Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Intractability of active-shield testing Message-ID: Date: 24 Jun 89 04:11:45 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida Lines: 54 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article dmo@turkey.philips.com (Dan Offutt) writes: >... Million-times-faster >designers cannot bring in one year the designs that unspeeded >designers would bring in a million years. One reason, briefly, is >that a speedup in conscious design cannot serve as a substitute for >real-world testing of design realizations. Real-world testing takes >time, cannot be speeded up without substantial risk, and produces >empirical data about design performance that cannot be obtained in >any other way and which is a critical ingredient in subsequent >design efforts. Ok. You make a good point. But I have three quibbles: 1) So what? The "million times speed-up" is a VERY conservative estimate of the possible increase in computing speeds due to nanotechnology, quantum circuits and other as-yet-unknown advances. What does it matter if the effective speed-up in technical progress which is practically obtainable is only 10**5? The thrust of Drexler's argument is not mortally wounded simply by a one or two order of magnitude overestimation. 2) The problems which you rightly identify as having a significant dampening effect on the rate of progress which is practically achievable do not apply to the same degree to ultra-intelligent full-spectrum AIs. Your arguments hit with full force only in the case of idiot savant machines, not in the case of intelligences which transcend our own in all ways. Such intelligences will be able to find elegant solutions to many problems that we find hard, intractable or even do not see at all. They are really beyond our ability to predict or understand. We are like salamanders trying to envision the problem-sovling skills of homo sapiens. 3) All the problems which you have listed that hinder the development of active shields also work against the designers of gray goo. The goo has to both defend itself against the shield and try to accomplish its main objective of destroying the enviroment. The shield must defend itself against the goo and attempt to destroy and/or incapacitate the goo. Both may masquerade as the other. Both will attempt to interfere with the other's communications. Assemblers and disassemblers will mindlessly follow whatever program they receive, regardless of its origin. The shield may be able to shut the goo down just by jamming the goo's communications, destroying its energy supplies and immobilizing ALL molecules in the affected area, including those needed or used by the goo, in such a way that nothing of importance (e.g., human bodies) is injured beyond the ability of nanomachines to repair. It is VERY difficult to win a game of chess against an opponent who is determined to achieve a draw, unless the player who wants to win is much better than the player who wants merely not to lose. The shield "wins" merely by making it impossible for nanomachinery to function, or at least by making it impossible for nanocomputers to send commands to assemblers and disassemblers. Alan Lovejoy; alan@pdn; 813-530-2211; AT&T Paradyne: 8550 Ulmerton, Largo, FL. Disclaimer: I do not speak for AT&T Paradyne. They do not speak for me. ______________________________Down with Li Peng!________________________________ Motto: If nanomachines will be able to reconstruct you, YOU AREN'T DEAD YET.