Editing Self-replication (section)

===Applications===
It is a long-term goal of some engineering sciences to achieve a [[clanking replicator]], a material device that can self-replicate.  The usual reason is to achieve a low cost per item while retaining the utility of a manufactured good.  Many authorities say that in the limit, the cost of self-replicating items should approach the cost-per-weight of wood or other biological substances, because self-replication avoids the costs of [[labour (economics)|labor]], [[Capital (economics)|capital]] and [[distribution (business)|distribution]] in conventional [[factory|manufactured goods]].

A fully novel artificial replicator is a reasonable near-term goal.
A [[NASA]] study recently placed the complexity of a [[clanking replicator]] at approximately that of [[Intel]]'s [[Pentium (brand)|Pentium]] 4 CPU.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/883Toth-Fejel.pdf |title=Modeling Kinematic Cellular Automata Final Report |date=April 30, 2004 |access-date=2013-10-22}}</ref>  That is, the technology is achievable with a relatively small engineering group in a reasonable commercial time-scale at a reasonable cost.

Given the currently keen interest in biotechnology and the high levels of funding in that field, attempts to exploit the replicative ability of existing cells are timely, and may easily lead to significant insights and advances.

A variation of self replication is of practical relevance in [[compiler]] construction, where a similar [[bootstrapping]] problem occurs as in natural self replication. A compiler ([[phenotype]]) can be applied on the compiler's own [[source code]] ([[genotype]]) producing the compiler itself. During compiler development, a modified ([[Mutation|mutated]]) source is used to create the next generation of the compiler. This process differs from natural self-replication in that the process is directed by an engineer, not by the subject itself.