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Drexler Clarifies Grey Goo Scenario
b00le writes "The BBC says that the scientist many regard as the father of nanotechnology has backed away from his famous claim that runaway nanomachines could turn the planet into 'grey goo'. Eric Drexler now says nanomachines that self-replicate exponentially are unlikely ever to enter widespread use. So that's all right, then, but he also said 'tiny machines would need close control' - which not everyone would agree with. I always imagined some kind of emergent behaviour would, er, emerge." Bill Joy is still suitably pessimistic.
WE will turn the planet into grey goo. Maybe the paranoids need to construct self-replicating machines that actually BUILD instead of consume.
Getting energy to a machine that small is extremely difficult (your body has to basically immerse it's cells in fuel to keep them going).
So what if the nanobots created bodies composed of cells immersed in fuel to, say, turn the world to goo, or become President, or... say, wait a minute!
. . .don't let writer Stephen King get a hold of this post!
I wouldn't worry about that if I were you. I just heard a report that Stephen King is dead. Truly an American icon.
I wonder if that means he's going to get a new logo now.
KFG
What you are describing is akin to the rise of multicelled organisms from single celled organisms. It takes quite a while, and a lot of energy to get to that stage.
Mother natures current motto... "Been there. done that."
Hollywood: The place good stories go to die.
Prince Charles, too, has voiced his concerns about the potential risks of nanotechnology. Like anyone gives a rats a$$ about what Prince Charles thinks, especially with regards to the scientific community... See, things like this can ruin a perfectly good article. The amount of credibility this article had, in my mind, went from a good decent amount to almost ZERO. Can we give an Off-TOpic mod to the article for including Prince Charles.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.