Robots eating other robots: The benefits of machine metabolism
For decades we’ve been trying to make the robots smarter and more physically capable by mimicking biological intelligence and movement. “But in doing so, we’ve been just replicating the results of biological evolution—I say we need to replicate its methods,” argues Philippe Wyder, a developmental robotics researcher at Columbia University. Wyder led a team that demonstrated a machine with a rudimentary form of what they’re calling a metabolism. He and his colleagues built a robot that could con