started a Consortium called Things that Think.
• This was around the birth of Internet of things and RFID.
• They started doing things like work on quantum Computing and cryptography.

Building Nanoscale, Microscale, and Macroscale Structures

• They wanted to look at how digital becomes physical and physical becomes digital.
• They got NSF on a good day and they funded this facility of one of almost every tool to make anything.
• They launched CBA and focused on nanostructures, microstructures, and macrostructures.
• They used electron microscopes, focused beam probes, laser micro-machining, and x-ray microtomography.
• They also used multi-axis machining and 3D printing for macro structures.

Well-Equipped Research Lab

• A well-equipped research lab has the sort of tools they're talking about.
• These tools are typically run by technicians and charged for time.
• Users run the tools and it's for work that needs to span disciplines and length scales.
• Projects in this facility don't charge for time and users don't make a formal proposal to schedule.
• Users run the tools and it's for work that's kind of in Kuwait that needs to span these disciplines and length scales.

Biggest Things Attempted to Explore

• They attempted to explore how to build in a lab, including developing zeptidual electronics for the lowest power computing.
• They explored micro-machining diamond to take million 10 million RPM bearings for molecular spectroscopy studies.
• They explored robots to build 100 meter structures in space.
• They explored how bits and atoms relate how digital and physical relate in many different domains.
• They explored the same idea over and over again, from different perspectives.

Digital Logic

• Claude Shannon invented the modern notion of digital logic.
• Shannon's work was based on Van Ever Bush's idea of post-war research establishment.
• Shannon proved a threshold theorem for channel capacity, which showed that the limit to how good communication can be depends on the noise in the cable.
• Shannon's work led to digital, which means unreliable things can work reliably.
• Shannon's work was later applied to computation by Van Neumann, who showed how an unreliable computer can operate reliably.

Computer-Controlled Manufacturing

• MIT invented computer-controlled manufacturing in 1952.
• MIT stole computer-controlled manufacturing from an inventor who brought it to MIT.
• The birth of computerized digital manufacturing is four billion years ago, with the evolutionary age of the ribosome.
• The ribosome is a molecular factory that builds the molecules that make up living organisms.
• The key thing to know about the ribosome is that it detects and corrects errors, just like Shannon and van Neumann taught us.

Self-Replicating Robots

• Robots can make copies of themselves.
• Robots can self-assemble into complex structures.
• Self-replicating robots have the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering.
• Self-replicating robots can make copies of themselves and self-assemble into complex structures.
• Self-replicating robots have the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering.

Boundary Between Digital and Physical Worlds

• Neil Gershenfeld has learned important lessons about engineering and nature from his work on the boundary between the digital and physical worlds.
• Gershenfeld's work has shown that the digital and physical worlds are not separate, but are interconnected.
• Gershenfeld's work has shown that the digital and physical worlds are not separate, but are interconnected.
• Gershenfeld's work has shown that the digital and physical worlds are not separate, but are interconnected.
• Gershenfeld's work has shown that the digital and physical worlds are not separate, but are interconnected.

Digital Materials

• Digital materials are a degree discrete set of parts that are reversibly joined with global geometry determined from local constraints.
• Digital materials are used for construction, not for communication or computation.
• Digital materials are made by digitizing the materials.
• Digital materials are lightweight and have high modulus.
• Digital materials can be used to create robots that can walk on cellular structures and build structures.

Robots and Self-Replication

• Robots can make copies of themselves and self-assemble into complex structures.
• Robots can make mistakes and correct them.
• Robots can learn important lessons about engineering and nature from their work.
• Robots can make giant structures with just a few part types.
• Robots can be made out of the parts they are making.

Robots and Self-Replication (Continued)

• Robots can be made out of the materials that are given.
• Robots can walk along and do error correction.
• Robots can self-replicate.
• Robots can be made out of the parts they are making.
• Robots can be made out of the materials that are given.

Robots and Self-Replication (Continued)

• Robots can be made out of the parts they are making.
• Robots can be made out of the materials that are given.
• Robots can be made out of the parts they are making.
• Robots can be made out of the materials that are given.
• Robots can be made out of the parts they are making.

Section 1: Self-Replicating Robots

• Self-replicating robots are capable of making copies of themselves.
• These robots can self-assemble into complex structures.
• The technology has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering.
• Robots can make copies of themselves and self-assemble into complex structures.
• This technology has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering.

Section 2: Fabrication and the Digital World

• The video discusses the boundary between the digital and physical worlds.
• Engineering and nature have important lessons to teach each other.
• The video discusses the importance of understanding the essence of how to live.
• The video discusses the importance of understanding the essence of how to live.
• The video discusses the importance of understanding the essence of how to live.

Section 3: Micro Robots and Large-Scale Structures

• Micro robots are made from nano bricks.
• Robots to build large-scale structures are made from centimeters rather than micrometers.
• Assembly robots for the bigger structures are made from functional cells.
• Functional cells can process and actuate each cell.
• The hierarchy of the little parts make little robots that make bigger parts of bigger robots.

Section 4: Parallel Growth and 3D Printing

• The larger scale structures are grown together in parallel.
• 3D printing houses are being developed, but they cannot go from very small to very large.
• The video discusses the idea of self-reproducing automata.
• One student made micro robots out of little parts that were used for bigger robots.
• The video discusses the idea of self-reproducing automata.

Section 1: Self-Replicating Robots and the Future of Fabrication

• Self-replicating robots have the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering.
• Robots can make copies of themselves and self-assemble into complex structures.
• This technology has the potential to change the way we build and construct objects.
• The field of self-replicating robots is still in its early stages, but it has the potential to be a game-changer.

Section 2: The Boundary Between the Digital and Physical Worlds

• Neil Gershenfeld, the director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, has been studying the boundary between the digital and physical worlds.
• He has learned important lessons about engineering and nature from this work.
• Gershenfeld's work has shown that there is a deep sense of digital fabrication that embodies codes in construction.
• This concept is not analog, but rather a digital description that becomes the thing.

Section 3: Digital Fabrication and the Future of Manufacturing

• Digital fabrication is a term that refers to the use of computers to control tools to make something.
• This concept was invented in 1952 when MIT stole it.
• The deep meaning of digital fabrication is the computation of a digital description that doesn't describe a thing, but becomes the thing.
• This concept is related to the idea of the Star Trek replicator, which doesn't yet exist.

Section 4: Fab Labs and the Future of Digital Fabrication

• Fab Labs are digital fabrication community labs that double every year.
• They are a network of 2500 digital fabrication community labs in 125 countries.
• Fab Labs are a way to teach students how to use digital fabrication tools.
• Students who take Fab Lab classes are amazed by the projects they can create.

Neil Gershenfeld's Work on Self-Replicating Robots and Fabrication

• Neil Gershenfeld is the director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms and has worked on self-replicating robots and the future of fabrication.
• Robots can make copies of themselves and self-assemble into complex structures, which has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering.
• Gershenfeld has also discussed his work on the boundary between the digital and physical worlds and has learned important lessons about engineering and nature from this work.
• MIT made the first real-time computer, the Whirlwind, which was transistorized and spun off from MIT as the PDP.
• The mini computer industry and the computing industry as a whole failed when computing became personal, leading to the rise of personal computers.

Digital Fabrication and Personal Expression

• Digital fabrication is the process of creating physical objects using digital technology.
• The killer app of digital fabrication is personal fabrication, which allows individuals to create their own objects.
• Kelly, a student in a how to make class at MIT, wanted to create a screen and body for a thesis but not as a business model.
• The course is called "how to make almost anything" and has grown to multiple labs at MIT with many people involved in teaching.

Seymour Papert and the Fab Lab

• Seymour Papert studied with Piaget and came to MIT to get access to early computers.
• Papert helped show that kids learn as scientists and that their creativity gets throttled out of them.
• Papert and Mitch Resnick created educational programs for kids using Lego Mindstorms and other materials.
• Papert made a gesture and said that the goal of the turtle robot was not for kids to program it but to create it.

The Fab Lab and Personal Creation

• The Fab Lab was just an accident that fulfilled the arc of kids learning by experimenting.
• The Fab Lab gave kids the tools to create, not just assemble things and program them.
• MIT is the world's 10th economy, with a few thousand bright people working in productive environments.
• The Fab Lab found that the same profile of bright inventors exists in rural Indian villages, African shanty towns, and Arctic hamlets.

Scaling of Fabrication

• The video discusses the scaling of fabrication technology, from the first real-time computer to the current era of Fab Labs.
• Fab Labs are transitioning from buying machines to making machines, allowing individuals to create new machines.
• The assemblers and self-assemblers discussed in the video are equivalent to smartphones and the Internet of Things.
• The research discussed in the video is focused on creating a replicator, which would allow for the creation of almost anything with a few inputs.
• Creating a self-replicating assembler or machine is the dream towards which the research is pushing.

Self-Replicating Assemblers

• A student in the lab started the idea of using tools to make the tools in the lab, resulting in self-reproducing machines.
• There is a network of machine builders around the world who have learned the skills to create machines in Fab Labs.
• Super Fab Labs have been created to make more advanced tools, making machines even cheaper.
• Self-replicating machines can make their own things, but they need inputs like bearings or microcontrollers.
• The research discussed in the video is focused on creating a replicator, which would allow for the creation of almost anything with a few inputs.

Sustainability in Material Feedstocks

• Sustainability in material feedstocks is a big component of the research at Fab Labs.
• Alicia, a colleague in Chile, is leading an effort to produce high-tech materials from locally available materials like forests, coffee grounds, and seashells.

Conclusion

• The video discusses the scaling of fabrication technology, from the first real-time computer to the current era of Fab Labs.
• Fab Labs are transitioning from buying machines to making machines, allowing individuals to create new machines.
• The assemblers and self-assemblers discussed in the video are equivalent to smartphones and the Internet of Things.
• The research discussed in the video is focused on creating a replicator, which would allow for the creation of almost anything with a few inputs.
• Sustainability in material feedstocks is a big component of the research at Fab Labs.

Section 1: Self-Replicating Robots

• Robots can build structures and assemble more robots that build structures.
• Robots can build micro mechanical systems, such as robots that can walk and manipulate.
• Research project in the lab called "Dice" focuses on discrete assembly of integrated electronics.
• Micro manipulators are used to place electronic components, such as transistors.
• The project is at the point to take the notion of not having a chip Fab make integrated electronics seriously.

Section 2: Transistors and Fabrication

• The smallest transistors commercially available for electronics are the size of an early transistor in an integrated circuit.
• Research project in the lab called "Dice" focuses on assembling little electronic components, such as transistors.
• The project is at the point to take the notion of not having a chip Fab make integrated electronics seriously.
• Micro manipulators are used to place electronic components, such as transistors.
• The project is at the point to take the notion of not having a chip Fab make integrated electronics seriously.

Section 3: Discrete Assembly of Integrated Electronics

• Research project in the lab called "Dice" focuses on discrete assembly of integrated electronics.
• The project is at the point to take the notion of not having a chip Fab make integrated electronics seriously.
• Micro manipulators are used to place electronic components, such as transistors.
• The project is at the point to take the notion of not having a chip Fab make integrated electronics seriously.
• The project is at the point to take the notion of not having a chip Fab make integrated electronics seriously.

Section 4: The Future of Fabrication

• In the future, self-replicating robots will be able to build complex structures.
• The technology has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering.
• The project is at the point to take the notion of not having a chip Fab make integrated electronics seriously.
• Micro manipulators are used to place electronic components, such as transistors.
• The project is at the point to take the notion of not having a chip Fab make integrated electronics seriously.

The Evolution of Digital Fabrication

• The evolution of digital fabrication can lead to the creation of self-replicating nanobots, also known as "gray goo".
• Malevolent actors may use this technology to create spam and other harmful content.
• The transition from printing to assembling and disassembling reduces inventories of parts and eliminates technical trash.
• The use of 3D printers is only part of the machines in a Fab Lab, with the real technological change being the transition from printing and cutting to assembling and disassembling.
• The invention of 3D printing is closer to what's called net shape, which allows for the creation of objects without cutting away material.

The Future of Fabrication

• The future of fabrication will involve the use of assemblers and disassemblers, rather than printing and cutting.
• The transition to assembling and disassembling will reduce global supply chains and locally source building blocks.
• The elimination of technical trash through reuse of building blocks will be a key implication of this transition.
• The use of 3D printers will be replaced by assemblers and disassemblers in the future of fabrication.

Malevolent Actors and Digital Fabrication

• Malevolent actors may use digital fabrication technology to create spam and other harmful content.
• The use of digital fabrication technology by malevolent actors may lead to the creation of disruptive threats to the future of the United States.

Watch the video on YouTube:
Neil Gershenfeld: Self-Replicating Robots and the Future of Fabrication | Lex Fridman Podcast #380 - YouTube