A.M.R.S.A.
The World of A.M.R.S.A
Set in a futuristic world where technology and nature converges, this project focuses on a device designed with the intention of breaking the power hierarchy between humans and nature in specific, the microbial community. The A.M.R.S.A. , is a range of self contained robots, adaptive to the environment, that work with plant microbiomes that facilitate the process of regrowth, evolution, and adjustment in a larger space, by acting as a steward to the requests of the microbe community.
BioDesign Discussion
Values
The values that formed the guiding principles for our project are threefold. We wanted to work on a project that was not human centric and our rationale for this was that we are surrounded by products that are a consequence of human-centric design. We focussed on building a product that didn’t put humans in the spotlight and shifted perspectives when product and design building for the project. This brings to light the next guiding value for the project which is breaking down hierarchies between human and non-human species. Whether it is the products available in the market, habitation built on the planet or studying nature, everything is led in relation to humans. Humans are seen as the top of the knowledge hierarchy and we want to work on something that would contribute to breaking down this hierarchy and level the playing field for different species in question, and in relation to our project we wanted to shift the power dynamic to focus on microbes. Finally, we wanted our project to contribute to working on the issue of deteriorating planet health. Steered by these values, we believe that by shifting power to microbes and by giving them the means to have agency, we will shift gears to focus more on nature, rather than humans.
Feasibility
Scientific:
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The project was developed on studies that demonstrated how microbes have the incredible power to adapt to different situations and environments. We wanted to channel this study and amplify their power by providing them with the means of A.M.R.S.A. There have been studies done on different means of communicating with microbes using sensors and this will form the interface to form the bridge between microbes and A.M.R.S.A. Finally, there’s been studies done on different machine learning algorithms to predict the presence of the types of microbes in an area, the factors of an environment like temperature, humidity, etc. and this will facilitate the efficient working of A.M.R.S.A. with microbes. However, theses designs are largely speculative, thus it is difficult to say if something like this may happen in the future.
Cultural:
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Biotechnology is the ideal field to begin this project. The speculative nature of this project imagines a world where nature and technology converge to form a living situation wherein there’s no major imbalance in power dynamics between humans and non humans species. This bridging between humans and non-humans is facilitated by technology. In this world, our project, in specific, works on destroying hierarchies between humans and microbes. Thus, the concepts of biotechnology become the most reasonable and appropriate foundation to build this project on.
Compatibility
This project is built for microbes and is thus designed to have maximum compatibility with microbes and their living situations. The physical features of the robots change according to the plant microbiome it serves and the environment it occupies. This makes sure that it is able to facilitate the requests of the microbes with maximum efficiency. The robots are built from local plants and are thus much more suited to help the plant microbiome as it is in direct contact with it. We considered the impact it would have on the environment and built it to be biodegradable. The robot body is made from organic materials and is intertwined with local plants. The sole non-perishable component of A.M.R.S.A.s is the core of the robot but it continues to become part of other A.M.R.S.A.s after its life expectancy and thus is always working to serve the microbes.
In regard to humans, this project was designed to remove all human interactions. The robots do not process any requests from humans and any other non-microbial species. This was done so that the project could move into a domain that is not human-centered any more and is more focussed on non-humans, especially microbes.
Human Impact
Users/Nonusers/Scalability:
The project focussed on keeping microbes as the sole consumer of the product. This project initially imagined humans in the interactions involving A.M.R.S.A. wherein humans could step in and help with gathering and sending resources required by the microbes as communicated by A.M.R.S.A. However, as we worked on the project, we concluded that this would go against the spirit of the project as by introducing humans into the equation, human intervention might occur and the design might become human-centric. The world created while designing this project calls for a space where there are no hierarchies between human and non-humans species. Also, we imagine this world would be equipped with technology that would allow for easy transportation between places and because of this, we imagine species to not be bound to an area/home for so long. Thus, the team speculates that if there are situations wherein A.M.R.S.A. executes requests from microbes that could potentially be harmful for humans, alerts will be sent to humans to move to another area.
Ethics:
Our guiding light for the project was to destroy hierarchies and work on a project to help towards planet health. When considering ethics, the team considered multiple situations to make sure that all parties in questions have been given equal respect. Thus, we wanted to create robots that respect microbes and will only serve them if the microbes want them to. We wanted to consider microbial consent when addressing this situation as we did not want the microbes to be forced to use them but rather we wanted to create a space wherein they make the active decision of engaging with the robot and can also make the decision of sopping the interaction when they did not want to engage anymore. Moreover, we also removed any manner of human interaction with A.M.R.S.A.s to honor our commitment to serving microbes and creating non-human centric design.
Sustainability
For the project, we produced multiple storyboards to speculate the interaction of our design with different living environments. We imagine different scenarios and they include massive change to these environments as directed by the microbes of the local environment. We considered how the landscapes of deserts, forests, metropolitan cities, mines etc. will be changed and regardless of how good or bad the changes may be in relation to humans, it will be in accordance with the desires of microbes and given the extraordinary adaptive capabilities of microbes, changing living environments according to their desires would be an intriguing future for these spaces. Given that this project inhabits a world where technology and nature are closely intertwined to each other, we imagine that extreme changes to the environment as a result of microbes’ desires wouldn’t be a huge issue as other non-microbial species of the community and microbial communities that don’t agree with the conditions of the environment can move to other spaces by utilizing new technology.
Efficiency/Life Cycle:
As for the life expectancy of A.M.R.S.A., we designed these robots in such a way that if it detects a malfunction, it will be able to self disintegrate by way of chemical reactions. Since it’s body is completely biodegradable, it will dissolve to become part of the living environment that it occupied. However, the core of A.M.R.S.A. which contains the memory of all the requests that it has served will work with the local plant species of the environment to form a new A.M.R.S.A. Thus in effect, we imagine that A.M.R.S.A will come and go, but its core will never die and will continue improving as it serves more microbes.
Risk
The potential negative effects of this project comes up as a result of conflicting needs between microbes and non-microbes as well as between different microbial communities. As for conflicts, we imagine a world where there’s technology that will allow for easy transportation in case of situations where a microbe requests for something that can be toxic to other species and we imagine technology that will alert species in cases that this occurs. If A.M.R.S.A. does malfunction, the design for the robots have been made in such a way that it will be able to detect it and chemically disintegrate to avoid any harm to the environment and the species living in that space. In order to recover from this, we designed the core to be not destroyable and so, we imagine that the core with the local plants of the area would be built into a new A.M.R.S.A for the living space. Thus, the absence of an A.M.R.S.A. is rectified soon. This can potentially be negatively exploited if certain microbial communities have requests that are very harmful to others and since humans are completely erased from the interactions of A.M.R.S.A., other safety measures will have to be put in place to handle it in cases such situations may arise.
