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--></style></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>….</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>> <b>On Behalf Of </b>BillK via extropy-chat<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] not yet nanobots, but micro-bots<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 at 01:14, spike jones via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Cool!</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt'> <a href="https://www.seas.upenn.edu/stories/penn-and-umich-create-worlds-smallest-programmable-autonomous-robots/" target="_blank">Penn and Michigan Create World’s Smallest Programmable, Autonomous Robots | Penn Engineering</a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt'> spike</span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal>_______________________________________________<o:p></o:p></p></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>>…<span style='color:black'>This is a remarkable achievement.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>Looks pretty near nanobotty to me! :)<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>BillK<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>BillK, I agree it is a remarkable achievement. Regarding nanobotty, the very critical distinction is in how they are made. Drexler’s vision on nanobots changed the way I see everything. I came upon his Engines of Creation in the 1980s on the shelf in a bookstore (back when those still existed.) I thought it was misplaced and started carrying it back to where I thought it belonged, reading it along the way. I stopped walking, continued reading, realized it was in the right place, turned around while continuing to read but veered off pi/2 toward the cash register, bought the book, took it home, changed my life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>I realized Drexler’s vision is really an extension of Feynman’s sketchy idea from a famous lecture Plenty of Room At The Bottom, where he describes building up devices from the atomic level rather than carving away from a block of pure material. To do that requires that we somehow place ions where we want them and create covalent bonds. We don’t know how to do that yet, but nature does: you have bones, and those have covalent bonds, organized to some degree (not to the precision needed for nanobots perhaps (but organized (literally (a bone is an organ.)))) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>We don’t yet have the technology to do nanobots as Drexler defined them, but these microbots might be able to do cool things for us anyway. We don’t know how much software they will eventually be able to carry onboard, or how much autonomy they will have, and they won’t be able to circulate thru the system if we try to make medical devices (they can’t fit thru capillaries (not even close.)) We don’t even know for sure how much of the article is mildly exaggerated.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>spike <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'><<a href="https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/worlds-smallest-autonomous-microrobots" target="_blank">https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/worlds-smallest-autonomous-microrobots</a>><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>Quotes:<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>World’s smallest programmable robots think, swim, and sense temperature using light. <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>These microscopic robots can swim, sense heat, work in groups, and run autonomously for months on light power. <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>By <a href="https://interestingengineering.com/author/neetika-walter" target="_blank">Neetika Walter</a> <a href="https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics" target="_blank">Dec 15, 2025</a><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>----------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>