[H-GEN] RepRapping in Brisbane!

[Arjen Lentz]

Hi Robert

On 28/03/2008, at 1:34 PM, Robert Brockway wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Mar 2008, Arjen Lentz wrote:
>> Homo sapiens self-replicates and causes no end of trouble to itself  
>> and its surroundings.
>
> Hi Arjen.  An excellent point.  There are now more than 6.5 billion  
> humans.  The human population is projected to peak around 9-10  
> billion (depending on who is doing the estimate).  This is a scary  
> number.
>
>> In my view, not necessarily more than any other self-replicating  
>> entity that already exists.
>
> I expect some future self replicating robot to be more significantly  
> efficient than all self replicating entities that have come before.   
> As such they may well outclass the current dominant species.  One  
> could argue it is evolution in action :)

If I'm not mistaken, the current most successful animal life form is  
in fact the insects.
Think flies, ants and all the other crawlies and buzzies.

It depends a bit on how you define dominant - "numbers" of  
"intelligence" (define that then ;-) or "affecting their environment".  
Even on the latter, the insects could win. Relative to their size,  
they can have huge control over their environment and actually do this  
wilfully.


>> Considering our own situation, I have no doubt that there will be  
>> problems.
>> As for civilisation, that's a very relative concept. How civilised  
>> are we, really (but that's a whole other can of worms we shouldn't  
>> start on here)
>
> I considered whether I was going to use the word civilisation or  
> another word.  I was actually trying to be non-sensationalist.  I  
> should simply have said what I meant:
>
> If robots which can self replicate by consuming their surroundings  
> can be built then the long term survival of the human species is  
> under serious threat.  The potential for exponential growth of their  
> population following a single failure of population containment  
> leads me to conclude that a human disaster (and possible extinction)  
> would be an inevitable consequence of building such machines.


I wonder what the population containment would look like... and heck  
it doesn't work for humans either, does it, either voluntary or by  
force (such as the Chinese try to do with their one-child-per-family  
program).

Indiscriminate replication is self-destructive, and there too we have  
ourselves as a shining example.
An overpopulation of rats turns canibalistic, and thus sorts itself  
out. Perhaps they're smarter, as this behaviour pretty much safeguards  
their continued existence as a species. We on the other hand....

So, what about those robots. If they're stupid, it'll sort itself out.  
If they're not, perhaps they deserve to win if there's resource  
contention with us. Or are we somehow fundamentally more worthy? Of  
course we're all a tad biased in this respect ;-)


Cheers,
Arjen.
-- 
Arjen Lentz, Owner @ Open Query (http://openquery.com.au/)
Based in Brisbane, Australia - ph. +61-7-3103 0809
Open Source Experts, MySQL Specialists

Director of OSIA (http://osia.net.au/) Open Source Industry Australia
Australia's industry body for OSS - be counted!