• KONAGAYA Akihiko
  Visiting professor, Faculty of Humanities,Keisen University

Research that focuses on combining biomolecules such as DNA and proteins to create artificial objects with functions such as “sensing,” “intelligence,” and “movement” is known as “molecular robotics.” This field, which originated in Japan, began in 2010 when experts from various disciplines, including biology, chemistry, physics, information technology, and engineering, came together to form the Molecular Robotics Research Group. Since then, innovations such as amoeba-type molecular robots, molecular artificial muscles, and molecular swarm robots have been developed, positioning Japan as a world leader in basic research in this field. Molecular robots have attracted the attention of ethics researchers even in the basic research stage due to their strong compatibility with living organisms and their significant theoretical potential for self-replication and genetic manipulation.1

From the perspective of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), the most prominent feature of molecular robotics research is that researchers from diverse backgrounds have voluntarily come together to develop breakthrough technologies, promoting interdisciplinary research by crossing disciplinary boundaries. However, simply bringing together researchers from different fields does not automatically lead to innovative research. The challenges of interdisciplinary research stem from various factors, including differences in background knowledge, values, and perspectives on the desired direction of progress.

What, then, were the key factors that ultimately enabled the promotion of interdisciplinary research and the creation of molecular robots? As one such factor, I would like to advocate the importance of a “Ba (matrix)” that bridges different disciplines. While molecular robotics has brought together researchers from different fields, progress in interdisciplinary research would stall if they competed for dominance based on their fields of origin. It is crucial for researchers from different fields to put aside their attachment to their own areas of expertise, focus on the interdisciplinary areas, respect each other’s fields, deepen mutual understanding, and co-create toward a common goal. In this essay, I will refer to such a forum as the “Chaos Matrix.”

The term “Chaos Matrix” is inspired by Hundun, the mythical faceless creature from Chinese legend who died after being forcibly given eyes and nostrils. As shown in this mythology, if one tries to impose rigid boundaries within an interdisciplinary community and pull it back into the confines of individual fields, the community will lose its interdisciplinary nature and the power that drives it. A Ba (matrix) is essential for connecting different fields. In this matrix, the experience and tacit knowledge of each discipline is transformed into data, information, and knowledge that can be formalized. Explicit knowledge from one field is combined with explicit knowledge from another to create new explicit knowledge, which is then shared as tacit knowledge within each discipline. In this process, researchers belonging to the Chaos Matrix community act as “tricksters,” facilitating the fusion of different disciplines.

The role of the trickster is to disrupt existing disciplines and facilitate the creation of a new research community (or society) based on the new disciplines. This transformative process can be likened to the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a chrysalis and finally into a butterfly. The caterpillar does not morph directly into a butterfly; instead, the body and legs that make up the caterpillar dissolve in the chrysalis, forming an amino acid soup that reorganizes into the wings and limbs of the butterfly. Similarly, I believe that a field of research that can be called the true molecular robotics technology will emerge as a new system takes shape over time. This system will be the product of the fusion of knowledge and methods from various disciplines, including the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, within the forum of the Chaos Matrix.

1 In the JST-RISTEX focus area “Human Information Technology Ecosystem (HITE)” adopted in 2017, research on the ethics of molecular robotics was promoted in parallel with the new academic research area of “Molecular Robotics,” together with “Co-creation of Molecular Robot ELSI and Real-time Technology Assessment Research” (Principal Investigator: Akihiko Konagaya)” and “Co-Creation and Communication for Real-Time Technology Assessment (CoRTTA) on Information Technology and Molecular Robotics” (Principal Investigator: Ryuma Shineha).”

Essay All Discours