Claytronics or Gershenfeld: Why You’ll Be Able to Make Almost Anything | Hacker News Reader

Claytronics or Gershenfeld: Why You’ll Be Able to Make Almost Anything

singularityhub.com

18 pointskkleiner7 comments

This is a mindblowing concept, truly something that would change the world if it could be made cost effectively (and trained not to become a T1000). I am curious the predicted development time frame. They talk about sub-mm resolution, but that is terrible. 3D printers have much higher resolution now, and are constantly criticized for their rough finishes. That said, the ability to program and interact with matter is fantastic and there would certainly be useful applications where surface finish isn't a paramount concern, but that car modeling demo seems to be a distant prediction.

The demo is really exciting and is a vision of tech that would be as transformative or more than the internet.

This would be a change in line with the printing press, industrial revolution, and the Internet; if not bigger. Question is how can those particles be made in such massive amounts and at low enough price.

The article also touches on another interesting point: that given access to appropriate tools, people can solve a lot of their problems. I personally know how frustrating it is to get an idea and not being able to try it out just because I have no means. Maybe providing such $20k shops to poor regions can have as much impact as providing schools and education.

3D printers are hugely expensive but I think things like manufacturing solar panels are cost efficient. Obviously a solar panel is an extremely simple circuit but hopefully more complicated machines can be printed in a similarly large scale process.

> Question is how can those particles be made in such massive amounts and at low enough price.

I'm more worried about how we stop them once they are successfully programmed to self-replicate. I actually think that 'Gray Goo' is a far more likely scenario for the demise of mankind than it is given credit for:

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

I think the best argument against a "grey goo" apocalypse is that it hasn't happened yet, despite the fact that the earth is already full of self-replicating nano-machines.

Or it HAS happened and WE are the goo! Seriously, there's more bacteria in the human body then human cells. And it's not like the world is short on self replicating nano-machines outside of our bodies. There's self replicating goo everywhere!

Engines of Creation: http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Table_of_Contents.html

Nanosystems: http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/Nanosystems/toc.html

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