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Nanotechnology. Your views.

A few self-replicating nanorobots get out into the open, and its only a matter of weeks before the atmosphere becomes nothing more than viscous gray goo...

I think I read that in a book once, it sounds very H.G. Wells but I doubt it...
 
Originally posted by Yahweh

A few self-replicating nanorobots get out into the open, and its only a matter of weeks before the atmosphere becomes nothing more than viscous gray goo...

I think I read that in a book once, it sounds very H.G. Wells but I doubt it...
Click to expand...
That idea was presented in an article by Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

But I remember a sci-fi story from maybe twenty years ago based on the same premise. Actually, in that story a guy built a robot whose sole purpose was to create half-scale copies of itself, each of the copies doing likewise. As they scavanged their surroundings for raw materials, the first thing they did was cannibalize the parent robot. Fortunately, the process bottomed out when they reached molecular scale (but there were quite a lot of them by then).

I'm more worried about asteroid strikes myself.
 
My view? O.k. I'll bite (though I would normally consider it polite for the tread starter to post his views before asking for others).

Real nanotech (machinery on the molecular scale, not merely really small particles) will revolutionize every aspect of our material lives. If you're worried about they grey goo scenario then keep in mind that the best defense is a good understanding of what is happening. The only defense against grey goo is your own nanotech. If you don't understand it then you're dead.
Otherwise, imagine every individual having the (non-polluting) industrail capacity of a small third world country. Imagine having total control of the form your body takes. Pretty much imagine something matter based and it's possible.

'Course the downside is that, like in all revolutions, the status quo will shift and there will be some who won't like the change from being a big fish in a small pond to being a small fish in an increasingly larger pond. ther'll be social upheaval at the beginning as factory manufacturing, construction, and other jobs like that are automated but that's pretty much unavoidable. Its what has happened at every major technological shift throughout history. I don't know how many of you would like to go back to a pre-industrial tech base - short lifespans, backbreaking labor, no t.v. or women's suffrage (hmm, maybe not too bad of an idea after all).
 
I'm very skeptical of both extremes. Sure it'll make a lot of differences in a lot of things like the microprocessor has but I've heard very few people who work on nanotech making such extreme claims - just sf writers. A New Scientist writer just before Xmas wrote that a) it's not one technology but many and b) the environmental group ETC "concerns relate more to world order than to the safety of the science"
 
Well most NT workers aren'y going to make great claims since most of the really exciting stuff is still over the horizon (years if not decades or longer).


By the way, what's with the recent series of people posting a link or request on "insights" on nanotech, posthumanism, or the singularity? Is it a group of transhumanist trolls wasting our or do these people actually want to engage in a dialogue?
 
Yeah, good book though maybe Ken McLeod's "Star fraction" etc are better for a vision of the rapture(cough) I mean singularity.
I dunno - I guess some of these ideas in SF are reaching some people whose contact with reality is limited to xmas cards. Vernor Vinge has written about it as well (Across Realtime - good book). Can't think who else. I didn't see those threads, I'm afraid.
 
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