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From: tower@BU-IT.BU.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Bioproduced nanocomputers
Message-ID: <8711052113.AA01020@bu-it.bu.edu>
Date: Thu, 5-Nov-87 16:13:40 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-it.8711052113.AA01020
Posted: Thu Nov  5 16:13:40 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 09:50:48 EST
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Reply-To: tower@bu-cs.bu.edu
Followup-To: <15300@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Organization: Distributed Systems Group, Boston University, 111 Cummington Street, Boston, MA  02215, USA  +1 (617) 353-2780
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In article <15300@bu-cs.BU.EDU> you write:
 > From: unc!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
 > 
 >     People who have read _Engines_of_Creation_ will remember that
 > Drexler made numerous predictions of fantastic things we could do with
 > nanotechnology (NT): life extension, interactive design systems
 > oreders of magnitude more productive than today, nanocomputers, etc,
 > etc. The problem I have with this idea is that while NT is probably
 > feasible, it is simply an enabling technology, not a magic panacea.
 > For example, life extension requires that we understand deeply how
 > aging affects the body. NT will help researchers, but it won't
 > suddenly make them so much smarter that they understand in detail how
 > life 'works'.    ...     I feel that Drexler's envisioned explosion of
 > NT remaking the world suddenly is simply not going to happen. An
 > analogy is the old 'nuclear power too cheap to meter' idea. Comments?
 > 
 >     Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)

Drexler is predicting that both the nanotechnology and AI researchers
will succeed, and that it will be Artifically Intelligent
Nano-Machine, not Human, Researchers who will make many of the
breakthroughs.  He makes interesting arguments that these Nano-AI's
will think about a million times faster than humans, and be at least
as intelligent.

BTW, EoC is out in paperback now.  It's a book I recommend highly to
both the curious and the concerned citizen types.

-len