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It is sci-fi just like having the entire world's knowledge at your fingertips was sci-fi 100 years ago. If it is physically feasible, which it is given we have

It is sci-fi just like having the entire world's knowledge at your fingertips was sci-fi 100 years ago. If it is physically feasible, which it is given we have immune cells and they are just evolution-created versions of these nanobots, then it is just an engineering problem and we humans are pretty good at engineering things. Things will keep moving forward; macro approaches such as your suggestions will work insofar as we can find the cells. In the end it will probably be a mixture of re-engineering our immune cells to better identify and protect against cancer, macro approaches such as the ones you mentioned, and more. It is a hard problem, of course, otherwise we'd have it solved by now, but we've solved hard problems before. And with AI it will be easier and easier to do so.

dekhn 8y ago
you know I've worked in this field for over 25 years and while I started out thinking nanobots were going to cure diseases, I haven't seen any realistic evidence showing they have a promising future, even 100 years from now. I think it;'s much more likely we'll just study immune cells more and use them for therapy without creating nanobots.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > I haven't seen any realistic evidence showing they have a promising future We’re not yet at nanoscale manufacturing in one of the few domains with the scale and capital to fund its development: microprocessor manufacturing.
  - Retric 8y ago
    What do you think editing DNA to make a protean is? You don’t get smaller scale than individual atoms, but it takes more than an atom to do anything.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > What do you think editing DNA to make a protean is? Re-defining biology as “nanobots” renders the latter word useless.
      - Retric 8y ago
        Biology runs on the same physics as anything else. At best nanobots get a wider range of atoms to play with, and that’s it.
        JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > Biology runs on the same physics as anything else Paper planes and fighter jets run can be modelled by the same physics. That doesn’t mean they’re the same thing. “Nanobots” implies greater degrees of freedom and function than purely biological techniques can manage. (For example, by incorporating digital circuitry and novel materials into the mix.)
        Retric 8y ago
        Nanomachiens are to small and fast for digital circuits. As I said, they can include more types of atoms, but that adds little as life already makes use of a wide variety. It’s basic capacity that’s the issue not micro optimizations. Further, depend on a non organic atom and you can’t self replicate without being fed it. At the smallest scale you can’t for example take a picture, you need to detect stuff by touch and respond before bouncing off while traveling at 50+MPH. Make a vast structure like a cell and movement and energy become major issues.
        JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > Nanomachiens [sic]are to small and fast for digital circuits “Digital” means a logic model. Not a physical technology. Atomic-scale digital circuitry—completely foreign to life as we know it—is certainly plausible. Your claim is that anything that can be done at the nanoscale can be done by “editing DNA to make a [protein].” I’m saying the latter is a subset of the former. Given all we have, at this point, is theory, it’s a reasonable point on which to disagree.
Retric 8y ago
Crispr is nanobots. Science Fiction vastly overstated what physical things at this scales can do. I can describe anti gravity fairly easily, that does not let people build something.

dekhn 8y ago

you know I've worked in this field for over 25 years and while I started out thinking nanobots were going to cure diseases, I haven't seen any realistic evidence showing they have a promising future, even 100 years from now. I think it;'s much more likely we'll just study immune cells more and use them for therapy without creating nanobots.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> I haven't seen any realistic evidence showing they have a promising future We’re not yet at nanoscale manufacturing in one of the few domains with the scale and capital to fund its development: microprocessor manufacturing.
- Retric 8y ago
  What do you think editing DNA to make a protean is? You don’t get smaller scale than individual atoms, but it takes more than an atom to do anything.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > What do you think editing DNA to make a protean is? Re-defining biology as “nanobots” renders the latter word useless.
    - Retric 8y ago
      Biology runs on the same physics as anything else. At best nanobots get a wider range of atoms to play with, and that’s it.
      - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > Biology runs on the same physics as anything else Paper planes and fighter jets run can be modelled by the same physics. That doesn’t mean they’re the same thing. “Nanobots” implies greater degrees of freedom and function than purely biological techniques can manage. (For example, by incorporating digital circuitry and novel materials into the mix.)
        Retric 8y ago
        Nanomachiens are to small and fast for digital circuits. As I said, they can include more types of atoms, but that adds little as life already makes use of a wide variety. It’s basic capacity that’s the issue not micro optimizations. Further, depend on a non organic atom and you can’t self replicate without being fed it. At the smallest scale you can’t for example take a picture, you need to detect stuff by touch and respond before bouncing off while traveling at 50+MPH. Make a vast structure like a cell and movement and energy become major issues.
        JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > Nanomachiens [sic]are to small and fast for digital circuits “Digital” means a logic model. Not a physical technology. Atomic-scale digital circuitry—completely foreign to life as we know it—is certainly plausible. Your claim is that anything that can be done at the nanoscale can be done by “editing DNA to make a [protein].” I’m saying the latter is a subset of the former. Given all we have, at this point, is theory, it’s a reasonable point on which to disagree.

Retric 8y ago

Crispr is nanobots. Science Fiction vastly overstated what physical things at this scales can do. I can describe anti gravity fairly easily, that does not let people build something.