Nanotechnology
For a list of all pages on this wiki about nanotechnology, see Category:Nanotechnology
From the SL4 Lexicon:
nanotechnology:
Developing molecular nanotechnology would mean the ability to synthesize arbitrary objects to atomic-level specifications. For an introduction, see Engines of Creation (1986, now online). For a technical visualization of lower (not upper) limits on the potential of nanotechnology, see the book Nanosystems (1992) .
These lower limits - the nanotechnological equivalent of vacuum tubes - include a one-kilogram computer, running on 100 kW of power, consisting of 10^12 CPUs running at 10^9 ops/sec, for a total of 10^21 ops/sec. By comparison, the human brain is composed of approximately 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses, firing 200 times per second, for a total of somewhere around 10^17 ops/sec. See Rod Logics. Nanosystems also describes Molecular Manufacturing systems capable of creating copies of themselves in less than an hour. This implies a certain amount of destructive potential. An exponentially replicating assembler could reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of days. (For an overly optimistic treatment of the problem, see "Some Limits to Global Ecophagy" by Robert Freitas.) Accidental out-of-control replication is fairly easy to prevent, given a few simple precautions; we should be more worried about military-grade nanotechnology and deliberately developed weapons. Given our human propensity to make things that go bang - and use them on each other - it would probably be a good idea to develop AI before nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is the "deadline" for AI.
In the long run, there are only two kinds of technology: There are technologies that make it easier to destroy the world, and there are technologies that make it possible to go beyond the human. Whether we possess even a chance of survival is a question of which gets developed first. Developing a transhuman AI does involve certain risks, but it's better than the alternative - success in Friendly AI improves our chances of dealing with nanotechnology much more than success in nanotechnology would improve our chance of creating Friendly AI Yudkowsky01.
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