I have been warning that the greatest threat to humans will be microscopic self replicating agents. I'm referring, of course to engineered ones, where anyone with a cheap 3D nanoscale printer that puts atoms exactly where they want them, can play with these things.
Earth's energy budget, in terawatts. Output of sun: 384,600,000,000,000 TW. At Earth's stratosphere: 160,000 TW. At Earth's surface: 90,000 TW. Photosynthesis by all plants: 250 TW. Fuel and electricity production: 15 TW. Food for humans: 0.8 TW. Clearly we can design machines that can outcompete biology. We already have solar panel efficiency of 20-30%, compared to 0.3% for plants. Their main components are oxygen, silicon, aluminum, and iron, the four most common elements in the Earth's crust. Freitas calculated the speed and energy requirements of bacteria-sized self replicating robots. They are of the same order of magnitude as biology. https://foresight.org/nano/Ecophagy.php A gray goo accident would displace DNA based life by blocking sunlight and choking off the food chain. You could not do this with current technology in genetic engineering. Even wiping out a single species (like homo sapiens) would be difficult. New species of parasitic organisms such as viruses evolve to be less virulent by two mechanisms. First, by killing those most susceptible and leaving those with better immune systems, and second, because parasites that don't kill or incapacitate their hosts spread more successfully. I have seen a lot of conspiracy theories that covid-19 was designed as a bioweapon. I doubt it. If it was, it was not a very good one. ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T219f799b8db5224f-M029c0fc40d48430c6ed3f4e2 Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
