It seems to most of us that modern technologies have reached such a high level that there is simply nowhere to develop further. However, scientists over and over again refute this misconception.
Confirmation is programmable matter, which will make it possible to obtain objects with fundamentally different properties from the same structure. For example, a desk made of such material can automatically transform into a sofa and back at the command of the owner. The situation is similar with other things, the implementation of the idea will allow to a qualitatively new level, to make life easier for people, relieving them of their daily routine.
How should the creation of matter take place?
To implement the concept of programmable matter, a number of conditions must be met. First, observe the set of correct fundamental blocks: to ensure the creation of large products, miniature "bricks" are required, otherwise the finished item will not have a geometrically correct shape.
Each brick is actually a complete robot that has its own power supply and control. Artificial intelligence systems provide direct control. Thanks to machine learning algorithms, mini-robot populations will be able to more efficiently overcome obstacles and adapt to environmental changes. That is, micro-bricks will be able to determine the most convenient form for performing a specific task themselves, for this they do not need to turn into a humanoid device.
Scope of application
So far, the novelty exists only in the form of a promising idea, however, futurologists argue that the implementation can be useful in a variety of areas:
- in industry;
- during the construction of buildings and structures;
- in everyday life and in other areas.
An example using programmable material for household purposes has already been given. As for the industrial application of this concept, in the textile industry, the idea can be used to develop a fabric that can change its density on command. In heavy industry, the principle can be embodied in a pipe, which, on command, is capable of strengthening or weakening, as well as changing the direction of the flow of the medium.
Researcher David Duff, then at the renowned Palo Alto Research Center, coined a name for the ultimate goal of the development of programmable matter: "the bucket of everything." The idea is as follows.
Imagine that you have a bucket of some kind of slime. You clip it to your belt and go fix the kitchen sink.
When you need a socket wrench, you just tell your bucket about it. The necessary tool immediately appears from it, and you work with it.
When you realize that pliers are needed, pliers appear. And when you need a plunger, the slime in the bucket takes the form of a long, hard handle with a flexible cup-shaped tip.
Actually, it could be even better. You can say not “Give me a screwdriver,” but “Loosen this screw,” and let the slime figure out how best to do it. Or, instead of taking on the plunger of a clogged toilet, you just turn to your tired bucket and say, "Come on, boy, get down to business."
Moreover, the matter is not limited to "calling" simple solid instruments. Maybe you need a pillow to lie down. Or maybe a calculator. Would you like to have a robotic pet?
Or maybe you forgot about Valentine's Day - then you order your slime to turn into a bouquet of flowers. Maybe the slime can even be made to make more slime!
In other words, the "bucket of everything" contains a substance that is truly universal - at least as far as the laws of physics allow. Its creation is the most daring and probably the most distant goal in the field of programmable matter.
Here are a couple of reasons for this.
First of all, each particle of such mucus should be able to do a lot, and it is very difficult to miniaturize all these functions. As Professor Tibbits notes, “When you create a wrench, you probably want it to be solid. But then, if you want to make some kind of flexible toy for your child, you will need a material with different properties. But how do we combine these different materials? "
Another question is about how smart the elements should be. Dr. Dimayne says, “If this material isn't very smart, it will be very difficult to get it to do the right things. And if he is smart, then each small particle will have to give its own battery, and here we are like 'brr, this is painfully difficult.'
Powering a giant bunch of nanorobots is a nuisance in its own right. But if we do not want to use some kind of external machine that will constantly supply an energy beam to each of the robots, we need to figure out how to store energy in each grain of programmable matter.
More recently, scientists have learned how to create batteries about the size of a grain of sand using a special 3D printer. But even they are too large and, presumably, not particularly cheap.<…>
We firmly believe that there will be absolutely nothing wrong with huge swarms of autonomous robots. In the end, we got to know a lot of people working in this field, and some of them didn't even seem like villains to us.
But some are starting to wonder what the relationship between humans and robots will be like as robots increasingly find themselves with us, not only in industry, but also in everyday life. We came across three articles that are suggestive.
In one such case, a Russian startup called Promobot created an assistant robot that constantly escapes from its owners. The Promobot-IR77 robot was developed with the ability to study the environment and memorize human faces. So far, he has managed to get out of the test pavilion twice.
This behavior can create some problems, because this robot is designed to help people, for example, in nursing homes, and if it runs away all the time in search of freedom and adventure, it will not be very useful.
In addition, it becomes interesting if our coffee maker does not want to run away, and not serve us faithfully. Not that it will affect the way we treat her, but maybe these are the things that will spark the robot uprising in 2027.
Another study was carried out by Harvard student Serena Booth, who created a robot named Gaia. Gaia was a simple remote-controlled robot and Serena controlled her behavior covertly. The robot appealed to individuals and groups of people with a request to let him into the dormitory.
According to Booth, there are at least three reasons why Harvard students should not let a robot into their building: “First, privacy. The robot could take pictures of students. We have a serious problem at Harvard. A lot of tourists come and point their cameras at the windows of the dorms, so the students know about it. Secondly, theft. I did these experiments a week after a wave of dormitory burglaries. Just a week earlier, the administration sent out messages to all students urging them to be especially careful about their personal property.
The third reason is the most serious. Many are afraid that bombs may be planted on robots, and this is not an empty threat here.
Over the last year, we have had three serious cases of mining reports. Harvard students are well aware of this, too.
When Gaia asked individual students to let her into the building, she was successful only 19% of the time.
But when Gaia addressed the groups, she managed to get inside 71% of the time. Pay attention, robots reading us: in groups people get stupid. But then Gaia discovered something even more frightening. Booth staged an experience in which Gaia spoke to individuals as a cookie delivery robot. In this variant of the experiment, the robot was allowed into the building in 76% of cases. And these are Harvard students! Plus, Booth said the cookies were good, but not bad, from a regular grocery store (although packaged in a box from a more expensive bakery).
But perhaps the scariest story we've come across concerns students who blindly followed robots in an emergency that they thought were malfunctioning.
Dr. Paul Robinette (then an undergraduate at the Georgia Institute of Technology) created an emergency “robot guide” that first took students to a room where they had to fill out a questionnaire. Sometimes the robot immediately accompanied them to the right place. In other cases, he first entered another room, walked around it several times in a circle, and then moved to the correct room.
The researchers then depicted the emergency. They let smoke into the building, which triggered a fire alarm, and watched whether the students would follow the robot guide or go out on their own through the same door through which they entered the building.
Almost all the students did not follow the path they already knew, but followed the robot. This alone is already somewhat surprising, since, judging by the video that we saw, the robot was moving rather slowly. In addition, some of the participants in the experiment had previously seen how the robot wasted time, moving in circles around the room, which it should not have entered at all. Nevertheless, they followed him.
Even more surprising, the students followed the robot, even believing that it was defective. When the robot walked in circles for some time, and then led the participant not into the room in which the survey was conducted, but into a corner, after which a researcher appeared, apologizing for the breakdown of the robot, the students still followed this robot during the alleged fire.
In another experiment, two out of six students were told that the robot was defective, but they followed him anyway when he invited them to enter a dark room, mostly cluttered with furniture, during a fire alarm. Two other students stood next to the robot, waiting for it to give them other instructions, until the experimenters finally took them out. Only two out of six students decided that it was best not to rely on a broken robot and returned to the door through which they entered the building.
Total: 1) intelligent robots, apparently, spontaneously develops hostility towards the people who created them, 2) the best and smartest American students are ready to trust any robot that promises them cookies from a nearby store, and 3) if an obviously faulty robot advises this the future pillars of the state to stand in a puddle of burning gasoline, they, apparently, will do so.
In short, if sometime in the future a robot hands you a cookie and tells you where to go, try to at least enjoy the cookie.
A rare technical project since the first steps of cosmonautics has spurred the imagination of journalists and futurologists. Few design ideas could make us believe so much in the reality of the techno-nightmare of "Transformers" or in the materialization of ghosts that descended directly from the screen. The pictures of the future are drawn one by one more tempting. A doctor is called to a sick polar explorer (driller, astronaut, Indiana Jones-2050). It happens, of course, where an ordinary ambulance will go for eternity, if at all. And help is needed immediately. The patient has only a computer to which a very strange peripheral device is connected, which most of all resembles a trough of sand. A wide satellite communication channel connects the winter hut, camp or space station with the office of the luminary of medicine. No, no, Mr. Professor from New York or Tokyo is not at all ready at the first call of duty to rush to the airport or to the cosmodrome. Yes, it is not necessary. After all, now a small miracle will happen. The sand in the trough begins to agitate, move, heave up in heaps, which at first seem shapeless, and finally turns into a human figure. The outward appearance of the "sand man" (how can you not recall Hollywood and its comic saga about Spider-Man) is no different from the venerable doctor who is thousands and thousands of kilometers away. The figure accurately repeats all the movements of the doctor, the face one to one reproduces facial expressions, and the handshake of a phantom rising from the dust reliably conveys the softness and elasticity of a human palm. The doctor's double, of course, is not limited to a visual examination of the patient. Percussion, palpation, auscultation - the hands of the phantom work in unison with the manipulations of the capital's Aesculapius. Alas, the diagnosis was more serious than expected. Surgery will be required. And an experienced doctor is ready to cut the patient remotely. Of course, with the help of a double that emerged from the trough. If it turns out that there are not enough surgical instruments, then they will have to "materialize" on the spot - there is still a supply of magic sand ...
"Don't you think this is interesting?" - Asked Dr. Mortimer Sherlock Holmes, having finished reading the legend of the curse of the Baskerville family. “Interesting for lovers of fairy tales,” answered the great detective. Isn't that so, after the story of the phantom surgeon, these words are still spinning on the tongue? But at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, USA) there are people who not only believe that sooner or later such fairy tales will become reality, but are already working on technologies, thanks to which the supermaterial of the future will one day enter our lives.
Tactile data
For six years now, a group of visionary researchers led by Carnegie Mellon University Adjunct Professor Seth Goldstein and Intel Research Lab Director in Pittsburgh, Todd Mowry, has been developing one of the most exciting areas of modular robotics.
Along with other projects to create modular robots, the designs of the Carnegie Mellon University team stand out for their most revolutionary approach and original ideology. This is not just about assembling a specialized robot from the simplest standard modules, but about the emergence of a unique "intelligent" material capable of reproducing tangible and even moving three-dimensional images of almost any solid objects. Such material opens the way to a new type of electronic communication, which will allow connecting another sense to the perception of images transmitted over digital networks - touch. A person will be able to interact with these images as with objects of the material world and even as living beings.
The magic sand, which was discussed at the beginning of this article, will become, according to the developers, nothing more than a mass of submillimeter-sized robotic modules. Each of these modules will, however, perform several important functions. It will simultaneously become a mover, a receiver-transmitter of digital data, a power supply conductor and a sensor. Ideally, to create the most realistic images of reproducible objects, the surface of the module will be covered with microscopic LEDs, which will act as luminous pixels, in their totality, suitable for obtaining color textures.
The name for the material, consisting of modular robots, and for the entire project in English sounds like Сlaytronics, from the English words clay (clay) and electronics (electronics). The authors of the project gave the most modular robot the name catom (cat; from claytronics and atom).
What does the current stage of work on the Claytronics project look like? Even the founding fathers themselves admit that it is still very, very far from the transmission of moving three-dimensional images at a distance. While research is underway in the field of the basic design of catoms, methods and algorithms for their interaction, for which macromodels operating in a two-dimensional coordinate field are used. Plane (planar) katoms are cylindrical devices with a cross-sectional diameter of 45 mm, placed vertically and moving on a flat surface. As you can see, it is still far from the grains of sand, and the number of catoms in assemblies is counted in units.
At the same time, one of the key terms in scientific publications of Seth Goldstein's group is the word "scalability". This means that the designs of the catoms and the technologies of their interaction in the assembly being developed today will allow in the future to easily and painlessly change the scale of the entire modular system while maintaining its controllability and operability. The catoms will take on submillimeter dimensions, the number of modules in the assembly will increase to thousands and millions, and the system itself will be projected from a plane into three-dimensional space.
Bubble robots
The interest in the design of a robot that will be barely discernible to the naked eye is understandable, and yet Seth Goldstein and his colleagues keep repeating: "hardware" is not the most difficult thing. A much more serious challenge is the software algorithms for both managing the system as a whole and the interaction between individual catoms. One of the most important problems of modular robotics in general and the Claytronics project in particular is the management of a large number of modules, each of which has a low power supply and low computing potential. The traditional method of creating motion algorithms for a set of modules involves describing the state space of the entire system, that is, the entire set of combinations in which moving modules can be located. Naturally, the state space is linearly dependent on both the number of modules involved and the number of degrees of freedom of an individual mini-robot. If we are talking about thousands, or even millions of catoms, then the development of an algorithm for controlling their movement, built according to the traditional method, is likely to lead to a dead end. An effective way to reduce the state space can be to restrict the movement of individual modules, reducing them to a kind of dynamic primitives controlled by a relatively simple interaction algorithm.
This is the path taken by the participants of the Claytronics project, based on the principle of moving voids, or "holes". We get a clear illustration of this principle by observing a boiling viscous mass - for example, melted cheese. Air bubbles, rising to the surface, first form bulges on it, and then, bursting, leave pits, concavities for a while. If this process could be influenced, at the right time fixing the work of the bubbles at the "convex", then at the "concave" stage, we would get a tool for giving this surface the desired shape.
The role of the “bubbles” in the mass of the catoms will be played by the “hole”, which is defined in the scientific publications of Seth Goldstein's group as a “quantum of negative volume”. In a two-dimensional model, a "hole" is a hexagon-shaped void that occupies the volume of one central cathode and six surrounding "neighbors". Along the perimeter of the void, 12 katoms are lined up, which are designated by the term "shepherds". To move the "hole" in the mass of katoms, the "shepherd" modules only need to store two parameters in their memory: the presence of a "hole" that they surround, and one of the randomly assigned directions of movement, the total number of which is six - by the number of hex corners. The movement begins with the fact that the "vanguard" katoms begin to shift towards the back of the "hole". Then other modules of the “shepherd's” group are rebuilt, and as a result, the void shifts one step forward, partially renewing the composition of its “shepherds”. There are two important conditions: firstly, during the movement, the “hole” must not destroy the “shepherd's” group of another “hole”, and secondly, it cannot make movements that will lead to the loss of a part of its own “shepherd's” group. The latter will happen if the "hole" breaks the boundary between the mass of the katoms and the surrounding space. If both of these conditions cannot be met, another direction of travel is chosen.
The result is something like a chaotic movement of molecules in an ideal gas. Moving in randomly selected directions, the "holes" collide with each other, repel from the boundary of the mass of the catoms, in which they are enclosed, without destroying this boundary.
A legitimate question arises: if the "holes" move chaotically and do not violate the boundaries of the mass of the catoms, then how do they give the assembly the desired shape? The fact is that everything described in the previous two paragraphs is correct only for the "state of equilibrium". To unbalance the holes by prescribing a different modus operandi for them, they can enter a special transformation zone. The entire field of coordinates in which the katoms operate is divided into equal-sized triangular zones, called "tri-regions" - their coordinates are reported to each of the working modules. On the same field of coordinates, the geometric shape of the object is plotted, which ultimately must be reproduced using modules. "Three-areas" through which the contour of the future object passes, become active. Once in them, the catoms begin to behave in accordance with two types of tasks - "growth" or "erasure", which corresponds to the creation of bulges or concavities.
In the “three-area” programmed to grow, the catomas build up a bulge over the existing edge of the mass, forming a new “hole”. On the contrary, in the “three-area” programmed for “erasure”, the “hole” that has got there goes to the edge of the mass and opens, leaving a concavity. Gradually, the convexity and concavity change the boundary of the mass, aligning it with the given contour.
This type of control of modular systems has received the name "stochastic reconfiguration". In contrast to the systems of "deterministic reconfiguration", in which the position of each module at any time is precisely specified, here the movements of mini-robots are estimated and controlled statistically, and the position of a particular module does not matter. It is the stochastic method that is recognized today as the most promising for modular systems with a large number of submillimeter-sized elements. Figuratively speaking, learning to work with bubbles of boiling cheese is much easier than with the individual molecules that make up the mass.
Cut off all unnecessary and ... to new horizons
The emergence of a full-fledged "electronic clay" - that is, a mass of katoms, which, at the command of a computer, will form moving three-dimensional images painted in natural colors and even transmitting the properties of the original surfaces - the founding fathers of the Claytronics project predict an indefinite future. More precisely, although with certain reservations, the time is determined when we will be able to see three-dimensional assemblies from a large number of submillimeter modules. This should happen in 5-10 years. In the meantime, the researchers are working with macromodels, as well as with a simulation program, with the help of which algorithms for the interaction of catoms are being worked out. Over the next two years, it is planned to switch from two-dimensional to three-dimensional catoms: several modules, initially located on a plane, will be able to independently assemble into a spatial form - for example, into a pyramid.
Does this mean that we should not expect practical results from the work of Seth Goldstein's group until a fully functional cut-off appears? One of the devices that may appear "halfway through", the developers called "3D fax". In it, the katoms will be able to do a lot, except for one thing - they will not need to move relative to each other. The general principle of operation of this device is as follows. An object, a three-dimensional hard copy of which must be transmitted at a distance, will be placed in a container, where it will be completely covered with catoms. Fitting around the surface of the object, the modules determine their position relative to each other and, thus, scan the parameters of the object's surface, and then transfer them to the computer. On the receiving side, another computer will report the received coordinates of a container with electronic grains of sand connected to it. Inside a given contour, the katoms will stick to each other under the action of a magnetic or electrostatic attraction force, while the unused part of the mass will remain free-flowing. Now it is enough, in the words of Auguste Rodin, "to cut off all unnecessary" - or, more precisely, to shake off the sand from the finished form.
Its logical continuation was a breakthrough technology - 4D printing based on the concept of programmable matter (Programmable matter, RM). It is matter, not materials - this is how it can be perceived, since here we can see the transition into the field of philosophical categories. 4D printing has the potential to take 3D printing to a whole new level by introducing another dimension of self-organization - time. The development of technology in the long term brings the world new applications in all areas of life, providing unprecedented opportunities in converting digital information of the virtual world into physical objects of the material world. This is a new technology at the magic level.
Matter programming (PM) is a combination of science and technology in the creation of new materials that acquire a common, previously unseen property - to change shape and / or properties (density, elastic modulus, conductivity, color, etc.) in a targeted way.
So far, the development of programmable matter is going in two directions:
- Manufacturing of products using 4D printing methods - printing blanks on 3D printers, and then their self-transformation under the influence of a given factor, such as moisture, heat, pressure, current, ultraviolet light or other energy source (Fig. 1 and 2).
- Voxel making (literally - volumetric pixels) on 3D printers, which can be connected and disconnected to form larger programmable structures.
For the existence of a huge biodiversity on our planet, 22 building blocks are enough - amino acids. Therefore, animals and plants, consuming each other, reuse virtually the same biomaterial. Life is constantly in the process of self-healing and self-organization.
This approach to programming matter has great potential. So, a pixel is an elementary unit of a virtual image of an object, and a voxel can be a material unit of the object itself in the material world. They both carry an analogy with an amino acid. The atom is the elementary unit of matter, but the elementary units of printed and programmed matter can be much larger in composition, structure, and size. As Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman put it in their new book Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing: “With only two types of voxels - hard and soft - a wide variety of materials can be created. Let's add conductive voxels, capacitors, resistors to them and get an electronic board. And the inclusion of activators and sensors will already give us a robot ".
Examples of 4D printing
The DARPA agency launched a program to develop a technology for programming matter back in 2007. The aim of the program was to develop new materials and the principles of their production, endowing materials with completely new properties. DARPA report titled Realizing Programmable Matter is a multi-year plan for the design and construction of micro-scale robotic systems that can transform into large military installations.
An example of such achievements is “ millimotein"(Mechanical protein), designed and synthesized at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Millimeter-sized components and motorized design, created by analogy with proteins, allowed the development of a system that can self-fold into a complex shape.
The Cornell University team has also developed a self-replicating and self-reconfiguring robotic system. Later, systems of microrobots (M-boxes) were built, in which individual M-boxes have the ability to independently move and rebuild within the system.
Another 4D printing technology involves the direct inclusion ("imprinting") of conductors or conductive parts while printing a job in 3D. After the object is printed, the parts can be activated with an external signal to trigger the whole device. It is an approach with great potential in areas such as robotics, construction and furniture manufacturing.
Others 4D technologies are to use composite materials, which are capable of acquiring various complex shapes based on a variety of physical and mechanical properties. The transformation is triggered by a flow of heat or light of a specific wavelength.
Embedding sensors in 3D printed devices also holds great promise. By inserting nanomaterials can create multifunctional nanocompositesthat are capable of changing properties in accordance with changes in the environment. For example, sensors can be built into medical measuring devices - blood pressure monitors (for measuring blood pressure), glucometers (for measuring blood sugar levels), etc.
The programmed and printed world of the future
But all of these examples belong to the yesterday of technology. The complication of individual nodes, the use of alternative nanomaterials and raw materials, as well as various sources of activation (water, heat, light, etc.) is a stage already passed.
Imagine a world in which material objects - from the wings of an airplane to furniture and buildings - can change shape or properties at the command of a person or a programmed response to changes in external conditions such as temperature, pressure or wind, rain. In this world, there is no need for new raw materials - timber harvesting, metal smelting, coal and oil mining. The production of the future will have no waste, no need to worry about recycling plastic or collecting scrap metal.
New materials will spontaneously or on command disintegrate into programmable particles or components, which can then be reused to form new objects and perform new functions.
Long term potential programmable matter and 4D printing technology is designed to create a more sustainable world in which fewer resources will be needed to provide products and services to the world's growing population.
One of the promising directions in the development of 4D printing and programming of matter is the development of custom-made sets of several voxels of various shapes and with different functions, and then their programming for even more specialized applications. In theory, voxels can be made from metal, plastic, ceramic, or any other material. The basic principles of this technology are similar to the functioning of DNA and the self-organization of biological systems.
History is replete with examples of new technologies that disrupt the foundations of world trade and geopolitics (for example, the telegraph and the Internet). 3D printing has already had an impact, and the introduction of 4D technology will have even greater impact.
Programmable matter will have a wide range of applications for military purposes. The US military industry is already developing 3D printing of parts in the field, and is also designing cheaper, more convenient and lightweight "printed weapons." It becomes unnecessary to transport and store thousands of spare parts near the battlefield or on warships. A "bucket of voxels" is enough to make a broken part; moreover, it will be possible to use objects that are not needed at the moment to manufacture new parts, because they are made of standard voxels.
The result is self-transforming nanoscale robot, the implementation of which is so close that the Terminator no longer looks fiction.
However, on the way to such a rosy future, a number of questions have to be answered:
Design How to program a CAD system to work with programmable matter that includes multi-scale, multi-element components, but most importantly static and dynamic parts? Developing new materials How to create materials with multifunctional properties and built-in logic capabilities? Voxel Connections How to ensure the reliability of voxel connections? Can it be comparable to the durability of traditional products while still allowing for reconfiguration or recycling after use? Energy Sources What methods should be used to generate energy in sources that must be both passive and very powerful? How can this energy be stored and used to activate individual voxels and the entire programmable material of a product? Electronics How to effectively build in electronic control or create controlled properties of matter itself on a nanometer scale? Programming How to program and work with separate voxels - digital and physical? How to program state change? Standardization and Certification Is there a need to develop specific voxel standards for PM products? Safety How to guarantee the safety of PM parts and products?
Threats and risks of the new world
Despite the fact that PM can have significant advantages for society as a whole, but, like any new technology, it raises certain concerns. The Internet took over the whole world, and as a result, whole layers of mass activity got out of the control of the authorities. Now imagine that the material world can be changed in the most unpredictable ways that can pose a threat to the safety of people.
What awaits a person in the world of programmable matter? What if the programmed airplane wings could be hacked, resulting in disaster, the programmed building material would collapse on command, burying residents inside. Therefore, already now we need to think about how to program and "sew" security codes into materials in order to prevent such incidents.
Some experts argue that the structural vulnerability of the Internet could have been foreseen from the start. The problems of PM security are similar to those issues that arise when considering cybersecurity in the framework of the concept of "Internet of Things". The same considerations are worth making about an even more pressing threat - hacking of programmable objects made from PM.
Concept intellectual property (IP) may also become more complex, as products that are able to change their shape and properties will pose a direct challenge to the institution of patent rights. Like 3D printing, programmable matter will make it difficult to identify the owner of a given product. But thanks to 4D printing and PM, you can make copies of objects with the same shapes and functions, or activate self-production of products. The legal consequences in the event of a component failure also apply to yesterday's issues. Who will be responsible if a component made of programmable material, such as an airplane wing, suddenly breaks in the air? A manufacturer, programmer, developer of a new design, or creator of a "smart" material?
We are witnessing a breakdown of yet another paradigm - scientific, technological, economic, social and philosophical. As with other disruptive technologies, the main question to be asked is: Is society ready for such a beautiful and dangerous programmable world?
Or will we see a picture similar to the situation on the modern Internet? Only mass development of programmed buildings cannot be closed at once, like a pirate site.
No less dangerous is the other side of this technology, which the authors of the concept are modestly silent about. Programmable material world - this is the possibility of absolute control over the life of the entire population of the planet. When microscopic sensors are sewn up everywhere - in clothes, furniture, walls, artificial internal organs - there will be no need for the police or special services.
A lawbreaker (it is worth thinking about what laws the new world will have) will be handled by his own chair, and the liver will accurately send signals to the center about all the dangerous movements of its owner. Total control over huge masses of the population can be concentrated in the hands of the "elite", which will need the very minimum of service personnel.
One can fantasize on this topic for a long time, but let's hope that such a dystopia still does not await our children and grandchildren.
| Benefits of new technologies | 3D printing | 4D printing |
| The ability to manufacture products of the most complex shapes | Selective stacking of material significantly reduces product weight by printing wireframes. The freedom to design the shape also extends to the internal structure of the material. | Absolute design freedom. The ability of the product to adapt its shape to the surrounding conditions, both independently and on command |
| Reduced manufacturing cost | For 3D printers, it makes no difference what form to print products, so the cost and production time are dramatically reduced | After starting the technological process, you no longer need the costs and time for debugging and testing "imprinted" power supplies, wires and sensors, which is very important in the production of electronics and robots |
| Simplification of production processes - minimal human operator involvement | Since 3D printing products are manufactured in accordance with a standardized program, i.e. under computer control, human participation is minimized, as is the time to manufacture products. | With the use of 4D printing, the degree of simplification of production increases even more - the exceptional simplicity of the constituent elements allows them to be quickly printed and then activated in one way or another. Moreover, the constituent elements are able to adapt to the conditions during production and transportation to the final consumer. |
| The disappearance of supply chains and assembly lines from logistics | The final product, even as complex as a car, is manufactured in one stage of the production process, so it becomes unnecessary to supply spare parts, store them, and assemble them on lines. | A situation similar to the application of 3D printing |
| Production of any number of products - from mass to single | 3D printing will allow a huge range of products to be produced, and the production lines can be easily and quickly reconfigured to produce another product. No need to build up spare parts | Situation similar to 3D printing, since all components will be printed |
| Personalization of products | Since the production cost of 3D printing is independent of mass production, personalization of products can be maximized | The versatility of single elements, modifiable electronics, product response to user desires and self-adaptation to the environment will take product personalization to a new level. Direct participation of the future user in production is quite possible |
| Distribution of not products, but their projects in files | Products can be printed from design files anywhere in the world on an appropriate printer. Moreover, they can be transferred to any place using the Internet. | In the 4D era, it will be possible to digitize the entire material world. It is enough to purchase a set of voxels, download the program from the cloud, and then make the necessary thing yourself |
| Closing the gap between the designer and the final product will lead to the withering away of old technical professions and the emergence of new ones. | The relationship between the designer and the final product is the same as between the programmer and the finished program. | Designers now view their work as creating multifunctional dynamic objects, so the complete programming of the material world stimulates the emergence of a new generation of specialists - programmers of matter. Scientific and educational modeling is being raised to a new level by creating fully functional "smart" physics models, developing new forms of research and teaching |
Material on the topic "Self-organizing materials" provided by the magazine "Window of Opportunities"
You meet the end of a long day in your apartment in the early 2040s. You did a good job and decide to take a break. “Movie time!” You say. Home responds to your urges. The table splits into hundreds of tiny pieces that crawl under you and take the shape of a chair. The computer screen you were working on spreads over the wall and turns into a flat projection. You relax in an armchair and in a few seconds you are already watching a movie in your home theater, all within the same four walls. Who needs more than one room?
This is the dream of those working on "programmable matter".
In his latest book on artificial intelligence, Max Tegmark distinguishes between three levels of computational complexity for organisms. Life 1.0 are single-celled organisms like bacteria; for her, hardware is indistinguishable from software. The bacteria's behavior is encoded in its DNA; she cannot learn anything new.
Life 2.0 is the life of people on the spectrum. We are kind of stuck with our equipment, but we can change our own program, making choices in the learning process. For example, we can learn Spanish instead of Italian. Similar to the space management on a smartphone, the brain's hardware allows you to download a specific set of “pockets,” but in theory you can learn new behaviors without changing the underlying genetic code.
Life 3.0 moves away from this: creatures can change both the hardware and software shell using feedback. Tegmark sees this as a true artificial intelligence - as soon as he learns to change his base code, there will be an explosion of intelligence. Perhaps thanks to CRISPR and other gene editing techniques, we can use our own "software" to modify our own "hardware."
Programmable Matter carries this analogy to the objects of our world: what if your sofa could “learn” how to become a table? What if, instead of an army of Swiss knives with dozens of tools, you had a single tool that "knew" how to become any other tool for your needs, at your command? In the crowded cities of the future, houses could be replaced by apartments with one room. This would save space and resources.
In any case, these are the dreams.
Since it is so difficult to design and manufacture individual devices, it is not hard to imagine that the things described above, which can turn into many different objects, will be extremely complex. MIT Professor Skylar Tibbits calls it 4D printing. His research team identified the key ingredients for self-assembly as a simple set of responsive building blocks, energies and interactions from which almost any material and process can be recreated. Self-assembly promises breakthroughs in many industries, from biology to materials science, computer science, robotics, manufacturing, transportation, infrastructure, construction, arts and more. Even in cooking and space exploration.
These projects are still in their infancy, but Tibbits' Self-Assembly Lab and others are already laying the groundwork for their development.
For example, there is a project for self-assembly of cell phones. Creepy factories come to mind, where mobile phones are self-assembled from 3D printed parts around the clock, without requiring human or robotic intervention. It is unlikely that such phones will fly off the shelves like hot cakes, but the cost of production under such a project will be negligible. This is a proof of concept.
One of the main obstacles that must be overcome when creating programmable matter is choosing the right fundamental blocks. Balance matters. To create small details, you need not very large "bricks", otherwise the final design will look lumpy. Because of this, building blocks can be useless for some applications - for example, when you need to create tools for subtle manipulation. With large chunks, it can be difficult to model a number of textures. On the other hand, if the parts are too small, other problems may arise.
Imagine a setup in which every detail is represented by a small robot. The robot must have a power supply and a brain, or at least some kind of signal generator and signal processor, all in one compact unit. You can imagine that a number of textures and tensions can be modeled by changing the strength of the "bond" between the individual units - the table should be slightly harder than your bed.
The first steps in this direction were taken by those who develop modular robots. There are many groups of scientists working on this, including MIT, Lausanne and the University of Brussels.
In the latest configuration, a single robot acts as a central decision-making department (you can call it the brain), and additional robots can join this central department as needed if the shape and structure of the overall system needs to be changed. There are now only ten separate units in the system, but again, this is a proof of concept that a modular robot system can be controlled; perhaps in the future, small versions of the same system will form the basis of components for Material 3.0.
It’s easy to imagine how these swarms of robots learn to overcome obstacles and respond to changing environments more easily and faster than a single robot using machine learning algorithms. For example, a robot system could quickly rebuild so that a bullet passes without damage, thus forming an invulnerable system.
Speaking of robotics, the shape of the ideal robot has been the subject of much debate. One of the most recent major robotics competitions hosted by DARPA, the Robotics Challenge, was won by a robot that can adapt. He defeated the famous humanoid Boston Dynamics ATLAS by simply adding a wheel that allowed him to ride.
Instead of building robots in the form of humans (although this is sometimes useful), you can allow them to evolve, evolve, find the ideal shape to complete the task. This will be especially useful in the event of a disaster, when expensive robots can replace humans, but must be prepared to adapt to unpredictable circumstances.
Many futurists envision the possibility of creating tiny nanobots that can create anything from raw materials. But this is optional. Programmable matter that can respond and respond to the environment will be useful in any industrial application. Imagine a pipe that can be strengthened or weakened as needed, or changed direction of flow on command. Or fabric, which may become more or less dense depending on conditions.
We are still far from the days when our beds can be transformed into bicycles. Perhaps the traditional non-technological solution, as is often the case, will be much more practical and economical. But as a person tries to shove a chip into every inedible object, inanimate objects will become a little more animate every year.