Your response is rude, but more important you seem to ignore what I've written. Check out below.<br><br>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 5/19/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Samantha Atkins</b> <<a href="mailto:sjatkins@mac.com">sjatkins@mac.com</a>> wrote:</span></div>
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<div>On May 18, 2006, at 10:39 PM, jeffrey davis wrote:</div><br>
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<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 5/18/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Samantha Atkins</b> <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:sjatkins@mac.com" target="_blank">sjatkins@mac.com</a>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><br><br>It is not irrelevant as the type of technology available determines the costs of such a project and its feasibility. Sufficiently advanced automation to accomplish this task as well as sufficient resources and sustaining technology may require nanotechnology and AI. I think that it will. If you think otherwise then please make your case.
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<div>You're perhaps familiar with "Advanced automation for space missions"(AASM), a seminal work on self-replication by Freitas et al. sometimes referred to as the 1980 NASA summer study. A quarter century ago Freitas declared self-replication doable, and on the moon no less, with the attendant severe restrictions on human on-site assistance. So it's not really my case but Freitas's.
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<div><br> </div>Assuming sufficient resources, energy, control and logics that can't be locally replicated without something like MNT, yes? </div></div></div></blockquote>
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<div>No. Who says they can't be "locally replicated" -- your use of "replication" here is totally bogus. Your use of "locally" means you didn't read -- or understand -- what I wrote. I'm talking about a self-replicating machine system HERE ON EARTH with humans at beck and call, as contrasted with the MORE DIFFICULT moon-based operation of AASM.
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<div>What are you talking about here? Have you read AASM? There's no indication here that you have, or that if you have you understand what you read. Talk about hand-waving. It makes me think it's not even worth respondoing to someone so dishonest in discussion.
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<div>That said.... Any project that is to be completed must have sufficient resources,...well duh. And the resources required are easily with human reach. For example a very small fraction of what's been spent on the Iraq war. Do you know what that cost was estimated to be by Freitas in AASM? If you did you would not question the sufficiency of resources.
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<div>Current industrial infrastructure has sufficient everything to do what it does, else it wouldn't successfully complete anything.</div>
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<div>Engineering-wise, it's about control systems. Our current industrial system with humans in the loop has 100 percent closure. Replacing the humans requires control systems.</div></div></blockquote>
<div><br> </div>How sophisticated are these likely to need to be to build infrastructure capable of supporting large numbers of humans in a hostile environment. Where is the case that we have that sophistication remotely in hand or will have with less than major AI advancements?
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<p>What large numbers of humans in what hostile environment? What in the world are you talking about. You're certainly not talking about what I'm talking about. Reducing the human factor in a Self-replicating Machine System (SRMS) means NOT having large numbers of humans participating anywhere. Small numbers, yes, for maintenance and troubleshooting in the early prototyping and shakedown stages. But
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<div>Since 1980 we've seen how many doublings of computational capacity, which translates into vastly cheaper (and/or vastly more capable) control systems components? Using Moore's law as a rough guide, in the twenty-five years since AASM, control element costs have fallen, or capability risen, by a factor of 10e6.
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<div>Total hand waving. Chip density and raw speed to not remotely directly translate to increased autonomous control capabilities.</div><br>
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<div>Beyond that, the obstacles to implementation remain vision, creativity, the size of the project(very big), and perhaps political will. Personally, I prefer to dispense with political will and go with vision and creativity.
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<div>That said, many smart folks still contend that the problem is "too hard". Add the daunting size of the undertaking and it becomes a non-trivial matter to mobilize enough folks to "Just give it a try and well see if it can be done." That's where the creativity comes in.
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<div><br> </div>Thanks for for the rah-rah non-answer.</div><br>
<div>- samantha</div>
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