Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: news@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Usenet) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: But are they safe? Message-ID: Date: 3 Apr 91 18:59:45 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 24 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes: > > I'm wondering what error rate is being hypothesised here. How many units > are people thinking about. Might the codes necessary to keep the probability > of undetected error low enough slow down the machines so much as to make > them inviable solutions to the problems for which they are being considered? [deleted] But there are fault-tolerant models for us to study: for instance, when was the last time your brain core dumped from a parity error? Even on those occasions when the human brain shuts itself down as a last resort (fainting), it usually reboots without tech support :-) But you don't design something to work perfectly; you design it so it has benign failure modes and fallback positions that you can detect. [Visions of a nanomachine-serviced human with a little tiny voice inside screaming, "Let me out!"] We never expected Voyager to last as long as it has; it was built to be extremely flexible and reprogrammable, and those factors have saved it from numerous problems. -- This is news. This is your | Peter Scott, NASA/JPL/Caltech brain on news. Any questions? | (pjs@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov)