Cutting edge technologies like high-throughput materials discovery and characterisation, advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence could allow robots to be designed from the molecular level up to perform their mission in extremely challenging circumstances.
https://techxplore.com/news/2019-01-robots-future-r2d2-c3po.html
Scientists Have Created Programmable Shape-Shifting Liquid Metal:
https://www.thescinewsreporter.com/2018/03/scientists-have-created-programmable.html?m=1
Researchers at the University of Sussex and Swansea University have applied electrical charges to manipulate liquid metal into 2D shapes such as letters and a heart. The team says the findings represent an “extremely promising” new class of materials that can be programmed to seamlessly change shape. This open up new possibilities in ‘soft robotics’ and shape-changing displays:
It’s only a matter of time before someone realize that it’s possible to program liquid metal with intelligence:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2018/11/02/lab-grown-brain-organoid-robot/
http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-program-dna-like-we-do-computers
It would be cool with a self assembling brain in liquid metal:
The Self-Assembling Brain:
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/isal_a_00042
https://books.google.se/books?id=znNzAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=sv#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://cellularscale.blogspot.com/2012/06/neurons-are-like-magnets.html
Click to access Marcel%20van%20Gerven%20-%20Machine%20learning%20-%20Karolinska.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_material
Programmable matter is matter which has the ability to change its physical properties (shape, density, moduli, conductivity, optical properties, etc.) in a programmable fashion, based upon user input or autonomous sensing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_energy_principle
As semiconductor technology, nanotechnology, and self-replicating machine technology have advanced, the use of the term programmable matter has changed to reflect the fact that it is possible to build an ensemble of elements which can be “programmed” to change their physical properties in reality, not just in simulation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_matter
Leo Alexander Ängeslevä 