#380 – Neil Gershenfeld: Self-Replicating Robots and the Future of Fabrication

Lex Fridman Podcast

Neil Gershenfeld is the director of the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Neil’s Website: http://ng.cba.mit.edu/
MIT Center for Bits and Atoms: https://cba.mit.edu/
Fab Foundation: https://fabfoundation.org/
Fab Lab community: https://fablabs.io/
Fab Academy: https://fabacademy.org/
Fab City: https://fab.city/

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(05:37) – What Turing got wrong
(11:02) – MIT Center for Bits and Atoms
(24:08) – Digital logic
(30:44) – Self-assembling robots
(41:12) – Digital fabrication
(52:07) – Self-reproducing machine
(59:53) – Trash and fabrication
(1:04:49) – Lab-made bioweapons
(1:09:04) – Genome
(1:20:56) – Quantum computing
(1:25:28) – Microfluidic bubble computation
(1:30:49) – Maxwell’s demon
(1:39:35) – Consciousness
(1:46:35) – Cellular automata
(1:51:07) – Universe is a computer
(1:55:53) – Advice for young people
(2:05:10) – Meaning of life