Why the future doesn't need us. By Bill Joy [2000] | Hacker News Reader

Why the future doesn't need us. By Bill Joy [2000]

wired.com

16 pointssublemonic11 comments

I never understood the gray goo problem. Isn't life, evolution's best attempt at gray goo? Developed over the past few billion years? How could we invent something that replicates faster and more efficiently than life does?

Even it's ultimately possible, I can't imagine it would happen by accident. It would certainly require a lot of deliberate effort, and 1000s of new technologies.

What gave you the idea that evolution designs optimal solutions? This is like saying a Boeing 747 can't fly because eagles are the upper bound on flight speed.

A Boeing can't reproduce, and cannot heal itself.

(edit: I mean to say that there are processes that evolution has evolved that have eluded us and may continue to elude us indefinitely)

I think the difference is that evolution has also created competitors, predators and built in limits to growth that keeps any particular life form from replicating out of control and destroying everything else. With the exception of humans perhaps :)

If the grey goo is non biological, there may not be any form of life that can eat it to keep its growth in check, it might also use some raw material that's more abundant than the nutrients organic life needs (there's a lot of silicon in earth's crust for instance), and it probably wouldn't have any built in limit to its replication like most living things do.

This has me wondering whether there are any chemical reactions that use rock or dirt and yield energy. If those don't exist, gray goo needs to get staggering amounts of energy from somewhere before it can be dangerous. But if they do, why isn't anything biological using them?

The idea, I think, isn't that this grey goo would get energy from dirt and rock and literally consume the Earth. Rather, it would use dirt and rock plus solar energy to grow and if its efficient enough out compete existing plants. The other bad possibility is that some nanite comes along that can digest typical organic matter but that can't be digested in turn. Then it proceeds to much on the biosphere while leaving the rest of the planet alone and just eat all the organic life (that hasn't hermetically sealed itself away).

Either of these scenarios would, of course, be Bad Things.

I'm not sure either is actually credible, but I'm not aware of any reason to declare them impossible.

There are bacteria in a certain cave system that draws energy from the mineral deposits. They get 0 energy from the sun.

A little searching found: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/4229.html

I don't think that this is the bacteria that I was thinking of. The one the I'm thinking of was mentioned in the Planet Earth episode on caves.

{EDIT}

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/05/08/cave-bacteria-mars....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lechuguilla_Cave

  "Rare, chemolithoautotrophic bacteria are believed to
  occur in the cave. These bacteria feed on the sulfur,
  iron, and manganese minerals and may assist in enlarging
  the cave and determining the shapes of some unusual
  speleothems. Other studies indicate that some microbes
  may have medicinal qualities that are beneficial to
  humans.[1]"

{/EDIT}

> Isn't life, evolution's best attempt at gray goo? Developed over the past few billion years? How could we invent something that replicates faster and more efficiently than life does?

Something invented by humans is invented by natural selection. Just as new organic species can wipe out (or live harmoniously) with old species, a new inorganic species could do the same.

How could we invent something that replicates faster and more efficiently than life does?

Because we're a lot smarter than evolution. Evolution can't make wheels or impeller pumps.

Many biological structures rely on weaker interactions (such as Van der Waals forces). Human-engineered nanotech could use the strongest covalent bonds (such as C-C bonds found in diamond), making it impossible for biological creatures to "eat" them.

In a similar vein, biology uses energy stored in chemical bonds. Humans can build things that use nuclear forces, allowing for much denser energy storage and growth far away from the sun or geothermal sources.

we can never recreate consciousness, we can only approximate it ... ones and zeros will never be able to compete with true spirit.

So what about analog computers?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com