“On paper” isn’t “in your head”, though. In the scenario that led to this, the AI doesn’t get any scratch paper. I guess it could be given large working memory pretty easily, but resources in general aren’t givens.
More importantly, even in domains where you have a lot of experience, paper designs rarely work well without some prototyping and iteration. So far as I know, von Neumann’s replicator was never a detailed mechanical design that could actually be built, and certainly never actually was built. I don’t think anything of any complexity that Bob Freitas designed has ever been built, and I also don’t think any of the complex Freitas designs are complete to the point of being buildable. I haven’t paid much attention since the repirocyte days, so I don’t know what he’s done since then, but that wasn’t even a detailed design, and it even the ideas that were “fleshed out” probably wouldn’t have worked in an actual physiological environment.
von Neumann’s design was in full detail, but, iirc, when it was run for the first time (in the 90s) it had a few bugs that needed fixing. I haven’t followed Freitas in a long time either but agree that the designs weren’t fully spelled out and would have needed iteration.
“On paper” isn’t “in your head”, though. In the scenario that led to this, the AI doesn’t get any scratch paper. I guess it could be given large working memory pretty easily, but resources in general aren’t givens.
More importantly, even in domains where you have a lot of experience, paper designs rarely work well without some prototyping and iteration. So far as I know, von Neumann’s replicator was never a detailed mechanical design that could actually be built, and certainly never actually was built. I don’t think anything of any complexity that Bob Freitas designed has ever been built, and I also don’t think any of the complex Freitas designs are complete to the point of being buildable. I haven’t paid much attention since the repirocyte days, so I don’t know what he’s done since then, but that wasn’t even a detailed design, and it even the ideas that were “fleshed out” probably wouldn’t have worked in an actual physiological environment.
von Neumann’s design was in full detail, but, iirc, when it was run for the first time (in the 90s) it had a few bugs that needed fixing. I haven’t followed Freitas in a long time either but agree that the designs weren’t fully spelled out and would have needed iteration.