If these things were truly possible on Earth, chances are life-forms based on it would have evolved.
For mostly-self-sufficient organisms in earth's environment, the versatility of carbon appears to outperform silicon on every metric that counts.
The molecular complexity of a single human lung cell still absolutely dwarfs that of even the most modern CPUs we are able to manufacture (apple to oranges, but true).
Out_of_Characte · 1h ago
The evolution of our species was based on the carbon lifecycle. Yet the machines we produce are not evolving in a similar manner at all, just the ability to redraw everything from scratch is a luxury that evolution cannot make use of.
To reiterate, The belief that evolving machines have to match the kind of evolution we're subjected to is illogical. Machines wouldn't be there without us and we wouldn't have what we have now without evolving our machines.
targetx · 1h ago
These scientists should play Horizon Zero Dawn and seriously reconsider. This feels like a bad idea (however technologically impressive it is).
rightbyte · 58m ago
In general it might be a bad idea to prospect dystopian sci-fi novels for VC pitching decks. Like, are there no adults in the room anymore.
vinceguidry · 57m ago
Pitch them to Elon Musk instead. That's all he seems to care about.
datameta · 1h ago
As long as there are enough paperclips to consume at the lowest trophic level we should be okay, right? Right?
gavinray · 2h ago
"Mortal Engines" begins...
(One of my favorite Sci-Fi Young Adult series I read growing up)
tl;dr = Post apocalypse, cities are giant mobile machines that eat and integrate smaller cities to survive
gmuslera · 1h ago
Crabs on the Island, by Anatoly Dneprov, fits better in the idea.
littlestymaar · 2h ago
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
neom · 2h ago
Powerful self assembling machines controlled by artificial intelligence more capable than the average human, not your flavor of the month then I guess?
More seriously, are there public examples where inventors/technologists have ever actually said "we could do this but we won't"?
aeve890 · 1h ago
Common excuse for this kind of behavior is "evil people will do it regardless, so the only option for us is do it too to be prepared for when evil people use it for evil purposes".
h2zizzle · 28m ago
It's weird that no one thinks to build an Iron Dome until well after the nuclear arms race has been chugging along for a while. The goal should be to checkmate potentially ruinous branches of a tech tree, not to be in perpetual check with them as they grow ever longer and spikier.
For mostly-self-sufficient organisms in earth's environment, the versatility of carbon appears to outperform silicon on every metric that counts.
The molecular complexity of a single human lung cell still absolutely dwarfs that of even the most modern CPUs we are able to manufacture (apple to oranges, but true).
To reiterate, The belief that evolving machines have to match the kind of evolution we're subjected to is illogical. Machines wouldn't be there without us and we wouldn't have what we have now without evolving our machines.
(One of my favorite Sci-Fi Young Adult series I read growing up)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Engines
tl;dr = Post apocalypse, cities are giant mobile machines that eat and integrate smaller cities to survive
More seriously, are there public examples where inventors/technologists have ever actually said "we could do this but we won't"?