For the most part we’re avoiding/designing around compute constraints. Build up our experimental validation and characterization capabilities so that we can “see” what happens in the mechsyn lab ex post facto. Design reaction sequences with large thermodynamic gradients, program the probe to avoid as much as possible side reaction configurations, and then characterize the result to see if it was what you were hoping for. Use the lab as a substitute for simulation.
It honestly feels like we’ve got a better chance of just trying to build the thing and repeating what works and modifying what doesn’t, than even a theoretically optimal machine learning algorithm could do using simulation-first design. Our competition went the AI/ML approach and it killed them. That’s part of why the whole AGI-will-design-nanotech thing bugs me so much. An immense amount of money and time has been wasted on that approach, which if better invested could have gotten us working nano-machinery by now. It really is an idea that eats smart people.
For the most part we’re avoiding/designing around compute constraints. Build up our experimental validation and characterization capabilities so that we can “see” what happens in the mechsyn lab ex post facto. Design reaction sequences with large thermodynamic gradients, program the probe to avoid as much as possible side reaction configurations, and then characterize the result to see if it was what you were hoping for. Use the lab as a substitute for simulation.
It honestly feels like we’ve got a better chance of just trying to build the thing and repeating what works and modifying what doesn’t, than even a theoretically optimal machine learning algorithm could do using simulation-first design. Our competition went the AI/ML approach and it killed them. That’s part of why the whole AGI-will-design-nanotech thing bugs me so much. An immense amount of money and time has been wasted on that approach, which if better invested could have gotten us working nano-machinery by now. It really is an idea that eats smart people.