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Encyclopedia: Grey goo
Grey goo is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all living matter on Earth while building more of themse...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo |
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This article and other recent fictional portrayals of grey goo, as well as statements by scientists such as Richard Smalley, are signs of significant public concern. But although biosphere-eating goo is a gripping story, current molecular manufacturing proposals contain nothing even similar to grey goo.
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Accidents, Malice, and "Gray Goo" If dependent replicators are easiest to build, then we can easily avoid building anything like a "gray goo" replicator. We need only avoid solving the challenging problems posed by building replicators that can operate in the alien, unpredictable environment of nature.
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1986 "Engines of Creation, Chapter 11. Engines of Destruction" (K. Eric Drexler) 1986 "Engines of Creation, Chapter 12. Strategies and Survival" (K. Eric Drexler) All rights reserved. Legal Notices. Privacy Policy...
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Among the cognoscenti of nanotechnology, this threat has become known as the "gray goo problem." Though masses of uncontrolled replicators need not be gray or gooey, the term "gray goo" The gray goo threat makes one thing perfectly clear: We cannot afford certain kinds of accidents with replicating assemblers.
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Oct 29, 2009 The "killer app" of current nanotechnology is the carbon nanotube, which could revolutionize circuit boards and other technologies.
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Gray goo is a notorious (and usually misunderstood) fear that is an outgrowth of MNT. The idea, which is far too simplistic, is that a small molecular manufacturing system could duplicate itself and forage in the wild, turning biomatter into copies of itself on a planetary-wide scale.
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Manufactured products are made from atoms. The properties of those products depend on how those atoms are arranged. If we rearrange the atoms in coal we can make diamond. If we rearrange the atoms in sand (and add a few other trace Todays manufacturing methods are very crude at the molecular level. In the future,
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