AI-Designed, Living Robots Can Self-Replicate.

In 2020, a research group made the stunning announcement that it had built programmable organisms-living robots they called xenobots-out of biological cells, and these xenobots could work together to perform simple tasks. Now, less than two years later, the same group has an even more astonishing announcement: The xenobots can autonomously self-replicate in a way that is completely different from any other living organisms, and their progeny are functional and similarly able to self-replicate [1].