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From: ernst%home@ti-csl.CSNET.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Nanotechnology
Message-ID: <8706181353.AA03648@home>
Date: Thu, 18-Jun-87 09:53:01 EDT
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Posted: Thu Jun 18 09:53:01 1987
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The "nano-engineering" that David Smith heard about on an
early-morning NPR show is, indeed, no joke.  Its chief proponent is
K. Eric Drexler, who describes the theory in his 1985 book _Engines of
Creation_.  He is associated with MIT, and he has a stong following
there.  In particular, Marvin Minsky wrote the forward to the
above-mentioned book and spoke, along with Eric Drexler and others, at
a recent day-long symposium on nano-technology at MIT.

The idea behind nanotechnology is the creation of tiny machines which
would be built up molecule by molecule by "molecular assemblers",
which would function much like DNA or RNA in fishing for the right
component to add to a structure.  Because of their small size, their
manipulators would move a million times a second, resulting in
extraordinarily quick construction.  Mechanical nanocomputers (that
is, they would contain tiny gears made of a handful of atoms and such,
on the order of Hillis's mechanical tic-tac-toe player) orders of
magnitude more powerful than current machines but small enough to fit
in dust-speck sized nanomachines would carry instructions and direct
work.

Drexler envisions the construction of assemblers within a few decades
as a result of advances in bioengineering and other sciences.  It is a
technology he believes will powerfully leverage off itself: after the
first assembler is built, uncountable trillions more will follow
almost immediately, and scientific breakthroughs in many fields (all
of which will be able to use nanotechnology or its products as a tool)
will be made in days rather than years.

Drexler's book is more about what changes will be made in society with
the advent of nanomachines than their technical aspects; after all, no
one is close to the advances he envisions.  He discusses jet engines
built in hours, self-repairing machines, AI workstations of
unprecedented power, and world hypertext systems as well as more
sinister possibilities like the capability to build tiny airborne
surveillance devices or supergerms that could destroy life on earth in
hours.

Although much of the material is hard to believe, I recommed the book
for an interesting mix of philosophy and forward-sighted scientific
thought (or science fiction, call it what you like).

					-Michael Ernst

MIT AI Lab			Texas Instruments AI Lab
mernst@oz.ai.mit.edu		ernst%home%ti-csl@csnet-relay.arpa
...!eddie!mernst

The opinions expressed above are not only not those of my employer,
they may well not be my own.