On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, Billy Brown wrote:
> OTOH, you might be able to discourage early efforts at making synthetic
> super-microbes, and that is high on my list of things to avoid.
Bio-based microbes will be relatively easy to develop defenses against
if we see them coming. Adaptable nano-immune systems should be even
more capable of recognizing enemies and quickly neutralizing them.
> We have no
> idea how hard it will be to make nanobots that are immune to natural
> biological defenses,
Relatively easy, just make them smooth on the outside or very sharp.
The main line of defenese, antibodies, will only work well on
bumpy (proteinoid) surfaces. Sharp things like asbestos
fibers make a mess when the macrophages try to injest them.
> or whether they will be easier to make than artificial
> defenses capable of stopping them.
If you can make nanobot attackers, you should be able to make nanobot
defenders. It is probably numbers issue, to launch a good attack, the
attackers would have to deliver a significantly greater mass than
the defenders. Over time, people might develop stealth-nanobots
(carefully disguised as your own cells?), but there are probably a
lot of sensor techniques (optical, acoustic, chemical gradients, etc.)
that can be use to spot the imposters, so they can't build up to
threatening levels over time.
There is an interesting line here though that involves the use of
replicating nanobots (Something being carefully avoided in Nanomedicine).
If you can design *really* small assemblers and fit them in cell-sized
packages and have a internal chemical factory that turns bio-feedstock
into diamondoid feedstock, then the only good defense will be an equivalently
armed immune system (which minus the diamondoid is what we have now!).
The nice thing, is that I doubt there will be a "viral" equivalent in
nanobot systems. At the scales we are talking about, using the materials
we are talking about, with the intricate designs we are talking about
(with things like encrypted bot-programs), I can't see there being any easy
ways (other than security leaks) to "divert" your own nanobots against you.
Billy's comments about scales was interesting. We typically think in
terms of threats and responses to things on our scale (people, cars,
tanks, etc.). However it is clear that at the nanoscale and the megascale
there are already "wars" going on -- viruses & bacteria against your
immune system, and giant gas planets against the comets. I don't think
it gets any different as intelligence moves downscale and upscale.
Robert
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