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From: kdmoen@watcgl.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: Engines of Creation: Nanotechnology
Message-ID: <2411@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Date: Thu, 19-Nov-87 00:01:30 EST
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2411
Posted: Thu Nov 19 00:01:30 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Nov-87 06:49:06 EST
References: <799@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <2698@drivax.UUCP> <1063@sugar.UUCP>
Reply-To: kdmoen@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Doug Moen)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 29
Keywords: nanotechnology foresight drexler
Summary: Nanotechnology doesn't scare me.

peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>Even Drexler is uneasy about the "Grey Goo".

Rather than being apprehensive about Grey Goo, I am looking forward to
the time when I can design a suite of nanomachines that will rebuild my
body from the inside out, enhancing my mental abilities by a factor of
10**9 and my physical abilities by a lesser factor.

Once a sufficient number of people have done this, I'm sure we will have
no problems finding ways to deal with Grey Goo.

The point of this is that, if Drexlers predictions pan out, then
just about anything becomes possible.

I must confess that I am still a trifle skeptical about the feasibility
of all of this.  I would like to *see* a fully worked out design for Grey Goo
or even for a submicron supercomputer that can be, if not empirically tested,
then at least scrutinized by the scientific community and run through a
computer simulation.  If it *does* turn out to be possible to build Grey Goo,
then by the time fabrication technology catches up, perhaps we can have
a wide spectrum of Goo killing techniques already available.

Does anybody know how close the Foresight Institute/MIT Nanotechnology Group
is to completing the designs for interesting nanomachines?
-- 
Doug Moen
University of Waterloo Computer Graphics Lab
UUCP:     {ihnp4,watmath}!watcgl!kdmoen
INTERNET: kdmoen@cgl.waterloo.edu