The folks are MIT's roboticists are noted for coming up with some pretty crazy stuff. It goes back a looooong time and some of my favorites are the Cheetah robot and the robot raptor dinosaur called "Spring Turkey." A new and strange one is Elowan. Except, it isn't, strictly, a robot. It's a cyborg. A plant cyborg.
The name cyborg is short for 'cybernetic organism' and most of the time it evokes images of the cyborgs from the the Terminator movie franchise. Occasionally, cyborg animals are thought of. However, very rarely are cyborg plants. It's not completelyunheard of though. If plants are combined with computers and robotics, they definitely meet the criteria of being organisms, so the term 'cyborg' definitely applies.
In this case, the researchers at MIT connected electrodes to a plant and those electrodes to a computer. Plants have natural electrical currents within them similar to, but not nearly as complicated as, how our nerves function. These signals indicate whether to grow in a particular direction or conserve water or several other different functions the signals communicate. The electrodes pick those signals up and the computer interprets them. In this case, Elowan's computer drives the robot towards the light based on the plant indicating which direction the plant needs to grow to get more light.
While this is very simple and amusing, the researchers have grand visions of cyborg structures that take advantage of plants natural behavior to grow and provide uses. Imagine if it were possible to grow a street lamp and it would turn on or off based on the day and night signals the plant detects. That might be too simple to do otherwise, but there are possibilities in being able to grow your city's infrastructure.
All I ask is for no cybernetic venus fly traps of unusual size. Or pitcher plants. Or honeydews. Please, MIT, don't go there! Equally terrifying would be cyborg kudzu! Just Don't Do It! I'm kidding, of course. Mostly.
MIT researchers create a robot houseplant that moves on its own
https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/05/mit-researchers-create-a-robot-houseplant-that-moves-on-its-own/