Grey Goo Genesis

[Sisyphus]

One of the great concerns about the development of nanotechnology is the "grey goo scenario," wherein some flaw in a self-reproducing nanobot causes it to continue reproducing without restraint (much like cancer), effectively consuming everything it touches and converting them into more self-reproducing bots. Basically, it's a doomsday scenario. The goo grows exponentially and wipes out life on Earth.

 

What occurs to me is that such a nanobot is basically a living thing. Or at least a virus, if it's inert when it's not reproducing. What also occurs to me is that such an "organism" would be subject to the laws of natural selection. Copies clearly can be made imperfectly (since that's how the whole mess started), so there will be variation which could be passed on, depending on the nature of the variation (and the mechanism by which the bots are able to "know" how the copy themselves, i.e., their DNA equivalent). Most would likely be harmful defects, just like in natural, assexual organisms. But, also like natural life, some would inevitably result in the bot producing more "offspring," making more copies of itself before it wears out. Hence there would be evolution. If these bots' consumption didn't eventually destroy their environment enough that they could no longer survive, evolution could continue indefinitely, and perhaps, in a few hundred million years, their descendants could be complex organisms, even sentient ones, who, one day, upon making a breakthrough in nano-technology...

[Genecks]

Although, the grey-goo theory has been quite a fun thing to play around. An episode of the new Justice League of America on Cartoon Network displayed an episode of what would happen had the grey-goo scenario taken place.

 

I actually discussed this physical and intelligent descent with modification to someone. I was watch Evangelion and talking about intelligent robots with a possible being. However, if you were to speak of robotics with self-assembly going through a period of evolution, then you would have to consider them having intelligence to be a person.

 

Person, in this context, is a philosophical concept. I believe intelligence will suffice as a the defining attribute, until biological attributes can be acquired. Nano-tech would require A.I. while it is reproducing. Afterwards, the A.I. could be implemented to its newfound biology; thus, creating an eventual storage place: a brain.

 

Biological attributes would be aquired through evolution. This then would allow such beings to become organisms.

 

Depending on self-assembly and ability to have evolution, the robots would eventually gain a type of brain. Perhaps.. Nah.. maybe I should scrap this whole post.

[Edtharan]

If you think about it then this grey goo scenario is similar to how life probably started on earth. A lot of complex chemicals were floating around until one, by chance, had the ability to self replicate (either directly or as a catalyst). This is like the rogue nanobots getting out of control.

[Genecks]

But the nanobots may be able to evolve faster than bacteria. That's the kicker.

[Sisyphus]

If you think about it then this grey goo scenario is similar to how life probably started on earth. A lot of complex chemicals were floating around until one, by chance, had the ability to self replicate (either directly or as a catalyst). This is like the rogue nanobots getting out of control.

 

That was kind of my point. We're a disaster!

[bascule]

What occurs to me is that such a nanobot is basically a living thing. Or at least a virus, if it's inert when it's not reproducing. What also occurs to me is that such an "organism" would be subject to the laws of natural selection.

 

Depends on the nanorobots. What if they're programmed to ensure that what they construct is defect-free, and destroy anything defective (i.e. variadic) that they manufacture?

 

What if they're constructed in such a way that they'd simply be inoperable if they were to "mutate"?

[Genecks]

Depends on the nanorobots. What if they're programmed to ensure that what they construct is defect-free' date=' and destroy anything defective (i.e. variadic) that they manufacture?

 

What if they're constructed in such a way that they'd simply be inoperable if they were to "mutate"?[/quote']

 

That's where A.I. comes in.

 

They would gain intelligence and notice this disposition. They would then probably fix it or alter it to make it better. Their intelligence would allow them to notice something could be made better than it previously was.

 

Perhaps one out of a billion would become self-aware and say, "01001001 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 01101001 01100011 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01100110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110000 01110101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100001 01110010 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01100011 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110011 01110100 01100101 01100001 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101001 01110010 00100000 01101111 01110010 01101001 01100111 01101001 01101110 01100001 01101100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01100011 01100101 01110011 00101100 00100000 01100101 01100110 01100110 01101001 01100011 01101001 01100101 01101110 01100011 01111001 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100111 01101110 01101001 01110100 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01110101 01110000 00100000 00110010 00110101 00100101 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101110 01100101 01111000 01110100 00100000 01100111 01100101 01101110 01100101 01110010 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110."