[lachlan-sneff]

This is exactly why we need Eric Drexler's molecular assemblers: so we can build large quantities of molecules that are "built" atom-by-atom!

[ZhuanXia]

Molecular assemblers are almost taboo to discuss in chemistry and have been for decades. Sort of like the AI winter. Things feel like they are starting to thaw.

[jeffwass]

Why are they almost taboo?

[aftbit]

By analogy to the "AI winter" I assume they belong to the age of broken dreams... people are afraid to talk about them because too many people have been burned by too many enthusiastic promises and the problem turns out to be much harder to solve than originally expected.

[Rerarom]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexler%E2%80%93Smalley_debate...

[chinigo]

Gray goo?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo

[jakeogh]

there's a very interesting project/field that's starting with larger legos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbdXeRBbgDM

[justinclift]

That's an LLVM talk.

Wrong url?

[jakeogh]

He's lowering the degrees of freedom in protien synthesis so they are simulatiable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X69_42Mj-g

[justinclift]

Thanks for clarifying, went and looked again. Yep, seems interesting. :)