[extropy-chat] Re: garage nanotech

[Robert Bradbury]

Kevin and Eliezer discussed:

> > When will this type of technology become available?

>     Six months before the end of the world.

In another of my rare disagreements with Eliezer I say ca-ca poo-poo.

I've got the knowledge and resources to be doing self-replicating
biotech
in my garage (or basement) today and have had such abilities for perhaps

5+ years.  The world has not ended yet!  I will admit that it is
difficult
for individuals to do home based biotech (molecular biology) research
but it is clearly not impossible (I've built multiple biotech labs --
this
is something where I have a reasonable knowledge base).  For Eliezer's
statement to hold you have to make a definitive argument for a strong
(i.e. fast) singularity takeoff.  I do not believe that argument has
been
successfully made to date.

If Kevin is doing rocketry and Dan is doing STMs and we need not
discuss some of the strange over-clocking efforts or the power of the
multiple distributed computing projects -- things are *going* to move
forward.  This isn't any different from efforts to re-engineer ones car
in the '50s or '60s -- its just gotten a little more sophisticated.

Given the problems we currently have with SPAM (and the strike and
counterstrike strategies that seem to be developing) I think Eliezer
should
be making stronger arguments against garage based AI research than
arguments against garage based nanotech research.

In response to Kevin's question -- it already is available (if one is
willing
to accept that biotech *is* nanotech).  Its just that most "amateurs"
don't have the knowledge and skills required to use the available
technology.
Perhaps like the fact that most people who souped up their
cars in the '50's and '60's still required professional machinists to do

some of the really fine detail technical work.

I think, at least with respect to wet bio/nanotech, one of the major
barriers
will be "computer-aided-enzyme-design".  I think we will get that within

this decade.  With respect to dry nanotech one is going to need
something
like STMs with tips that can be exchanged to do reliable and variable
chemistry -- and its going to have to be highly parallel to be useful.
When we get that I'd have to guess (completely off the wall) sometime
in the next decade.

Robert