It seems to me that the strawberry problem is likely easier than the “turn the universe into diamond” problem. Immediate reasons:
the strawberry problem is bounded in space and time
strawberry materials can be conveniently placed close to the strawberry factory
turning the universe into diamond requires nanobots to burrow through a variety of materials
turning the universe into diamond requires overcoming all territorial adversaries trying to protect themselves from nanobots
turning the universe into diamond requires not sabotaging the nanobots’ energy and other resources in the process, whereas the strawberry factory can be separated from the strawberries
turning the universe into diamond is more likely to run into arcane physics (places where our current physics theories are wrong or incomplete, e.g. black holes)
In more detail, here’s how a strawberry nanofactory might work:
a human thinks about how to design nanotech, what open problems there are, what modular components to factor the problem into
an AI system solves some of these problems, designing components that pass a wide variety of test cases; some test cases are in physical simulation and some are real-world small cases (e.g. scanning a small cluster of cells). There might also be some mathematical proofs that the components satisfy certain properties under certain assumptions about physics.
one of these components is for creating the initial nanobots from cells. Nanotech engineers can think about what sub-problems there are (e.g. protein folding) and have AI systems help solve these problems.
one of these components is for scanning a strawberry. The nanobots should burrow into the strawberry bit by bit, take sensory readings sent to a computer.
one of these components is for inferring the strawberry structure from readings. This can be approximate Bayesian inference (like a diffusion model in voxel space), given that there are enough sensory readings that the inference problem isn’t especially difficult. There can be “priors” put in for expecting the strawberry to have cells etc, and some of these expectations can be learned from data.
one of these components is for translating a strawberry voxel map to a real strawberry. This is like a 3d printer. The nanobots need to move to strawberry materials, gather them, move to the strawberry printing location, and deposit the materials at the right place. Some of this involves an expanding process where a machine builds components that build other components, similar to a ribosome.
a big computer might be necessary for some of these steps; nanobots could help build this computer from designs that are mostly created by humans, but faster than present designs due to the additional physical possibilities opened by nanotechnology
None of this requires long-term (>1 month) consequentialism.
To expand on strawberries vs diamonds:
It seems to me that the strawberry problem is likely easier than the “turn the universe into diamond” problem. Immediate reasons:
the strawberry problem is bounded in space and time
strawberry materials can be conveniently placed close to the strawberry factory
turning the universe into diamond requires nanobots to burrow through a variety of materials
turning the universe into diamond requires overcoming all territorial adversaries trying to protect themselves from nanobots
turning the universe into diamond requires not sabotaging the nanobots’ energy and other resources in the process, whereas the strawberry factory can be separated from the strawberries
turning the universe into diamond is more likely to run into arcane physics (places where our current physics theories are wrong or incomplete, e.g. black holes)
In more detail, here’s how a strawberry nanofactory might work:
a human thinks about how to design nanotech, what open problems there are, what modular components to factor the problem into
an AI system solves some of these problems, designing components that pass a wide variety of test cases; some test cases are in physical simulation and some are real-world small cases (e.g. scanning a small cluster of cells). There might also be some mathematical proofs that the components satisfy certain properties under certain assumptions about physics.
one of these components is for creating the initial nanobots from cells. Nanotech engineers can think about what sub-problems there are (e.g. protein folding) and have AI systems help solve these problems.
one of these components is for scanning a strawberry. The nanobots should burrow into the strawberry bit by bit, take sensory readings sent to a computer.
one of these components is for inferring the strawberry structure from readings. This can be approximate Bayesian inference (like a diffusion model in voxel space), given that there are enough sensory readings that the inference problem isn’t especially difficult. There can be “priors” put in for expecting the strawberry to have cells etc, and some of these expectations can be learned from data.
one of these components is for translating a strawberry voxel map to a real strawberry. This is like a 3d printer. The nanobots need to move to strawberry materials, gather them, move to the strawberry printing location, and deposit the materials at the right place. Some of this involves an expanding process where a machine builds components that build other components, similar to a ribosome.
a big computer might be necessary for some of these steps; nanobots could help build this computer from designs that are mostly created by humans, but faster than present designs due to the additional physical possibilities opened by nanotechnology
None of this requires long-term (>1 month) consequentialism.