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Oh yeah, grey goo. We completely forgot about this other apocalyptic scenario. Snarky joke and micro contamination concerns aside, this tech is really exciting

Oh yeah, grey goo. We completely forgot about this other apocalyptic scenario. Snarky joke and micro contamination concerns aside, this tech is really exciting. The implications for health alone are immense, imagine nano bots circulating in your body and repairing stuff along the way. It has 80s sci fi vibe all over it, optimistic and pessimistic takes alike.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago
then all it takes one bug in code written by outsourced, tired devs and suddenly you cant control your arm or your bowels. that would be fun, shifting blame
- Mtinie 4y ago
  Cynically, I’m almost to the point where I could consider this outcome an acceptable risk if the benefits are large. The status quo today is an onslaught of (seemingly) random genomic and environmental impacts causing huge problems in human bodies. Treatments for these mutations may result in a lack of control of your arms or bowels…and don’t include a rollback feature. Now, in the super simplistic worldview of my comment it disregards all of the random mutations and illnesses we’d need to deal with in addition to the possibility of poorly written code being deployed to our hypothetical nano bot army…so it’s for sure not the only answer, and your point has definite merit.
- teawrecks 4y ago
  Reminds me of exapunks
- kragen 4y ago
  This happens already without the code bugs, as you already know if you've done much elder care; nanomachines offer us the ability to fix it. The crucial question is whether we'll be allowed to.
Pepe1vo 4y ago
Yeah, I really wish I could get excited about this but you just know this is going to be another ecological disaster and/or privacy scandal waiting too happen. Something I'm much more hopeful about is the possibility of growing organs in laboratories, which will have massive implications for health aswell as industrial production of food. Though, putting aside pessism I can see these technologies being synergistic, potentially benefitting all of humanity. One can dream
- Teever 4y ago
  Your line of thinking doesn't make sense to me. Lab grown organs are going to lead to ecological disasters and privacy scandals if only because they'll save the life of the next privacy Hitler who will go on to use micro batteries in hideous ways. Every technology leads to problems because we as humans who use the technology are flawed.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    But not all technologies are equally likely to develop in equally problematic directions.
    - Teever 4y ago
      This is true but we have no way of known which ones will be problematic. After all someone thought nitrate fertilizer was going be the biggest boon to world peace.
      - marcosdumay 4y ago
        > but we have no way of known which ones will be problematic Before we build something, we usually have a pretty good idea of what problems it may cause. We can only have no idea if we don't know any property of it, and creating something that you didn't predict in any way is extremely rare. For example, smart dust is one thing guaranteed to create both great ecological problems and solutions.
  - 4y ago
bobthepanda 4y ago
I did recently play a good video game where this ended up being the premise (can’t say the name because it’ll spoil) so I wouldn’t say it’s completely forgotten. Just, climate change, nuclear war and disease are more at the forefront due to current events.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago

then all it takes one bug in code written by outsourced, tired devs and suddenly you cant control your arm or your bowels. that would be fun, shifting blame

Mtinie 4y ago
Cynically, I’m almost to the point where I could consider this outcome an acceptable risk if the benefits are large. The status quo today is an onslaught of (seemingly) random genomic and environmental impacts causing huge problems in human bodies. Treatments for these mutations may result in a lack of control of your arms or bowels…and don’t include a rollback feature. Now, in the super simplistic worldview of my comment it disregards all of the random mutations and illnesses we’d need to deal with in addition to the possibility of poorly written code being deployed to our hypothetical nano bot army…so it’s for sure not the only answer, and your point has definite merit.
teawrecks 4y ago
Reminds me of exapunks
kragen 4y ago
This happens already without the code bugs, as you already know if you've done much elder care; nanomachines offer us the ability to fix it. The crucial question is whether we'll be allowed to.

Pepe1vo 4y ago

Yeah, I really wish I could get excited about this but you just know this is going to be another ecological disaster and/or privacy scandal waiting too happen. Something I'm much more hopeful about is the possibility of growing organs in laboratories, which will have massive implications for health aswell as industrial production of food. Though, putting aside pessism I can see these technologies being synergistic, potentially benefitting all of humanity. One can dream

Teever 4y ago
Your line of thinking doesn't make sense to me. Lab grown organs are going to lead to ecological disasters and privacy scandals if only because they'll save the life of the next privacy Hitler who will go on to use micro batteries in hideous ways. Every technology leads to problems because we as humans who use the technology are flawed.
- thfuran 4y ago
  But not all technologies are equally likely to develop in equally problematic directions.
  - Teever 4y ago
    This is true but we have no way of known which ones will be problematic. After all someone thought nitrate fertilizer was going be the biggest boon to world peace.
    - marcosdumay 4y ago
      > but we have no way of known which ones will be problematic Before we build something, we usually have a pretty good idea of what problems it may cause. We can only have no idea if we don't know any property of it, and creating something that you didn't predict in any way is extremely rare. For example, smart dust is one thing guaranteed to create both great ecological problems and solutions.
- 4y ago

bobthepanda 4y ago

I did recently play a good video game where this ended up being the premise (can’t say the name because it’ll spoil) so I wouldn’t say it’s completely forgotten. Just, climate change, nuclear war and disease are more at the forefront due to current events.