nanorobots and the grey goo end of the world theory

[Marc]

Ok, so ive read about self replicating robots, but what I dont understand, is where would the materials come from for these robots to replicate? And if a nanorobot went tits up and we couldnt stop it self replicating, surely, like, the walls of a room would be enough to stop it self replicating and it would just blow up or something because it wouldnt have the force to expand outside of the walls?

 

[AngelHeal]

Ok, so ive read about self replicating robots, but what I dont understand, is where would the materials come from for these robots to replicate? And if a nanorobot went tits up and we couldnt stop it self replicating, surely, like, the walls of a room would be enough to stop it self replicating and it would just blow up or something because it wouldnt have the force to expand outside of the walls?

..and they say dutch people smoke to much...

 

[tris-]

i heard about this.

apparently it isnt possible.

 

[old.Tohtori]

The more interesting "dumb tech" idea is the robots that use organic material as fuel

 

[AngelHeal]

The more interesting "dumb tech" idea is the robots that use organic material as fuel

.....sounds like war of the worlds to me...

 

[old.Tohtori]

.....sounds like war of the worlds to me...

Seriously read about it somewhere.

The idea was something like "we could use organic waste to fuel the cleaning robots etc".

Bad bad idea.

Much like the loonies who think inventing a "mini black hole" on earth is a good idea.

then again, when the nuke was invented, 50% said it wouldn't work and the other 50% said it would cause a chain reaction that would blow up the universe. And they pressed the button.

 

[AngelHeal]

Seriously read about it somewhere.

The idea was something like "we could use organic waste to fuel the cleaning robots etc".

Bad bad idea.

Much like the loonies who think inventing a "mini black hole" on earth is a good idea.

then again, when the nuke was invented, 50% said it wouldn't work and the other 50% said it would cause a chain reaction that would blow up the universe. And they pressed the button.

scientists gone mad xD

 

[leviathane]

yus but if a black hole were to be formed/created it's life span would be so minute it wouldn't really matter, it'd just help prove a few things about the universe.

 

[old.Tohtori]

yus but if a black hole were to be formed/created it's life span would be so minute it wouldn't really matter, it'd just help prove a few things about the universe.

And if you can create a mini black hole, contain it....what then?

Every invention ever will go through the "military" phase, and i KNOW a black hole generator would be on the minds of every geek with a gun.

So, we make a black hole generator "for protection purposes", use it and oops, something went wrong

Or even, someone f*cks up the calculations and that mini black hole just ate up new york.

 

[Marc]

FO derailing the thread and answer my question.

 

[Chronictank]

FO derailing the thread and answer my question.

no you cant, you can change matter tho if you had enough energy in which case the wall would just be dissasembled
However if you mean uses materials lying about to rebuilt itself then its just a matter of how many parts are about i guess
Perhaps they were talking about self-service machines?

 

[Marc]

no you cant, you can change matter tho if you had enough energy in which case the wall would just be dissasembled
However if you mean uses materials lying about to rebuilt itself then its just a matter of how many parts are about i guess
Perhaps they were talking about self-service machines?

I dont know, they never mentioned what parts would be used during self replication, bearing in mind that these robots are naked to the human eye.

Im still confused

 

[Dukat]

I dont know, they never mentioned what parts would be used during self replication, bearing in mind that these robots are naked to the human eye.

Im still confused

Naked robots? Add me to the confused list !

 

[Chronictank]

I dont know, they never mentioned what parts would be used during self replication, bearing in mind that these robots are naked to the human eye.

Im still confused

you got a link to the article per-chance? it's kind of hard to give you something solid from nothing (hehe see what i did there)

 

[Iceforge]

Self replicating robots would have to be ground-up self-replicating, i.e. able to both gather the matter needed and assemple it to copy itself, but in that case, we could have self replicating robots.

The idea of a robot sorting materials to find needed compounds, working with them to get the properties right, forming it into the parts and assempling a robot like itself and programing that robot to act like itself is not really far fetched, we essentially got all the technology aviable to us to make it... it would have no purpose and would probarly take up to much room to be really doable for a while, but it is by no means impossible, as long as the "gather the components" parts is added to it's function

EDIT: I really dont know enough about nano technology through to comment on if that is possible to do in the nano sphere of things. I find it hard to imagine that melting and cleaning materials to get the properties right would be possible on the nano level

 

[old.Tohtori]

The idea of a robot sorting materials to find needed compounds, working with them to get the properties right, forming it into the parts and assempling a robot like itself and programing that robot to act like itself is not really far fetched, we essentially got all the technology aviable to us to make it... it would have no purpose and would probarly take up to much room to be really doable for a while, but it is by no means impossible, as long as the "gather the components" parts is added to it's function

Especially since all they'd need is a data transfer to "teach" eachother, aka, duplicate program to another.

 

[Iceforge]

Especially since all they'd need is a data transfer to "teach" eachother, aka, duplicate program to another.

The almighty power of Ctrl+c + ctrl+v...

Come on! SOMEONE had to say it!

 

[Ormorof]

Ok, so ive read about self replicating robots, but what I dont understand, is where would the materials come from for these robots to replicate? And if a nanorobot went tits up and we couldnt stop it self replicating, surely, like, the walls of a room would be enough to stop it self replicating and it would just blow up or something because it wouldnt have the force to expand outside of the walls?

the idea is that you put a pile of materials down by the robots and they make other things out of it, of course you would need to right materials so not the easiest thing to work out

also self-replicating isnt the term usually used for nanobots its self-assembling (might seem to be the same thing but it isnt ) self-assembly happens when something assembles itself without requiring us to attach it! like a big flat sheet of carbon for example rolling itself into a tube to be used for whatever purpose

amusingly prince charles is one of the main opponents to nanotechnology as he believes they'll take over the world!

 

[Marc]

you got a link to the article per-chance? it's kind of hard to give you something solid from nothing (hehe see what i did there)

I cant remember where I read it, but ive been mulling over it for days. It basically said if the robots (robots on a mollecular scale) malfunctioned, then the galaxy we are in would be gone within 4 days. 1 robot self repplicates into 2, 2 into 4, 4 into 8, 8 into 16, 16 into 32 etc etc. They would basically consume everything.

 

[Nate]

They get it from Boohoomat's ass.

Saw this program about it before, was pretty freaky. This mini tornado of robots flying around eating anything it comes across ;o

 

[Ormorof]

I cant remember where I read it, but ive been mulling over it for days. It basically said if the robots (robots on a mollecular scale) malfunctioned, then the galaxy we are in would be gone within 4 days. 1 robot self repplicates into 2, 2 into 4, 4 into 8, 8 into 16, 16 into 32 etc etc. They would basically consume everything.

well thats a load of rubbish unless they can figure out how to re-arrange atoms into elements required for the robots but that is very much beyond our capabilities atm

(it would also require a huge amount of energy and so probably wouldnt be worth bothering with )