Current tools do not seem adequate for directly building Drexler’s designs. That doesn’t mean Drexler’s designs are impossible.
The first few generations of molecular assemblers will likely use diffusion and small energy differences. They’ll be hard to use, and will break frequently. They’ll be used to build tools to roughly atomic precision. Those tools will bootstrap numerous generations of systems which get closer to Drexler’s designs. With enough trial and error, we’ll eventually find ways to handle the problems you describe.
I won’t bet much money that it’s easier than the Manhattan Project. I’m moderately confident that nanotech needs less total resources, but it likely needs a larger number of smart people doing lots of exploration.
I think this is a somewhat reasonable take. But I am absolutely saying that AFAICT, Drexler’s designs will not work. What you might think are merely problems with building them are, from my view, problems with the entire picture of atom-by-atom 3D printing (especially using reactive species in non-crystalline arrangements) that will persist even if you have nano-infrastructure.
Current tools do not seem adequate for directly building Drexler’s designs. That doesn’t mean Drexler’s designs are impossible.
The first few generations of molecular assemblers will likely use diffusion and small energy differences. They’ll be hard to use, and will break frequently. They’ll be used to build tools to roughly atomic precision. Those tools will bootstrap numerous generations of systems which get closer to Drexler’s designs. With enough trial and error, we’ll eventually find ways to handle the problems you describe.
I won’t bet much money that it’s easier than the Manhattan Project. I’m moderately confident that nanotech needs less total resources, but it likely needs a larger number of smart people doing lots of exploration.
I think this is a somewhat reasonable take. But I am absolutely saying that AFAICT, Drexler’s designs will not work. What you might think are merely problems with building them are, from my view, problems with the entire picture of atom-by-atom 3D printing (especially using reactive species in non-crystalline arrangements) that will persist even if you have nano-infrastructure.