The Road to Self-Reproducing Machines
Illustration:
Tomasz Walenta
By
Frank Wilczek
Sept. 2, 2021 1:58 pm ET
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek explores the secrets of the cosmos. Read previous columns here..
Throughout history, creative human engineers have taken inspiration from artifacts of the biological world. Leonardo da Vinci designed flying machines, submarines and tanks with birds, fish and tortoises in mind. Today, artificial neural nets, a computer architecture directly inspired by animal nervous systems, are the cutting edge of machine learning. But none of those applications get to the deep structure of biology—likely a beacon of future creativity.
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