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Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Time for a Robot Uprising

Sometimes one wishes that scientists were given a little more free time to read fiction.

Then they would understand why THIS is a Bad Idea.

Programmable matter... robots that can reassemble themselves. Hammers that become wrenches. Machines that can act like proteins.

The mind boggles. In five minutes I can come up with a list of about 100 fun and destructive things to do with a programmable protein. My word! Think of the plagues! Think genetic espionage! Think world domination through altering proteins in the brain!

And that took no effort at all.

There's a story in this.

Several in point of fact. And a few that have already been done.

Happy Plotting!

2 comments:

  1. Scientists *do* read science fiction. It's where they get all their ideas. ;)

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  2. Scientists already have a term for nanotech run amok: Grey Goo. It's what will happen if they, for example, launch a nanobot to fix a cancer and the nano slips a cog and starts self-replicating...thus continuing an infinitum until the world is covered with the "grey goo" of nanobots.

    Mmmm, gimme some of that old time paranoia...and a zillion-fold helping to the techies who are producing this stuff.

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