I found this to be an interesting discussion, though I find it hard to understand what Yudkowsky is trying to say. It’s obvious that diamond is tougher than flesh, right? There’s no need to talk about bonds. But the ability to cut flesh is also present in biology (e.g. claws). So it’s not the case that biology was unable to solve that particular problem.
Maybe it’s true that there’s no biologically-created material that diamond cannot cut (I have no idea). But that seems to have zero relevance to humans anyway, since clearly we’re not trying to compete on the robustness of our bodies (unlike, say, turtles).
The most general possible point, that there materials that can be constructed artificially with properties not seen in biology, is obviously true, and again doesn’t seem to require the discussion of bonds.
I found this to be an interesting discussion, though I find it hard to understand what Yudkowsky is trying to say. It’s obvious that diamond is tougher than flesh, right? There’s no need to talk about bonds. But the ability to cut flesh is also present in biology (e.g. claws). So it’s not the case that biology was unable to solve that particular problem.
Maybe it’s true that there’s no biologically-created material that diamond cannot cut (I have no idea). But that seems to have zero relevance to humans anyway, since clearly we’re not trying to compete on the robustness of our bodies (unlike, say, turtles).
The most general possible point, that there materials that can be constructed artificially with properties not seen in biology, is obviously true, and again doesn’t seem to require the discussion of bonds.