2 replies to this topic

[A941]

Would it be possible to use bacterias as tool to build a smaller device like the Assembler?
Would a simple modifyed Bacteria, with only one task, working together with other bacterias, be able to create a complex Machine, like this Robots in an Experiment ive read about*?
Or do such specialized bacterias still exist?


*Small Robots with only one task, for example; collect objects (of a given colour and Shape) working togehther with other Robots with another Task (put one object on the top of another object), so that it would be able to fullfill a complex Task by splitting it into small and simple ones.

[John Schloendorn]

Well, all we can really tell bacteria to do is something that some existing creature somewhere already can do (by putting the gene in). So you would have to come up with a scheme how to construct your "assembler" using reactions that are already known in nature.
The huge advantage of bacteria is that they can replicate nearly for free and thus scale up your reaction to arbitrary dimensions. But if I understand "assembler" right, then it could do so, too. You would basically have to make only one or very few "assemblers". So bacteria would not need to play out their key advantage, and it seems to me that atomic force microscope-like technologies seem more promising to perform the arbitraty reactions likely required to make what I think you're thinking of...

[A941]

and it seems to me that atomic force microscope-like technologies seem more promising to perform the arbitraty reactions likely required to make what I think you're thinking of...

An Assembler is small but very complex, to produce an "hand made" Assembler could take dekades.