News > Robots may soon be able to reproduce - will this change how we think about evolution?

Robots may soon be able to reproduce - will this change how we think about evolution?

A team of researchers from the UK and the Netherlands have recently demonstrated a fully automated technology to allow physical robots to repeatedly breed, evolving their artificial genetic code over time to better adapt to their environment.

Arguably, this amounts to artificial evolution. Child robots are created by mixing the digital “DNA” from two-parent robots on a computer. While this technology can operate without a human in the loop, it also allows for collaboration with a human “breeder”.