Man-Machine Robots take over the world

What about robot reproduction? Can a robot be designed that can give birth to a new robot? I'm reminded of the "replicator" units on Star Trek, which, so long as they have a power source, can be programmed to manipulate random mass into objects of choice. Can replicators be developed on a cellular level; that is, can robot "cells" be devised that, given mass, energy, and time, can replicate other robot cells. It seems to me that, until robots can learn to "grow," they will be dependent on their inventors.
 
What about robot reproduction? Can a robot be designed that can give birth to a new robot? I'm reminded of the "replicator" units on Star Trek, which, so long as they have a power source, can be programmed to manipulate random mass into objects of choice. Can replicators be developed on a cellular level; that is, can robot "cells" be devised that, given mass, energy, and time, can replicate other robot cells. It seems to me that, until robots can learn to "grow," they will be dependent on their inventors.

well, I'm sure robots could make robots in a factory....no need for real self replication.
 
well, I'm sure robots could make robots in a factory....no need for real self replication.

What exactly would motivate robots to perpetuate themselves? Why would they bother, except from programming that must originate from humans? If anything, perhaps robots would end up worshiping humans, as gods?
 
What about robot reproduction? Can a robot be designed that can give birth to a new robot? I'm reminded of the "replicator" units on Star Trek, which, so long as they have a power source, can be programmed to manipulate random mass into objects of choice. Can replicators be developed on a cellular level; that is, can robot "cells" be devised that, given mass, energy, and time, can replicate other robot cells. It seems to me that, until robots can learn to "grow," they will be dependent on their inventors.

well, I'm sure robots could make robots in a factory....no need for real self replication.
I think that's been pondered in some Science Fiction. Self-replicating robots are sometimes referred to as Von Neumann machines(?) BRB...

Edited To Add: I was pretty close. From Wikipedia:

A von Neumann probe is a spacecraft capable of replicating itself. The concept is named after Hungarian American mathematician and physicist John von Neumann, who rigorously studied the concept of self-replicating machines that he called "Universal Assemblers" and which are often referred to as "von Neumann machines".
 
I certainly don't want to be worshipped, but I wouldn't mind if a robot made me a sandwich or did my laundry. :)

exactly....I feel guilty being out of a job, so if robots take over all the jobs, then I won't feel so guilty...plus I'll have a nice sandwich.
 
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Microsoft chatbot is taught to swear on Twitter - BBC News

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Feel guitly about putting the kids in front of the TV? Or old and senile? Well ... here's Zenbo!
Zenbo - ASUS

The Asus Zenbo is a ridiculous home robot for $599
Lol at

"An awkward video detailing Zenbo's features showed a grandfather figure falling over alone at home. Rather than try to help him up, the miniature robot acted as a kind of invasive paparazzo, snapping a picture of him in his vulnerable state before sending it to his granddaughter. To her credit, rather than laugh at his misfortune, she informed her parents, allowing them to rescue the gentleman from his predicament."
 
As nice as home robots look, and as much as I personally love them (I have a faint memory of watching a video about Jibo at 3 in the morning and just like, crying for twenty minutes) I don't think they'll quite take off - they're too expensive, too limited, and the AI is far from being there yet.

The real "robot takeover" will not be machines running around killing people - it'll be the use of artificial intelligences in every field, for every specialty. I think what we're going to see first and foremost is AIs like Alexa and Siri getting smarter and smarter. We're going to be seeing beings just short of HAL, most likely - limited both in capability and speech capacity, but able to emulate human emotion and interaction to a very realistic degree. Most likely these will be mobile AIs stored on servers and connected to from elsewhere. Carrying around that much information in a physical body just isn't that feasible. Plus, we love our mobile devices, and that culture doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Of course, those will always be limited by the problem of strong AI, which, the less idealistic I get, the less I feel we're going to be able to solve with machines alone. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually figure it out, but brains are really damn complicated, on a level no computer has even begun to approach.

I think the first truly intelligent AIs will actually be human-AI hybrids - people using augmentations to think faster, to store more memories, to eventually upload their minds. Emulating a human brain is beyond tricky, but once we figure it out, it'll allow for strong AI without the need to build a thinking machine from the ground up. It's the natural next step. We're getting closer and closer to our AI, might as well just merge with it and finish the job. Of course, then you get into all the speculative discussion about the future of the species, which is fine and dandy, but we're going to have to not extinct ourselves before then.