Metal Penguin

It started with the bees. When their numbers fell to the point that we needed to replace them so that crops could be pollinated effectively, the solution was mechanical bees. Tiny flying robots with AI brains that were provided with some simple goals – pollinate plants, survive – and left to get on with it. Solar-powered hives housed autonomous bee-factories. Farmers provided the raw materials for new bees (cellulose and silicone, mostly) and the bees did the pollinating. As a welcome secondary benefit, the bees provided honey – which they had no use for themselves.

As further gaps in the ecosystem emerged, they were plugged with more artificial replacements for the animals and plants that had previously carried out the various roles. The “next-gen” replacements for Nature’s originals soon developed their own competitive strategies to achieve their goals. Artificial birds hunted artificial insects – for their constituent matter and for the energy stored in their power cells. The algorithms soon led to evolutionary changes and whole new classes of artificial life were soon being created at a rate that Nature could not hope to achieve.

Now, most of the niches in the eco system were filled by next-gens.

Metal penguins hunt metal fish.