Wealth from Self-Replicating Robots

I have high confidence that economically-valuable self-replicating robots are possible with existing technology: initially, something similar in size and complexity to a RepRap, but able to assemble a copy of itself from parts ordered online with zero human interaction. This is important because more robots could provide the economic growth needed to solve many urgent problems. I’ve held this idea for long enough that I’m worried about being a crank, so any feedback is appreciated.

I care because to fulfill my naive and unrealistic dreams (not dying, owning a spaceship) I need the world to be a LOT richer. Specifically, naively assuming linear returns to medical research funding, a funding increase of ~10x (to ~$5 trillion/​year, or ~30% of current USA GDP) is needed to achieve actuarial escape velocity (average lifespans currently increase by about 1 year each decade, so a 10x increase is needed for science to keep up with aging). The simplest way to get there is to have 10x as many machines per person.

My vision is that someone does for hardware what open-source has done for software: make useful tools free. A key advantage of software is that making a build or copying a program takes only one step. In software, you click “compile” and (hopefully) it’s done and ready to test in seconds. In hardware, it takes a bunch of steps to build a prototype (order parts, screw fiddly bits together, solder, etc.). A week is an insanely short lead time for building a new prototype of something mechanical. 1-2 months is typical in many industries. This means that mechanical things have high marginal cost, because people have to build and debug them, and typically transport them for thousands of miles from factory to consumer.

Relevant previous research projects include trivial self-replication from pre-fabricated components and an overly-ambitious NASA-funded plan from the 1980s to develop the Moon using self-replicating robots. Current research funding tends to go toward bio-inspired systems, re-configurable systems using prefabricated cubes (conventionally-manufactured), or chemistry deceptively called “nanotech”, all of which seem to miss the opportunity to use existing autonomous assembly technology with online ordering of parts to make things cheaper by getting rid of setup cost and building cost.

I envision a library/​repository of useful robots for specific tasks (cleaning, manufacturing, etc.), in a standard format for download (parts list, 3D models, assembly instructions, etc.). Parts could be ordered online. A standard fabricator robot with the capability to identify and manipulate parts, and fasten them using screws, would verify that the correct parts were received, put everything together, and run performance checks. For comparison, the RepRap takes >9 hours of careful human labor to build. An initial self-replicating implementation would be a single fastener robot. It would spread by undercutting the price of competing robot arm systems. Existing systems sell for ~2x the cost of components, due to overhead for engineering, assembly, and shipping. This appears true for robots at a range of price points, including $200 robot arms using hobby servos and $40,000+ robot arms using optical encoders and direct-drive brushless motors. A successful system that undercut the price of conventionally-assembled hobby robots would provide a platform for hobbyists to create additional robots that could be autonomously built (e.g. a Roomba for 15 the price, due to not needing to pay the 5x markup for overhead and distribution). Once a beachhead is established in the form of a successful self-replicating assembly robot, market pressures would drive full automation of more products/​industries, increasing output for everyone.

This is a very hard programming challenge, but the tools exist to identify, manipulate and assemble parts. Specifically, ROS is an open-source software library whose packages can be put together to solve tasks such as mapping a building or folding laundry. It’s hard because it would require a lot of steps and a new combination of existing tools.

This is also a hard systems/​mechanical challenge: delivering enough data and control bandwidth for observability and controllability, and providing lightweight and rigid hardware, so that the task for the software is possible rather than impossible. Low-cost components have less performance: a webcam has limited resolution, and hobby servos have limited accuracy. The key problem—autonomously picking up a screw and screwing it into a hole—has been solved years ago for assembly-line robots. Doing the same task with low-cost components appears possible in principle. A comparable problem that has been solved is autonomous construction using quadcopters.

Personally, I would like to build a robot arm that could assemble more robot arms. It would require, at minimum, a robot arm using hobby servos, a few webcams, custom grippers (for grasping screws, servos, and laser-cut sheet parts), custom fixtures (blocks with a cutout to hold two parts in place while the robot arm inserts a screw; ideally multiple robot arms would be used to minimize unique tooling but fixtures would be easier initially), and a lot of challenging code using ROS and Gazebo. Just the mechanical stuff, which I have the education for, would be a challenging months-long side project, and the software stuff could take years of study (the equivalent of a CS degree) before I’d have the required background to reasonably attempt it.

I’m not sure what to do with this idea. Getting a CS degree on top of a mechanical engineering degree (so I could know enough to build this) seems like a good career choice for interesting work and high pay (even if/​when this doesn’t work). Previous ideas like this I’ve had that are mostly outside my field have been unfeasible for reasons only someone familiar with the field would know. It’s challenging to stay motivated to work on this, because the payoff is so distant, but it’s also challenging not to work on this, because there’s enough of a chance that this would work that I’m excited about it. I’m posting this here in the hopes someone with experience with industrial automation will be inspired to build this, and to get well-reasoned feedback.