--- title: Robots: How We're Teaching Them to Heal Themselves description: The human rights danger of encryption backdoors, solar fabric to power your phone, self-healing robots and more. canonical: https://time.com/3901504/robots-heal/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-29T16:01:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:18.356Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How We're Teaching Robots to Heal Themselves og:description: These are today's best ideas. og:url: https://time.com/3901504/robots-heal/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How We're Teaching Robots to Heal Themselves twitter:description: These are today's best ideas. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # How We're Teaching Robots to Heal Themselves by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute May 29, 2015 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute May 29, 2015 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**We’re teaching robots to heal themselves.**](http://mashable.com/2015/05/29/adaptable-robot/) By Charles Q. Choi in Mashable **2\.** [**What if your clothes could charge your phone?**](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630231.200-solarcell-thread-heralds-promise-of-wearable-chargers.html) By the New Scientist **3\.** [**If the NSA gets the encryption backdoors it wants, abusive governments will use them too.**](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/05/28/un-report-encryption-is-important-to-human-rights-and-backdoors-undermine-it/) By Andrea Peterson in the Washington Post **4\.** [**The next political ad battleground is in your pocket.**](http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/29/politics/2016-presidential-campaigns-mobile-technology/index.html) By Tanzina Vega at CNN **5\.** [**Can a doll help girls of color see themselves as pretty?**](http://www.themarysue.com/angelica-doll-kickstarter/) By Teresa Jusino in the Mary Sue  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3901504/robots-heal/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3901504/robots-heal/"},"headline":"How We're Teaching Robots to Heal Themselves","datePublished":"2015-05-29T16:01:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:03:18.356Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/3901504/robots-heal/","keywords":["Innovation","Encryption","solar"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3901504/robots-heal/","name":"How We're Teaching Robots to Heal Themselves"}}]}] ```