John Heritage <xebec@home.com> writes:
> Does anyone know of any COMPLETE theories on how the concept of having an
> automatic self-replicating, self-repairing, self-sufficient computer-based
> electronic workforce would be created?.
As far as I know, the closest thing is the work on "auxons",
replicating robots building solar panels, by Klaus Lackner and
Christopher Wendt. See
http://magazines.enews.com/magazines/discover/magtxt/100195-5.html
Since this work is largely theoretical, and we need to learn much more to make robots and AI that works well in the real, physical world in a robust and flexible fashion, I think it is safe to say that there are no complete theories on how to do an automatic workforce. Still, the goal doesn't look that far off; assuming we get better at robotics, management of distributed agent systems and self-replication, then the workforce idea begins to become reasonable.
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