I really like this post, I hope to see more like it on less wrong, and I strong-upvoted it. That said, let me now go through my thoughts on various points...
+1. I’d add that, besides the specific objections to points here, the overall argument of the post has a major conjunction problem: it only takes one or maybe two of the points to be wrong, in order for the end-to-end argument to fall apart. And a lot of these points do not have the sort of watertight argument which establishes anywhere near 90% confidence, and 90% per-step would already be on the low side for a chain with 10+ mostly-conjunctive steps.
On top of that, the end-to-end argument mostly seems to argue against some rather specific pictures (e.g. diamondoids, nano-3d printing), which are a lot narrower than “grey goo” in general.
So I think the actual headline argument is pretty weak. But even so, I strong-upvoted the post, because I love the object-level analysis of the individual points on their own.
One of the contentions of this post is that life has thoroughly explored the space of nanotech possibilities. This hypothesis makes the failures of novel nanotech proposals non independent. That said, I don’t think the post offers enough evidence to be highly confident in this proposition (the author might privately know enough to be more confident, but if so it’s not all in the post).
Separately, I can see myself thinking, when all is said and done, that Yudkowsky and Drexler are less reliable about nanotech than I previously thought (which was a modest level of reliability to begin with), even if there are some possibilities for novel nanotech missed or dismissed by this post. Though I think not everything has been said yet.
All life runs on DNA in particular. Scientists have added extra base pairs and made life forms that work fine. Evolution didn’t. DNA is a fairly arbitrary molecule amongst a larger set of similar double chain organics.
I think this post is just dismissing everything with weak reasons. I don’t think this post is evidence at all, by conservation of expected evidence, we should take an unusually bad argument against a position as evidence for that position.
If nanotech really was impossible, it’s likely that better impossibility arguments would exist.
it only takes one or maybe two of the points to be wrong, in order for the end-to-end argument to fall apart
Regardless of the specific argument here, biological cells are already near pareto optimal robots in terms of thermodynamic efficiency. There is essentially no potential improvement for designs that are better at converting energy into replication of code, or just converting energy into carefully arranged nanostructures in general. This is a much stronger airtight argument not against the possibility of nanotech, but against the promise of nanotech.
Photosynthesis still sucks. Modern solar panels are WAY better.
Conversion of light to ATP and NADPH is a little more efficient than typical solar panels. If you want to talk about the efficiency of CO2 to sugar vs industrial systems, you should compare that to current direct air capture (with solar power) efficiency—plus water electrolysis and conversion to chemicals, I suppose. As for talking about fusion as an advantage of nanobots specifically, that’s retarded. If you want me to debate you seriously, post something that shows you deeply understand something about biology or chemistry. Maybe run it by an expert in the field first so you don’t waste everyone’s time.
+1. I’d add that, besides the specific objections to points here, the overall argument of the post has a major conjunction problem: it only takes one or maybe two of the points to be wrong, in order for the end-to-end argument to fall apart. And a lot of these points do not have the sort of watertight argument which establishes anywhere near 90% confidence, and 90% per-step would already be on the low side for a chain with 10+ mostly-conjunctive steps.
On top of that, the end-to-end argument mostly seems to argue against some rather specific pictures (e.g. diamondoids, nano-3d printing), which are a lot narrower than “grey goo” in general.
So I think the actual headline argument is pretty weak. But even so, I strong-upvoted the post, because I love the object-level analysis of the individual points on their own.
One of the contentions of this post is that life has thoroughly explored the space of nanotech possibilities. This hypothesis makes the failures of novel nanotech proposals non independent. That said, I don’t think the post offers enough evidence to be highly confident in this proposition (the author might privately know enough to be more confident, but if so it’s not all in the post).
Separately, I can see myself thinking, when all is said and done, that Yudkowsky and Drexler are less reliable about nanotech than I previously thought (which was a modest level of reliability to begin with), even if there are some possibilities for novel nanotech missed or dismissed by this post. Though I think not everything has been said yet.
All life runs on DNA in particular. Scientists have added extra base pairs and made life forms that work fine. Evolution didn’t. DNA is a fairly arbitrary molecule amongst a larger set of similar double chain organics.
I think this post is just dismissing everything with weak reasons. I don’t think this post is evidence at all, by conservation of expected evidence, we should take an unusually bad argument against a position as evidence for that position.
If nanotech really was impossible, it’s likely that better impossibility arguments would exist.
Regardless of the specific argument here, biological cells are already near pareto optimal robots in terms of thermodynamic efficiency. There is essentially no potential improvement for designs that are better at converting energy into replication of code, or just converting energy into carefully arranged nanostructures in general. This is a much stronger airtight argument not against the possibility of nanotech, but against the promise of nanotech.
You can point to little bits of them that are efficient. Photosynthesis still sucks. Modern solar panels are WAY better.
Also, bio cells don’t try to build fusion reactors. All that deuterium floating around for the taking and they don’t even try.
Nanobots that did build fusion reactors would have a large advantage. Yes this requires the nanobots to work together on macro scale projects.
Conversion of light to ATP and NADPH is a little more efficient than typical solar panels. If you want to talk about the efficiency of CO2 to sugar vs industrial systems, you should compare that to current direct air capture (with solar power) efficiency—plus water electrolysis and conversion to chemicals, I suppose. As for talking about fusion as an advantage of nanobots specifically, that’s retarded. If you want me to debate you seriously, post something that shows you deeply understand something about biology or chemistry. Maybe run it by an expert in the field first so you don’t waste everyone’s time.