X-Message-Number: 25484
References: <>
From: Peter Merel <>
Subject: The Singularity Is A Fantasy
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 00:40:08 +1100

Tim Freeman writes,

>  [when] the environment internal to the
> assembler has every atom in a known place [...] the
> problem of controlling an assembler will be comparable to the problem
> of controlling a fully automated factory.

Certainly assemblers in such a nano-factory with carefully predigested 
feedstock would be able to produce many wonderful new materials. But 
the Drexlerian scenarios - autodocs inside each cell, utility fog, 
cheap food synthesis machines, the backup and repair of frozen human 
brains, Moore's Law bootstrapping humanity to the stars - The 
Singularity - is fantasy.

The Singularity isn't making a pound of independent factory-style 
assemblers. It requires coherent work on scales far more complex than 
insert molecular flap A in molecular slot B times Avogadro's Number. 
Nanotechnology credibly promises new drugs and polymer synthesis - like 
protein engineering and similar. Nanofantasy like The Singularity 
incredibly promises techno-apotheosis and extropian godhead.

> Strawman argument.  Cite a credible nanotech apologist who says this.
> The actual counter is that controlling an assembler is fairly easy,
> once you know how to build and operate one.

Drexler said that. Or isn't he credible any more? Doesn't the foresight 
institute still distribute Engines of Creation?

> Operating an assembler "in the wild" would be more difficult than
> operating one in a controlled environment.  Maybe that's what you're
> talking about.  However, an E. Coli has enough smarts to
> self-reproduce in the wild, so the claim that AI is required even in
> this case seems dubious.

Yes, you often see pounds of E. Coli working together to solve complex 
design problems. All one has to do is take a whole bunch of these slow 
osmotic-logic bags of stochastically reproducing protoplasm, dump 'em 
into a really hot cup of tea, and you'll have uploaded yourself and 
your friends into molecular robots accelerating their solar sails away 
from this jerkwater solar system at relativistic speeds before you can 
say Jack Robinson :-)

Peter Merel.

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