From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Thu Jan 21 1999 - 18:49:11 MST
Billy Brown wrote:
>
> Now, all of this is not to say that it can't be done. It just can't be done
> by diffuse, nearly-undetectable swarms of nanobots. You need macro-scale
> machines for a lot of essential roles, and macro-scale machinery is hard to
> hide.
To blow up a planet? Okay, I'll accept that. But what about
bootstrapping? I waft in a dust particle from space, a few nanobots
onto the surface of the ocean; they build more nanobots and drop to the
bottom; then they reproduce a few times and build a few bombs. As for
power, nanobots float to the top, absorb solar radiation, sink back
down. If that's necessary at all, of which I'm not convinced.
As for hiding the macro-scale machinery you say I'll need at some point,
I'll bet I can give it the same visual, radar, sonar, etc.
characteristics as rock.
One thing is for sure; if you want an active defense against that, you'd
better be prepared to sterilize the oceans.
(This is pretty much academic; by this point in 'tech any sane person is
far, far away from the Earth or any other mass not under vis control,
and has a laser diligently vaporizing stray hydrogen atoms.)
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/AI_design.temp.html
http://pobox.com/~sentience/sing_analysis.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:02:54 MST