Fungal Robots Just Got an Upgrade. But Why Fungi?

[00:00:00]There's been progress in using fungi as robots. Do you remember when scientists gave fungi a body to operate and showed that they could perceive light and avoid it and could learn how to use that body over time. There was also the suggestion of using them as a fungal skin, which you can see with the Terminator bot up there, which I think was delightful.

[00:00:16]That research did not simply end. And one of the reasons that you would want to use fungi as a form of artificial intelligence for a robot is because they already have many of the things that we want. They're capable of communicating with each other. They do know at least 50 words, at least ones that we've identified, although have not translated yet. And they can sense the environment and respond to it accordingly. So why wouldn't you want to use them as a robot? They're also quite a bit sturdier than some of our other biohybrid robotics, like you know, brain organoids. Fungi already have to live in contact with air and changing environments. They can survive water loss. So unlike biohybrids like brain organoids, they're a lot easier to keep alive. I did find this paper slightly unsettling because it has the suggestion of using fungi as an interface for things like prosthetics, synthetic skin, and I just don't like that and I don't have a good reason to not like it. It just feels wrong. Fungi replicate rather quickly and they're highly adaptive to the environment because they communicate in electrical signals that can be used in order to interface with electronics, which makes them a prime candidate for sensory perception. While they probably do not have sensation in the same way that we do, they do perceive the environment. These are the very same characteristics that make them highly applicable as smart materials. And I have seen papers that apply them as part of building materials that can actually sense the environment, but they can also be turned into a fabric. They're programmable in the sense that you can 3D print them in the correct orientation, and you can also genetically edit them to do exactly what you want them to do. Just 3 years ago, as far as these went, was covering a robot in fungus and using that as a potential proof of principle for a robotic skin. And yeah, I think this was kind of just a joke, and I do find it hilarious. However, we have gone so far beyond that. Fungus is slowly becoming something that could be an applicable skin for a robot or prosthetics. If it can communicate with our neurons, why not? I mean, the why not for me is that I'm highly allergic to basically all fungus, and it just kind of creeps me out a little bit. But for other people, it might be great. Now, one of the questions I think it's reasonable to have is why? I mean, as far as materials go, we do kind of understand that. But why do we want to make biohybrid robots at all, and I do have some lovely pictures of various robots that walk on land, and they kind of look like something we're familiar with, like a dog or a spider. But when we are making robotics, we can make it in whatever form we want. Meaning, if you have a task that you need to accomplish, and there's just nothing that is perfectly good at the job, you can potentially make a robot that can overcome that. And we've seen some of that with robots that can walk through radiation and be just fine. We already use variations on animals that can do tasks for us. If somebody is highly allergic to dogs, they may get a seeing eye horse, but we might also be able to get a robot to do that. We are cutting corners when it comes to robotics. It took us a very long time in order to actually be able to make a robot. Think about all the technological development in the last 10 years versus the last 100 years.

[00:03:13]However, we're not there yet. And if we use biological materials, we're capable of cutting at least some corners. We're now trying to make artificial intelligence to run these things. We're trying to make sensory perception. But if you can borrow an interface from nature, you're going to move a lot faster. You don't have to solve a lot of those problems that evolution has already long since solved. And by the way, using human tissues in order to make large scale robots is still quite far away. When it happens, I will tell you about it immediately. Right now it remains small proof of principle. That's a little quadriped picture of a robot using human muscle tissue. It's just not all that refined. So if we look at where we have gotten with robotics versus where we are getting with biohybrids, there's a massive gap there. And I think fungus actually could play a role in closing that gap. Even if I don't particularly like it, I am actually unsure why I find fungus to be more disturbing than a lab grown human brain operating a robot. Maybe I'm just desensitized to all of it because I've been talking about it for so long.

[00:04:15]Either way, I will keep you up to date whether you like it or not. As soon as the papers are published, I will tell you about fungal robots. I hope you've enjoyed this. for my