Re:Self-Assembly Shows Promise for Extending Moore’s Law
by mikeash on Saturday July 12, 2014 @08:13PM
(#8026185)
That last sentence is rather odd, coming from a gigantic lump of some trillions of cooperating cells.
Re:Self-Assembly Shows Promise for Extending Moore’s Law
by Houshalter on Sunday July 13, 2014 @01:46AM
(#8026753)
Multicelluar organisms exist but they aren't "fluid" like I described. It's not like animals will spontaneously combine into a single organism. Some plants can sort of do this, like bamboo forests. But they don't have a lot of specialization like animals do, with different organs and stuff.
Obviously the technical issues with self-replication are difficult, but nature was able to do it with relatively crude methods. No doubt we could eventually design something significantly better. One major advantage would be mass cooperation. Evolution has no incentive for individuals to cooperate with each other, but designed nanobots can specialize and benefit from economies of scale.