Re: Submolecular nanotech [WAS: Goals]

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
24 May 1999 17:05:37 +0200

Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de> writes:

> Of course these things won't be safe, even if there was no
> autoreplicator capability built-in. No man-made computers are provably
> secure, and hacked nanofoglets make great arms or bootstrap tools
> for creating true autoreplicators. Positional control is what we are
> lacking, and there is no utility fog without advanced positional control.

But a foglet does not have nanoscale positional control, at least not JoSh's design. It would be able to do microscale stuff, but not position atomes into an autoreplicator. Positional control is necessary for making the stuff, but the customers do not need to have it built in in the fog.

Still, a ufog weapon has some potential for mayhem, and I have no doubt at all that it can be misused creatively. Hmm, if it edits what is seen through it, one could hide a lot of activities under an ufog cover.


Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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