[ExI] marksmanship

spike at rainier66.com spike at rainier66.com
Tue Jun 30 15:03:00 UTC 2020


 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2020 12:19 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ExI] marksmanship

 

I am pretty sure I saw something about an advance in microscopy, but I guess I didn't see what I thought I saw.

 

You are pulling my leg a bit about replicating assemblers, eh?  If they did what you say they do, why would anyone try to build one?  bill w

 

 

BillW, the notion of nanotech assemblers was quite the rage in the 80s and 90s.  Reference K. Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation.

 

One of the common notions was an assembler that could assemble a copy of itself without actual instructions to do so, or perhaps just make one copy of itself then stop there.  Then your collection of assemblers would increase linearly, ja?  But that is too slow, so what if we have them make two copies?  Then your collection of programmable assemblers increases exponentially, but no worries, you stop the process when you have enough.

 

But what if you sneeze and some get loose?  Then you can’t find them to tell them to stop making two copies of themselves, and pretty soon, the earth is covered in gray goo.

 

This to me is an explanation for Fermi’s Paradox at least as plausible as malicious AI or nuclear holocaust.

 

spike

 

 

 

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