[extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech

[Robin Hanson]

On 11/12/2003, Chris Phoenix wrote:
> > We had been explicitly distinguishing several possibilities short of
> > quickly reproducing nanotech factories.
>
>...  You're talking about a nanotech-based manufacturing system that
>can build large products, right?  ... Look at what that requires. ...
>Is there any reason such a thing would not be capable of producing a
>copy of itself?  ... Is there any reason such a thing would be slow?

The whole point here is to be able to do economic analysis on this topic
without having to settle all of the technical disputes that still rage.
You are arguing that there's really only one interesting scenario to
consider, but clearly many other people believe that creating a
self-reproducing system is damn hard and many other nanotech abilities
will appear and have interesting consequences before then.  I'm not trying
to settle such disputes; I'm just trying to identify the key scenarios
being considered to support some economic analysis.

>... I don't see any point in talking about MNT systems duplicating
>themselves in a year--which is a time scale you mentioned.

I said "within a year", meaning less some time less than a year.

> >>>> ... A robust morphogenetic code, an evolutionary system, ...
> >>> And how damn hard is it to have "lots" of "robust" "good" items like 
> these?
> >> Are you questioning the ability to build such a system fault-tolerant?
> > I'm much more concerned about the robustness of the code.
>Well, then "lots" is no harder than one.  And we can certainly do one.

We have one robust morphogenetic code?  I wasn't thinking DNA was anywhere
near robust enough for many plausible values of the computronium available.


> > >"unlimited-sum transaction" ... the benefit to one (or both) of the
> > >parties is much higher than the cost, and is not correlated with the
> > >cost. ... commercial trading is incapable of dealing adequately with
> >
> > The liquids I drink over the next few days are worth millions to me,
> > as I'd die without them.
>
>No, they're not worth millions.  If you didn't have those liquids, you'd
>go to a vending machine and buy $5 worth of soda to keep you alive.  The
>value to you of the liquids is no more than the cost of replacing them
>from a different source.

You mean the benefit relative to the closest available substitute sold?
Is that the way you define cost as well?  If so we could find a different
set of examples that probably aren't what you have in mind.

>Let's take another example.  The largest cause of infant death in
>Venezuela is diarrhea.  This could generally be prevented by a few
>pennies worth of salt and sugar in clean water, and very simple
>instructions.  The value of this resource to the parents of those babies
>would be immense.

Er, by analogy here aren't you supposed to be comparing the value of
one particular source of salt/sugar/water to another, and computing only
the additional value of one source relative to another?



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323