SmartDust?

[daniel l.]

Is it possible that in 100 years the earth and neighboring worlds will be dominated on the surface by high concentrations of sand grain sized nanocomputers? The advantages i can think of would be an indestructible internet, The ability to monitor the statistics of planets without being environmentally intrusive. And perhaps they could become a storage network for digital transcendence.

 

A good example would be the game Endless-Space its available on steam.

Edited March 31, 2016 by daniel l.

[mikegarrison]

Have you been reading Ryk Spoor?

[Bill Phil]

Not in a century. Maybe a few thousand years. But why put those on planets?

[daniel l.]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

Not in a century. Maybe a few thousand years. But why put those on planets?

Massive industrial boost for sure, If they are self replicating and carry a basic propulsion system then you could have them coalesce into structures, Planets with dust on them could be treasure troves for industry (In terms of production) science (the ability to have surfaces infused with sensor bearing systems would be a good way to study planets) And networking (For obvious reasons)

[Bill Phil]

36 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

Massive industrial boost for sure, If they are self replicating and carry a basic propulsion system then you could have them coalesce into structures, Planets with dust on them could be treasure troves for industry (In terms of production) science (the ability to have surfaces infused with sensor bearing systems would be a good way to study planets) And networking (For obvious reasons)

But all of that, except some of the science, can be done in orbit... 

[daniel l.]

31 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

But all of that, except some of the science, can be done in orbit... 

Wouldnt it be cool to order the local Dust to make a building and have them clump together into one? It could be fully functional. And then when you dont need it anymore the dust could detach and blow away in the wind, Dust could make networks like the internet invulnerable, And spread the internet to places like africa where its difficult to build the usual systems, The dust could simply spread through the jungles to create one unending wifi hotspot.

[Bill Phil]

9 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

Wouldnt it be cool to order the local Dust to make a building and have them clump together into one? It could be fully functional. And then when you dont need it anymore the dust could detach and blow away in the wind, Dust could make networks like the internet invulnerable, And spread the internet to places like africa where its difficult to build the usual systems, The dust could simply spread through the jungles to create one unending wifi hotspot.

But we have satellites, and with strong enough transmitters that Dust isn't needed. We also have prefab buildings/Quonset huts so that building feature isn't all that great. 

[daniel l.]

Just now, Bill Phil said:

But we have satellites, and with strong enough transmitters that Dust isn't needed. We also have prefab buildings/Quonset huts so that building feature isn't all that great. 

Ever played endless space?

[kerbiloid]

Nanobots are also machines. Their energy conversion efficiency is by definition < 100%.
So, the higher nanobots heap - the more waste heat it products, the more nanobots are to be overheated and fail.
 

Edited March 31, 2016 by kerbiloid

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Nanobots are also machines. Their energy conversion efficiency is by definition < 100%.
So, the higher nanobots heap - the more waste heat it products, the more nanobots are to be overheated and fail.
 

And potentially screw something up.

But there's no reason they couldn't inter lock and then transfer coolant or something.

[kerbiloid]

What's more likely, 99.9%  of them would be self-deactivated, because this is more efficient than an active cooling.
So, in any time only the upper layer of the nanobots heap would be active.
And all they can do: cannibalize their sleeping neighbours to build new similar neighbours, then deactivate them and eat again.

Or, if anti-cannibal protection, just sleep, too.

Edited March 31, 2016 by kerbiloid

[pincushionman]

The second you design to use a nanobot as a building block, you're asking for structural trouble.

*EDIT* I see the next guy asking "then what are biological cells?" And all I can say is: specialization. In order to have your structural strength, you need a mechanism to fundamentally change certain individuals permanently, and not all of them will be able to keep their networking, sensing, or ambulatory abilities.

Edited March 31, 2016 by pincushionman

[RainDreamer]

What I always wonder is how do they get enough energy to do anything at all. They are too small to get any meaningful amount of solar energy to do all the functions you want with the speed you need, and likely they don't store that much energy either, making them deactivate themselves as soon as the sun set.

[Atlas2342]

But what if they degrade? Wouldnt they indroduce foreign contaminants (well they are microcomputers) into a planet?

[daniel l.]

9 minutes ago, Atlas2342 said:

But what if they degrade? Wouldnt they indroduce foreign contaminants (well they are microcomputers) into a planet?

If each unit is just a really basic machine it could be made of natural elements?

[fredinno]

7 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

If each unit is just a really basic machine it could be made of natural elements?

Yes, but compounds of elements still degrade.

[daniel l.]

Just now, fredinno said:

Yes, but compounds of elements still degrade.

I mean they would harmlessly re-absorb into the environment.

[fredinno]

41 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

I mean they would harmlessly re-absorb into the environment.

Maintaining them would also be expensive.

[daniel l.]

3 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Maintaining them would also be expensive.

What if they maintained themselves?

[Atlas2342]

1 hour ago, daniel l. said:

I mean they would harmlessly re-absorb into the environment.

But what if there were foreign organisms? Wouldn't the introduction of other materials or earth bacteria be potentially toxic to them?

[daniel l.]

28 minutes ago, Atlas2342 said:

But what if there were foreign organisms? Wouldn't the introduction of other materials or earth bacteria be potentially toxic to them?

 Machines? Machines could get biological diseases?

[mikegarrison]

6 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

 Machines? Machines could get biological diseases?

Machines can get fungus. Machines can get slime. Machines can get their lubricants attacked. Etc. So yes, biological attacks on machines can and do happen.

But remember, really tiny machines could simply get eaten.

[RainDreamer]

Some bacteria create corrosive byproducts from their biological processes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_corrosion

Nanoscale machine are quite susceptible to such things, I would imagine. Unless you are engineering them from biological materials so they can regenerate, though that has its own problems as well.

 

1 hour ago, daniel l. said:

What if they maintained themselves?

That is the expensive part - it takes from their processing cycle to keep the maintenance function on, and thus less power to do other things that you design them for. There is also a possibility that they eventually do nothing but maintaining themselves, repairing and creating new copies just as an attempt to continue functioning, leading to a gray goo situation as by that point they are just an organism trying to stay alive and draining all other resources.

[daniel l.]

36 minutes ago, RainDreamer said:

Some bacteria create corrosive byproducts from their biological processes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_corrosion

Nanoscale machine are quite susceptible to such things, I would imagine. Unless you are engineering them from biological materials so they can regenerate, though that has its own problems as well.

 

That is the expensive part - it takes from their processing cycle to keep the maintenance function on, and thus less power to do other things that you design them for. There is also a possibility that they eventually do nothing but maintaining themselves, repairing and creating new copies just as an attempt to continue functioning, leading to a gray goo situation as by that point they are just an organism trying to stay alive and draining all other resources.

I would like to think that we make an AI that is capable of maintaining itself and surviving in the long run and is always at our service, Then we can sit back and enjoy a world where we dont even have to worry about robots taking jobs because all of them are taken and everyone is basking in free luxury.

[Atlas2342]

1 hour ago, daniel l. said:

 Machines? Machines could get biological diseases?

No, I meant alien life could be contaminated by earth bacteria or contaminants from the smartdust...