Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!glacier.STANFORD.EDU!jbn
From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: disregard and abuse of Nano-engineering (V6#17)
Message-ID: <17290@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 30 Jan 88 06:42:42 GMT
References: <880127-092544-3619@Xerox>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: glacier!jbn (John B. Nagle)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 33
Approved: ailist@kl.sri.com



      Nanotechnology isn't a silly idea, but it's very difficult to
see how to get started on working at the molecular level.  Drexler's
popular books don't offer too much insight on what to do first, but
they give some idea of what can be accomplished, and what to worry
about, if it starts to work.  Neither physics nor biochemistry seem
to forbid much of what Drexler proposes.

      Nanotechnology is more of an engineering problem than is AI.
We really have no idea what a general-purpose artificial intelligence
would look like, what its components would be, or even roughly what
its complexity would be.   We cannot today draw a block diagram of
an artificial intelligence with any confidence that a system built
to that diagram would work.

      Nanotechnology is different.  We could begin to design
nanomachines today, and Drexler has indeed roughed out some designs.
But our manfacturing technology is not equal to the task of building them.

      This is classically the sort of problem that will yield to money
and determination.  Like the original Manhattan Project and the Apollo
program, much research and massive engineering efforts will be necessary.
To justify such an effort, it will be necessary to demonstrate that
something can be accomplished with this technology.

      I therefore put the question "what nanomachine can we build first?"
What can we build with current bioengineering technology?  Can some
simple mechanical component be fabricated?  It need not be useful.
It need not be very complex.  But if one part can be fabricated,
a beginning will have been made.  And other work will follow.  Rapidly.

					John Nagle