I dunno, I agree with the post but disagree that this is much of a safety factor for nanotech.
There are things that are easy for design that are impossible for evolution. Like if you make a cyanobacterium with an alternate genetic code so that it’s immune to all current viruses, this would outcompete unmodified cyanobacteria. But evolution is never going to change the entire genome all at once to caputure this advantage.
Artificial life can probably do a lot of weird and powerful stuff even if the “diamandoid nanobot” picture is wrong.
I might be wrong but I think the idea you have here of something with immunity to all current viruses would constitute a genuine counterargument to the OP? Possible I’m misunderstanding the scope of what OP is arguing about.
I use “nanobots” to mean “self-replicating microscopic machines with some fundamental mechanistic differences from all biological life that make them superior”.
I think that there are lots of plausible “invasive species from hell” scenarios where an organism is sufficiently edited so as to have no natural viruses (because its genome is weird) and no natural predators (because its sugars are weird or it has an exotic new toxin) and so on. They would still have ecological niches where they wouldn’t be able to thrive, and they would still presumably get predators and diseases eventually. But a lot of destruction could happen in the meantime, including collapsing critical ecosystems etc., and it could happen fast (years not decades, but also not weeks) if the organism is introduced in lots of places at once, I would assume.
Those scenarios are important, but they’re not “nanobots” by OP’s definition.
Here’s likely what Steiner is referencing. Take a genome, add 1 base to each codon. Something you can do in a python script chatGPT can write in 2 minutes.
But effectively impossible for nature to ever do—likely evolution will hit time limit exceeded—we only have about 1 billion years left on this star and it took 3 billion to reach that point—before doing this even once.
The reason is the computational mechanism to do this is complex and 1 time use without an evolutionary pressure vector pointing towards it. It will never be found by evolution.
The 4 codon based life will be possibly superior to all life because it can access a 4 times larger library of possible protein components and it automatically becomes immune to all viruses. (Until new virii evolve)
Modified life in a way that let’s it outcompete existing life is not grey goo, it’s “green goo” and a totally different scenario. Green goo also will be limited by energy and barriers protecting existing life, for example cellulose is hard to break and this may not be solvable. So the green goo might grow and outcompete life slowly, taking centuries to cover the planet.
I dunno, I agree with the post but disagree that this is much of a safety factor for nanotech.
There are things that are easy for design that are impossible for evolution. Like if you make a cyanobacterium with an alternate genetic code so that it’s immune to all current viruses, this would outcompete unmodified cyanobacteria. But evolution is never going to change the entire genome all at once to caputure this advantage.
Artificial life can probably do a lot of weird and powerful stuff even if the “diamandoid nanobot” picture is wrong.
replied here
I might be wrong but I think the idea you have here of something with immunity to all current viruses would constitute a genuine counterargument to the OP? Possible I’m misunderstanding the scope of what OP is arguing about.
OP said:
I think that there are lots of plausible “invasive species from hell” scenarios where an organism is sufficiently edited so as to have no natural viruses (because its genome is weird) and no natural predators (because its sugars are weird or it has an exotic new toxin) and so on. They would still have ecological niches where they wouldn’t be able to thrive, and they would still presumably get predators and diseases eventually. But a lot of destruction could happen in the meantime, including collapsing critical ecosystems etc., and it could happen fast (years not decades, but also not weeks) if the organism is introduced in lots of places at once, I would assume.
Those scenarios are important, but they’re not “nanobots” by OP’s definition.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3133615/
Here’s likely what Steiner is referencing. Take a genome, add 1 base to each codon. Something you can do in a python script chatGPT can write in 2 minutes.
But effectively impossible for nature to ever do—likely evolution will hit time limit exceeded—we only have about 1 billion years left on this star and it took 3 billion to reach that point—before doing this even once.
The reason is the computational mechanism to do this is complex and 1 time use without an evolutionary pressure vector pointing towards it. It will never be found by evolution.
The 4 codon based life will be possibly superior to all life because it can access a 4 times larger library of possible protein components and it automatically becomes immune to all viruses. (Until new virii evolve)
Modified life in a way that let’s it outcompete existing life is not grey goo, it’s “green goo” and a totally different scenario. Green goo also will be limited by energy and barriers protecting existing life, for example cellulose is hard to break and this may not be solvable. So the green goo might grow and outcompete life slowly, taking centuries to cover the planet.
replied here