3 ms·
A self-replicating machine can fit in a cubic micron. For a machine that can build a dish antenna out of asteroid material and receive beamed instructions to b
by abecedarius 7y ago
A self-replicating machine can fit in a cubic micron.
For a machine that can build a dish antenna out of asteroid material and receive beamed instructions to build more complex machines, the seed probably would have to be bigger than a bacterium, but it seems disproportionate to imagine the complexity has to be greater than the seed of a tree. On the one hand, it has to grow in a very different environment, but on the other it's an environment without voracious competitors looking to eat or outgrow it.
- simonh 7y agoThe context is interstellar probes to colonise the galaxy, that requires a self replicating universal constructor. Otherwise you just get a grey goo, or on Ian M. Banks terms a self replicating hegemonic swarm.
- abecedarius 7y ago"First build a radio receiver" means you don't have to pack anything like your whole civilization into the seed, unless you're in some kind of lifeboat emergency like a war or supernova. Biology is an existence proof of universal-enough constructors (and a radio is simple compared to a tree). These existing constructors may seem absurdly hyper-advanced compared to current human technology, but I think that's a prejudice. Even current computers are hyper-advanced over the ones of just a lifetime ago. It's hard to plausibly avoid that level of progress over a few lifetimes more, short of somehow stopping progress cold.