4 ms·

You’ve just invented Universal Paperclips.

• gbrown 7y ago
  Meh, as long as they're not designed to improve themselves, and there are strict protocols for ensuring all active units are controllable, it's not necessarily a recipe for solar system paperclipization.
  • kolinko 7y ago
    Given enough units any protocol will be broken by pure chance sooner or later.
    • gbrown 7y ago
      With appropriate organization and accounting, there's no reason malfunctioning units couldn't be repaired or reprocessed. It seems like that would be a sensible regulation for companies building self replicating machines.
      • ianai 7y ago
        Ah, but if they’re in space who’s doing the regulation?
      • pavel_lishin 7y ago
        > there's no reason malfunctioning units couldn't be repaired or reprocessed If you have enough of them, and a long enough time scale, they might mutate in such a way to avoid being detected.
        • gbrown 7y ago
          It's an important concern, but I think mitigatable - especially since we're not neccessarily talking about actual self contained replicating machines, and instead more likely automated factories producing drones - a multi step process where everything has to go right for replication, and into which safeguards can be engineered/studied. Basically, the process needs to be designed to fail due to entropy without external intervention/maintenance. If we become advanced enough to consider building such things, we can engage in a serious investigation of the risks - for now it's just speculation.