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LongTomH

(8,636 posts)
Tue May 28, 2013, 07:49 PM May 2013

Eric Drexler's latest post: "APM in brief"

This is the latest post on his Metamodern blog: A New Introduction: "APM in brief" (and its physical principles). Atomically Precise Manufacturing is Drexler's term for the type of nanotechnology he has championed since the late 1970s, as opposed to the nanoscale technologies usually promoted as 'nanotechnology.' There's a brief explanation of APM on the right side of the blog page, accompanied by a link to a more detailed explanation.

According to Eric Drexler, APM:

  • "Will enable large-scale, low-cost production of advanced products."
  • "Can enable solutions to seemingly intractable global problems."
  • "Will enable rapid draw-down of atmospheric CO2 levels."
  • "Rests on well-understood scientific and engineering principles."
  • "Will require further advances in atomically precise fabrication."
  • "Relevant research to date has been fragmented and unfocused."
  • "The primary challenges today are conceptual and institutional."

The last point I would certainly concur with; entrenched interests are not going to take kindly to having their monopolies overturned. Our current system of capitalism is based on artificial scarcities.

All this coincides with the publication of Drexler's latest book: Radical Abundance:



I'm currently reading the book; I'll have more to say when I finish.
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Eric Drexler's latest post: "APM in brief" (Original Post) LongTomH May 2013 OP
Oh noooos! Grey Goo! ;-) longship May 2013 #1
"Grey Goo" is not an issue! LongTomH May 2013 #2
I was making a little joke, my friend. longship May 2013 #3
It's looking to me like 3D printing will lead the way in "radical abundance" phantom power May 2013 #4
3D printing is a way to make parts caraher May 2013 #5

longship

(40,416 posts)
1. Oh noooos! Grey Goo! ;-)
Tue May 28, 2013, 09:40 PM
May 2013

Or self replicating robot servants. Whatever you do, don't say, "Jeeves! Make me some chocolate chip cookies."

Thanks for the link, will look into the book. As long as it doesn't end in a planet of grey goo, I'm pretty much all in.

I want an Orgasmatron. (Woody Allen's "Sleeper&quot

LongTomH

(8,636 posts)
2. "Grey Goo" is not an issue!
Tue May 28, 2013, 09:49 PM
May 2013

You're way behind the curve on this; "Grey Goo" comes from a misinterpretation of an earlier concept of molecular nanotechnology. Check out this page on the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology website; actually it's from way back in 2003. Nanotechnology research was already moving beyond independent assemblers:

Since then, however, Drexler and others have developed models for making safer and more efficient machine-like systems that resemble an assembly line in a factory more than anything biological. These mechanical designs were described in detail in Drexler's 1992 seminal reference work, Nanosystems, which does not even mention free-floating autonomous assemblers.

Replicating assemblers will not be used for manufacturing. Factory designs using integrated nanotechnology will be much more efficient at building products, and a personal nanofactory is nothing like a grey goo nanobot. A stationary tabletop factory using only preprocessed chemicals would be both safer and easier to build. Like a drill press or a lathe, such a system could not run wild. Systems like this are the basis for responsible molecular manufacturing proposals. To evaluate Eric Drexler's technical ideas on the basis of grey goo is to miss the far more important policy issues created by general-purpose nanoscale manufacturing.

By the way, Eric Drexler hates the term nanobot; it's entirely misleading! Nanotechnology components of a nanofactory are not robots; they do not have onboard computers.

longship

(40,416 posts)
3. I was making a little joke, my friend.
Tue May 28, 2013, 10:09 PM
May 2013

As I was with the self-rep Jeeves bot. My tongue was planted firmly in cheek. Going for a chuckle there.

As I said, I will look into this book. As long as it doesn't fall too far into Ray Kurzweil's The Matrix dream world, I might very well order it.

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

phantom power

(25,966 posts)
4. It's looking to me like 3D printing will lead the way in "radical abundance"
Wed May 29, 2013, 01:56 PM
May 2013

it doesn't solve all the problems that a hypothetical APM tech can solve, but it's here now and it's already begun the process of up-ending the centralized-factory model, and also is ushering in the manufacturing-as-data world. You don't buy products, you buy files to run on your 3d printer.

caraher

(6,276 posts)
5. 3D printing is a way to make parts
Fri May 31, 2013, 10:57 AM
May 2013

Products with significant mechanical intricacy will still need to be assembled, and 3D printing only works if your part can be made with a material congenial to the process. If you want to make something out of plastic or chocolate it's great; but sometimes the material properties demanded for a given application are not compatible with what 3D printing offers.

It's a great advance that makes some new things possible and can reduce waste (additive rather than subtractive manufacturing means no huge volumes of chips/shavings/flashing to be cut away), but it's not going to replace everything.

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