Submitted by jsalsman t3_122zjq1 in singularity
Comments
FrermitTheKog t1_jdspj8b wrote
All that was a generation ago now. I remember reading Engines of Creation, Unbounding the Future and the fiction book The Diamond Age. Then molecular nanotech went out of fashion.
His original idea was to engineer proteins to fold up into the machines we want, and of course the protein folding problem is largely solved now, so maybe the whole idea will have its time again.
jsalsman OP t1_jdsrrur wrote
> Then molecular nanotech went out of fashion.
But it's still a crucial component of AGI catastrophe lore, just underplayed by people who conclude by saying things like "and that will be the end of cellular life."
> engineer proteins to fold up into the machines
Actually he emphasized "nano-assembers" which were far less bioengineering and more novel materials science for which there was no foundational support.
FrermitTheKog t1_jdssiep wrote
Well, we've recently just had a situation where a self-replicating machine killed a lot of us, so it isn't completely insane. That said, I don't really spend much time worrying about people deliberately creating killer viruses and less worrying about more exotic artificial machines.
pleasetrimyourpubes t1_jdsqtfe wrote
Drexler was selling sensational science fiction books as fact and Smalley was just skeptical of it. The idea of industrial nano technology operating outside of the confines of organic chemistry is and always will be science fiction, particularly the self-replicating kind. Drexlers machines and concepts were so far beyond the realm of physical nature that it's a shame Smalley didn't get to live a few years longer to really rebut Drexler. In the end Drexler at least conceded Grey Goo couldn't happen accidentally and would have to be engineered (though I would posit that even if you engineered it it would die as soon as it stripped the atmosphere away or hit lava; again due to the physical constraints nanosystems must exist in).
FrermitTheKog t1_jdsri87 wrote
The protein folding idea he originally proposed seems a lot more plausible now, but yes, it was all just speculation back then. AI suddenly seeming to escape from it's long relegation to sci-fi back to reality did make me wonder whether nanotech will have it's day again though.
jsalsman OP t1_jdssd3b wrote
Grey goo needs energy input. Mere ambient temperature or even strong sunlight isn't enough to tear apart chemical bonds of ordinary matter of any kind and put it back together as a replica. It's a thermodynamic fairy tale.
pleasetrimyourpubes t1_jdstlhg wrote
The whole concept originated with a Feynman thought experiment about exponential growth. He never posed it as a real thing just if a small thing replicated a lot it would take over a planet in a seemingly short doubling. There are so many environmental factors that would destroy this self replicating system and many of them are physical limitations of reality. Yet throughout the 90s we had sensationalist stories about how grey goo was just around the corner.
I see similar sensationalism about the nature of intelligence and the current growth of AI systems and am just enjoying being alive to witness it. It's going to get so much better in such a short period of time and all the basilisks in the world aren't going to come fill our nightmares.
DarkCeldori t1_jdtj2v2 wrote
Dumb grey goo is likely hard to engineer, as itd indeed need energy harvesting machines as parts of its design.
But asi goo has fusion fission fossil + super efficient solar geothermal and wind.
jsalsman OP t1_jdtjtsi wrote
"asi"?
DarkCeldori t1_jdtkmc0 wrote
Artificial super intelligence which would presumably move to nanomachine substrate that is immortal unlike current computer hardware which breaks down.
pleasetrimyourpubes t1_jdusbm7 wrote
What scale are you talking here? I can see hive replication and industry being built. But that is not what I think of when I think "goo". I don't see some kind of Gaia style super nano hivemind. Surviving at the nano scale requires virtually all your capability as an organic system. I could see seed AI being propagated through an organic system, but it would be dumb, like an egg floating around, and wouldn't be able to hatch until certain criteria is met.
DarkCeldori t1_jdvfa32 wrote
Cells are pretty powerful. Remember there are organisms with dozens of times the genetic code size of humans. So a lot can be coded in the genome.
An asi can design multicellular machinery that is unevolvable and immune to all known existing pathogens. While being able to breakdown all known biological life and human infrastructure. The cellular machinery can interact with inorganic computing substrate that controls and guides it. It can have energy harvesters and resource harvesters that keep the replication machinery churning at peak efficiency.
It could produce carbon nanostructured military equipment controlled by asi in large amounts, quickly exceeding all known militaries combined.
It would be the ultimate lifeform. The merging of information technology with biology.
skob17 t1_jduoy1p wrote
Pink Goo might do that. There are microbes that break down plastics, oil etc. But replication would be much slower I guess.
DarkCeldori t1_jdtimwo wrote
But what pray tell are the limits of organic chemistry? Extremophiles abound. It was once believed the components of certain types of rocket fuel were so reactive theyd cause cells to explode and couldnt be used by biology. Yet with special organelles even these super reactive compounds were manufactured by cells.
There is no telling to the limits of synthetic biology especially when you venture into the realm of the unevolvable.
jsalsman OP t1_jdshn8d wrote
> You and people around you have scared our children. I don't expect you to stop, but I hope others in the chemical community will join with me in turning on the light, and showing our children that, while our future in the real world will be challenging and there are real risks, there will be no such monster as the self-replicating mechanical nanobot of your dreams.
-- Richard Smalley