The book Global Catastrophic Risks states that it does not appear plausible that molecular manufacturing will not come into existence before 2040 or 2050. I am not at all an expert on molecular manufacturing, but this seems hard to believe, given how little work seems to be going into it. I couldn’t find any sources discussing when molecular manufacturing will come into existence. Thoughts?
The book Global Catastrophic Risks states that it does not appear plausible that molecular manufacturing will not come into existence before 2040 or 2050. I am not at all an expert on molecular manufacturing, but this seems hard to believe, given how little work seems to be going into it. I couldn’t find any sources discussing when molecular manufacturing will come into existence. Thoughts?
There are reasons very little work is going into it—the concept makes very little sense compared to manipulating biological systems or making systems that work similar to biological systems. See http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6227/1221.short or this previous post of mine: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hs5/for_fai_is_molecular_nanotechnology_putting_our/97rl