For instance, we could have a robotic factory with three classes of robots: one for mining and transporting raw material, one for assembling raw materials into finished robots and one for designing processes and products.
 The last class, the “brains” of the autonomous robotic factory, would be artificial intelligence systems.
 But could these robots also “evolve”?
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 (But perhaps not to computer viruses.
) Ultimately, the question whether self-reproducing robots will evolve or not boils down to the capability of artificial intelligence systems to self-improve.
 Only then could the “brains” of the robotic factory build evolved robots without the need of human designers.
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 Nanotechnologists, like Eric Drexler, see the future of intelligent machines at the level of molecules: tiny robots that evolve and – like in Lem’s novel – come together to form intelligent superorganisms.
 Perhaps the future of artificial intelligence will be both silicon- and carbon-based: digital brains directing complex molecular structures to copulate at the nanometre level and reproduce.
 Perhaps the cyborgs of the future may involve human participation in robot sexual reproduction, and the creation of new, hybrid species.