Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: dmo@turkey.philips.com (Dan Offutt) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Gray-goo design intractability and hybrids Message-ID: Date: 24 Jun 89 05:06:07 GMT Organization: Philips Laboratories, Briarcliff Manor, NY Lines: 25 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu Even if designing gray goo viable in a natural environment is a totally intractable problem, hybrids may be a problem. Suppose that entirely man-made viable gray goo is impossible. The possibility remains that a hybrids between nanoreplicators and life may be possible. An already-viable animal's primordial germ cells might be injected with single nanoreplicators designed to (1) self-replicate at the same time as the primordial germ cell, and (2) give the host organism a special and noxious ability that has not been realized by natural evolution but that can be realized by a nanoreplicator. For example, suppose a replicator could be introduced into some single-cell organism that the human immune system currently has some difficulty defeating. The organism might be *bred* to tolerate, or even actively support the nanoreplicator. And the in-vivo viability of the organism might be enhanced by designing the nanoreplicator to give the host organism some special defense against the human immune system. For example, an ability to detect and detach labeling molecules attached by the immune system to the surface of the organism. The design of such a hybrid seems more tractable than the design of fully man-made gray goo. Yet the hybrid could be just as deadly.