In article <3f4pvr$jtb@planchet.rutgers.edu> kamchar@ibm.cl.msu.edu (SunCat) writes:
>_Out of Control: the rise of neo-biological civilization_
>Kevin Kelly
>ISBN 0-201-57793-3
>On page 310 the author says this:
>"[Ralph] Merkel told me, 'I don't want nanotechnology to evolve.
I worry about the same thing. What happens when the same sort of people who now make computer software viruses get to tinkering with nanotechnology? What happens when these people decide to make viruses that mutate, if they haven't already?
Permit me to stir another concept into the mix of ideas being discussed here. To the extent that NT is envisioned as being software-driven, this may be relevant. In the software field there is a developing technique called "genetic algorithms" (GA) or "genetic programming" (GP), wherein computer programs are produced by another program which mimics Darwinian evolution through mutation, recombination, and selection against a "fitness function" that determines how close a candidate program comes to solving a given problem. I have several books on the subject, will supply references if anyone is interested. I understand the technique has actually been used successfully in some large software development projects.
When GA or GP becomes commonplace, as I assume it will, the software that drives NT will be as nearly free of cost as other commodities. One could take a utopian view of this eventuality, but one should also consider the dangers hinted at by Merkel and Kelly above. What evolves may be benign and controllable; or it may be virulent, either by design or through inadvertence; or it may be benign but uncontrollable, and therefore ultimately virulent.
David Stoner
dms@atlantis.utmb.edu
[That's "Merkle." --JoSH]