I was thinking about the fears people have about nanotechnology. Obviously nanotech has many different ways that it could evolve, and thus potentially posing many dangers. However, the prospects for danger to people from this seems very limited – in Prey the way people die from the nanobots is by inhalation (and other studies: The research, led by a group at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, has found in preliminary studies that inhaling vast amounts of nanotubes is dangerous. Since they are, in essence, a form of soot, this is not surprising.), and this could all be solved with air filters. But on a more general scale, couldn’t we simply build (assuming we had skills to construct dangerous nanobots in the first place) a counter-swarm, if you will?
Oh, and how likely to you think the danger of nanobots consuming the biosphere and evolving to basically eat the planet/universe is? I have heard some people in the policy debate circuit (college cross-examination debate) claim that nanotech would destroy the universe through its relentless reproduction.
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