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Tim Tyler · Guest

Rupturing The Nanotech Rapture - By Richard A.L. Jones

- http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6271

Sceptical article - mostly misguided, IMHO.

Michael Anissimov responds:

"Is there a Nanotech Rapture to be Ruptured?"

- http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/anissimov20080613/
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Jim Logajan · Guest

Tim Tyler <seemysig@googlemail.com> wrote:
[quote]Rupturing The Nanotech Rapture - By Richard A.L. Jones

- http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6271

Sceptical article - mostly misguided, IMHO.

Michael Anissimov responds:

"Is there a Nanotech Rapture to be Ruptured?"

- http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/anissimov20080613/
[/quote]
Interesting articles - thanks for mentioning them. Unfortunately they do
seem to perpetuate the idea that advanced MNT is tied to transhumanism.
Transhumanism needs MNT more than MNT needs transhumanists!

While I think that Dr. Jones engages in a few strawman arguments, I do
agree with him that the difficulty of creating MNT is constantly and
grossly underestimated.

Tim Tyler · Guest

Tim Tyler wrote:

[quote]Rupturing The Nanotech Rapture - By Richard A.L. Jones

- http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6271

Sceptical article - mostly misguided, IMHO.
[/quote]
My analysis:

He doubts nano-scale gears will work. It seems like silly
scepticism to me: there are bound to be some pretty tiny
molecularly-precise gears that do work - so why attempt
to debate this point?

He talks about how the dominance of frictional forces at small
scales means that you can>t just scale things down. That>s true,
but it>s also pretty obvious, and isn>t a valid objection
to molecular manufacturing.

He says that some nano-machines may get damaged. That>s true,
but it>s also pretty obvious, and isn>t a valid objection
to molecular manufacturing.

He writes:

``Put all these complications together and what they suggest,
to me, is that the range of environments in which rigid
nanomachines could operate, if they operate at all,
would be quite limited. If, for example, such devices
can function only at low temperatures and in a vacuum,
their impact and economic importance would be virtually nil.''

This seems unlikely to be true, no matter what silly
straw-man definition is given of "rigid nanomachine".

My summary: this guy doesn>t seem to know much about what
he>s criticising. Unfortunate - if he is a senior nanotechnology
advisor for the UK government=92s physical sciences and
engineering funding agency :-(
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Steve O'Hara-Smith · Guest

On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:48:10 -0500
Tim Tyler <seemysig@googlemail.com> wrote:

[quote]"Is there a Nanotech Rapture to be Ruptured?"

- http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/anissimov20080613/
[/quote]
An interesting comment in that article is this one:

------------
At the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology conference in Tucson last
year, the CEO and Founder of Zyvex, James Von Ehr, told us he had a
research team working towards an nano-assembler.
------------

What makes it interesting is that as far as I can see there is no
mention of this on the Zyvex web site, early Zyvex material was very clear
about this being a major goal of the company but there currently visible
material is all about actual products and services they have on offer.

In short it looks like an indication that those who are busy doing
the job of developing nano-asssemblers and the like are doing so quietly
rather than making a public noise about it. I rather suspect that the next
real news we>ll hear about progress on developing a nano-assembler or
nano-fab will be when someone announces one.

The process between the early exciting bits ("We>ve made a wheel" -
"We>ve made aa wheelbarrow" - "We>ve made a motor") and the late exciting
bits ("We>ve made a nano-fab") can surely be expected to consist mostly of
a lot of not very exciting hard slog characterised by a lot of trial and
error at various scales and a lot of very reasonable commercial secrecy.

That being said some news does creep out like the technology roadmap
http://e-drexler.com/p/07/00/1204TechnologyRoadmap.html and the project
behind it which does show that there are a lot of people nibbling away at
the problem and making progress too.

It>s hard to tell from the outside how much progress is really
being made and it seems those on the inside are not talking much, but there
are indications that there are people on the inside and things are
happening.

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Tim Tyler · Guest

Steve O>Hara-Smith wrote:

[quote] That being said some news does creep out like the technology roadmap
http://e-drexler.com/p/07/00/1204TechnologyRoadmap.html and the project
behind it which does show that there are a lot of people nibbling away at
the problem and making progress too.
[/quote]
It reads more like a wishlist than a roadmap. Not putting dates on
anything
results in a rather tame kind of futurism which nobody can ever
disprove.

And where is AI? My coarse-scale nanosystem roadmap looks like:

Today -> AI -> Nanotechnology.

How can you have a nanotechnology roadmap without mentioning AI?
Surely that is the single most important enabling technology.
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Steve O'Hara-Smith · Guest

On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:08:53 -0500
Tim Tyler <seemysig@googlemail.com> wrote:

[quote]
Steve O>Hara-Smith wrote:

That being said some news does creep out like the technology
roadmap http://e-drexler.com/p/07/00/1204TechnologyRoadmap.html and the
project behind it which does show that there are a lot of people
nibbling away at the problem and making progress too.

It reads more like a wishlist than a roadmap. Not putting dates on
anything
results in a rather tame kind of futurism which nobody can ever
disprove.
[/quote]
I understood it to be more like an outline plan of attack agreed
upon by a bunch of people actually working in the area. The main thing that
struck me as promising was not the document itself but that a large number
of knowledgeable people spent quite some time putting it together.

[quote]And where is AI? My coarse-scale nanosystem roadmap looks like:

Today -> AI -> Nanotechnology.
[/quote]
So we shouldn>t even consider developing nano fabrication
techniques without AI first ? What if AI turns out be impossible ? What if
the AIs think of better things to do than helping us ?

[quote]How can you have a nanotechnology roadmap without mentioning AI?
Surely that is the single most important enabling technology.
[/quote]
I think not - there are things that can be done with
nano-fabrication techniques that do not require AI. Consider for example
the "Laura S" food synthesiser design discussed in this group some years
ago. Certainly to explore the far reaches of the Drexlerian vision or to
head off into the wilder dreams of post-humanist thinking we need AI and
very accomodating AI at that, but I don>t think we need AI to produce a
desktop nanofab capable of producing a wide range of useful items.

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You lose and Bill collects. | licences available see
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Jim Logajan · Guest

Tim Tyler <seemysig@googlemail.com> wrote:
[quote]And where is AI?
[/quote]
I would say AI is now more than adequate to the task, given the good
results of DARPA>s Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge. The DARPA Urban
Challenge has what I consider a level of difficulty roughly equivalent to
that which a simple nanorobot would need to deal with:

http://www.darpa.mil/GRANDCHALLENGE/

"...to build an autonomous vehicle capable of driving in traffic,
performing complex maneuvers such as merging, passing, parking and
negotiating intersections. This event was truly groundbreaking as the
first time autonomous vehicles have interacted with both manned and
unmanned vehicle traffic in an urban environment.

.....11 teams would be competing in the Final Event.
.....
In all, over 50 vehicles, both manned and unmanned, were navigating the
city streets simultaneously during the final event.
.....
six robots eventually crossed the finish line, an astounding feat for the
teams and proving to the world that autonomous urban driving could become a
reality.
.....
This event was not just a timed race however robots were also being
judged on their ability to follow California driving rules."

[quote]My coarse-scale nanosystem roadmap looks like:

Today -> AI -> Nanotechnology.

How can you have a nanotechnology roadmap without mentioning AI?
[/quote]
I>m not sure what level of AI you think is needed or why you think it is
essential.

[quote]Surely that is the single most important enabling technology.
[/quote]
Can>t agree. What IQ level is needed for a cell to reproduce itself?

Tim Tyler · Guest

Steve O>Hara-Smith wrote:
[quote]Tim Tyler <seemysig@googlemail.com> wrote:
Steve O>Hara-Smith wrote:

That being said some news does creep out like the technology
roadmap http://e-drexler.com/p/07/00/1204TechnologyRoadmap.html [...]

And where is AI? My coarse-scale nanosystem roadmap looks like:

Today -> AI -> Nanotechnology.

So we shouldn>t even consider developing nano fabrication
techniques without AI first ?
[/quote]
Not what I meant.

[quote]What if AI turns out be impossible ?
[/quote]
!?! I do not spend much time on such hypotheticals.

[quote]What if the AIs think of better things to do than helping us ?
[/quote]
We built them. I figure they will do what we tell them -
at least for a while.

[quote]How can you have a nanotechnology roadmap without mentioning AI?
Surely that is the single most important enabling technology.

I think not - there are things that can be done with
nano-fabrication techniques that do not require AI. [...] Certainly
to explore the far reaches of the Drexlerian vision or to
head off into the wilder dreams of post-humanist thinking we need AI and
very accomodating AI at that, but I don>t think we need AI to produce a
desktop nanofab capable of producing a wide range of useful items.
[/quote]
Computing elements will be among the first usable nanotechnology -
and by my reckoning we>ll probably have AI before we get down there.
Whether we need it or not, we will have it - and it will make quite
a difference.

Jim Logajan wrote:

[quote]I would say AI is now more than adequate to the task, given the good
results of DARPA>s Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge.
[/quote]
Not for what I have in mind. AI will mainly impact the problem
by taking humans out of the R&D loop. When the scientists and
engineers are AIs, and they don>t have to type in their results
to be able to publish them, the pace of development will speed up
substantially - thus leading to nanotechnology more rapidly.

[quote]How can you have a nanotechnology roadmap without mentioning AI?

I>m not sure what level of AI you think is needed or why you think it is
essential.

Surely that is the single most important enabling technology.

Can>t agree. What IQ level is needed for a cell to reproduce itself?
[/quote]
AI is important for the required research and development. AI may
not be *essential* - but it may well increase the rate of development
-
perhaps by many orders of magnitude. The level of AI that is needed
is "self-improving AI" - AI that can do R&D on itself.
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John Novak · Guest

On Jul 29, 7:43=A0pm, Tim Tyler <seemy...@googlemail.com> wrote:
[quote]Steve O>Hara-Smith wrote:

Not what I meant.
What if AI turns out =A0be impossible ?

!?! =A0I do not spend much time on such hypotheticals.
[/quote]
Why not?

Although, to seriously consider the possibility of AI or its absence,
you>d have to define it with at least some precision, which I have not
seen you do.

So when you say "AI" what exactly do you mean by that, and how do you
think we>re going to get there?

[quote]Computing elements will be among the first usable nanotechnology -
and by my reckoning we>ll probably have AI before we get down there.
Whether we need it or not, we will have it - and it will make quite
a difference.
[/quote]
What makes you think this?

Steve O'Hara-Smith · Guest

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:43:20 -0500
Tim Tyler <seemysig@googlemail.com> wrote:

[quote]
Steve O>Hara-Smith wrote:
Tim Tyler <seemysig@googlemail.com> wrote:
Steve O>Hara-Smith wrote:

That being said some news does creep out like the technology
roadmap http://e-drexler.com/p/07/00/1204TechnologyRoadmap.html [...]

And where is AI? My coarse-scale nanosystem roadmap looks like:

Today -> AI -> Nanotechnology.

So we shouldn>t even consider developing nano fabrication
techniques without AI first ?

Not what I meant.

What if AI turns out be impossible ?

!?! I do not spend much time on such hypotheticals.
[/quote]
That>s a shame because as far as I can see we have a much better
handle on how to make molecular scale machinery and do mechanosynthesis
than we do on how to make an AI at least as capable of creative design as
a human being.

[quote]What if the AIs think of better things to do than helping us ?

We built them. I figure they will do what we tell them -
at least for a while.
[/quote]
Forgive me for having doubts about this - especially if we are
dealing with AIs that are more capable than humans. Then again perhaps we
can learn from cats, they seem quite good at manipulating beings more
intelligent than they are.

[quote]Computing elements will be among the first usable nanotechnology -
[/quote]
That may well be true - it>s certainly a hungry market. However
that>s not enough to provide AI. Consider, a human brain is reckoned to have
around 10^11 neurons, PCs routinely come with 3-5 * 10^11 bytes of storage
(hard disc) and can easily accomodate 4 * 10^12 bytes of storage (40 bytes
per neuron). This implies that modeling a human brain (or building a neural
network of human brain complexity) is in reach of a network of dedicated
PCs (perhaps a thousand or so - 40K bytes per neuron should be enough - 40
bit neuron addresses makes that enough space to specify several hundred
connections per neuron and hold quite a lot of internal state). It may well
be in reach of a brain@home project. Howver it is not being tried as far as
I can tell, indeed as far as I can tell nobody has any clue how or where to
start.

Therein lies the big difference between AI and molecular
moanufacturing - there are people who have a clue how to start on the
latter.

[quote]and by my reckoning we>ll probably have AI before we get down there.
Whether we need it or not, we will have it - and it will make quite
a difference.
[/quote]
It looks to be in reach today in terms of hardware capability,
software is a big problem. This is why I suggest that it may not turn up on
schedule for nanotech development. Human scale AI is no longer a hardware
problem.

--
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The computer obeys and wins. | A better way to focus the sun
You lose and Bill collects. | licences available see
| http://www.sohara.org/

Tim Tyler · Guest

Steve O>Hara-Smith wrote:
[quote]Tim Tyler <seemysig@googlemail.com> wrote:

Computing elements will be among the first usable nanotechnology -

That may well be true - it>s certainly a hungry market. However
that>s not enough to provide AI. Consider, a human brain is reckoned to have
around 10^11 neurons, PCs routinely come with 3-5 * 10^11 bytes of storage
(hard disc) and can easily accomodate 4 * 10^12 bytes of storage (40 bytes
per neuron). This implies that modeling a human brain (or building a neural
network of human brain complexity) is in reach of a network of dedicated
PCs [...].
[/quote]
Right - but slow. Sometime around 2020 we will have suitable hardware
in $500 game consoles.

[quote]It may well be in reach of a brain@home project. Howver it is not being
tried as far as I can tell, indeed as far as I can tell nobody has any
clue how or where to start.

Therein lies the big difference between AI and molecular
moanufacturing - there are people who have a clue how to start on the
latter.
[/quote]
I don>t really see it. Expert systems are all over the place.
My computer can recognise speech pretty well - considering its
CPU is smaller than my thumbnail. We know lots about how to build
AI.

[quote]and by my reckoning we>ll probably have AI before we get down there.
Whether we need it or not, we will have it - and it will make quite
a difference.

It looks to be in reach today in terms of hardware capability,
software is a big problem. This is why I suggest that it may not turn up on
schedule for nanotech development. Human scale AI is no longer a hardware
problem.
[/quote]
At the very least, computing power for AI has to become cost-
competitive
with human brainpower before it can be widely deployed. It might make
sense for search companies today to invest in AI - e.g. see the
PowerSet
deal - but we may have to wait a decade before it is affordable in
desktops.
So, hardware still seems like an issue to me.
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Tim Tyler · Guest

John Novak wrote:
[quote]On Jul 29, 7:43=A0pm, Tim Tyler <seemy...@googlemail.com> wrote:
Steve O>Hara-Smith wrote:

What if AI turns out to be impossible ?

!?! I do not spend much time on such hypotheticals.

Why not?
[/quote]
They are a stupid waste of time.

[quote]Although, to seriously consider the possibility of AI or its absence,
you>d have to define it with at least some precision, which I have not
seen you do.
[/quote]
What I said was:

``The level of AI that is needed is "self-improving AI" - AI that
can do R&D on itself.''

[quote]So when you say "AI" what exactly do you mean by that, and how do you
think we>re going to get there?
[/quote]
What is my take on the AI roadmap? I don>t have an essay on
that subject yet - and the scope of the question goes
considerably beyond a usenet post. FWIW, my views resemble
those of Peter Voss:

Voss & Yudkowsky
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-100407586383523968

Peter Voss - Singularity Institute Interview Series
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7015171070610461868

Increased Intelligence, Improved Life
http://www.singinst.org/media/singularitysummit2007/petervoss

[quote]Computing elements will be among the first usable nanotechnology -
and by my reckoning we>ll probably have AI before we get down there.
Whether we need it or not, we will have it - and it will make quite
a difference.

What makes you think this?
[/quote]
That computing elements will be among the first usable nanotechnology?
Or that we will have AI before nanotech computers?
Or that AI will make quite a difference?

1 seems pretty obvious - computing elements are simple and in demand -
while sensors and actuators are more diverse components.

2 is more speculative. ISTM that we will have computer hardware
which is functionally considerably superior to the human brain
brain at an affordable cost before we switch to
nanotechnology-based hardware - which will facilitate building
AIs considerably - to the point where we actually do it.

3 again seems pretty obvious. Our brains are mostly what led to
our mastery of the planet - and they are only 3 times as big as
a chimpanzee brain. The impact of AI will be the result of a far
larger difference in intellectual capacity - and so will be enormous.
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Steve O'Hara-Smith · Guest

On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:09:50 -0500
Tim Tyler <seemysig@googlemail.com> wrote:

[quote]Steve O>Hara-Smith wrote:

Therein lies the big difference between AI and molecular
moanufacturing - there are people who have a clue how to start on the
latter.

I don>t really see it. Expert systems are all over the place.
[/quote]
Expert systems are pretty simple things that haven>t got much more
sophisticated since the 1970s, just cheaper and faster.

[quote]My computer can recognise speech pretty well - considering its
CPU is smaller than my thumbnail.
[/quote]
So could an Apple ][ in 1980, albeit with a pretty low vocabulary.

[quote]We know lots about how to build AI.
[/quote]
Not of the kind of capability that produces new designs and thinks
creatively. We know how to build iterative problem solvers and train simple
neural networks but we have no idea how to structure a creative thinker.

[quote] It looks to be in reach today in terms of hardware capability,
software is a big problem. This is why I suggest that it may not turn
up on schedule for nanotech development. Human scale AI is no longer a
hardware problem.

At the very least, computing power for AI has to become cost-
competitive
with human brainpower before it can be widely deployed. It might make
[/quote]
Absoulutely - but it only has to be feasible before real design
work can take place. It is feasible and the designs aren>t there.

Anyway we>re off topic now. However to drag us back on topic and
show one way of avoiding the need for AI while still producing things too
hard for a human being to design, consider this.

Suppose we have (at least one) device capable of making complex
nano-machines from an instruction "tape". Suppose we also have a device
capable of making instruction tapes. We can use genetic techniques to start
with random tapes and some fitness tests to evolve tapes that produce
devices meeting a specification. See for example the work being done at
Sussex University on evolving hardware.

--
C:>WIN | Directable Mirror Arrays
The computer obeys and wins. | A better way to focus the sun
You lose and Bill collects. | licences available see
| http://www.sohara.org/


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