Gray Goo

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

by mertnesvat • 6 years ago

64 93 6 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

smoyer• 6 years ago

I have read through "Engines of Creation" (the book where this phrase was coined) three or four times and learn something new with each reading. I've also bought three copies because I keep giving it away (last time to a friend who became CEO of a nano-tech company). I'm not necessarily scared of the scenario described as gray goo in chapter 4 but I also think it's a good warning to nano-practitioners.

https://amzn.to/2uPHGmV

hpliferaft• 6 years ago

Love the trope. I read a story in either Asimov's or Analog in the late 80s that featured this. I'd love to read it again. Any sf superfan out there know the title offhand?

sgslo• 6 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonseed_(novel) perhaps?

codeulike• 6 years ago

Its worth thinking about the idea that we are actually made of highly sophisticated self-replicating nanotech machines, and although they've been pretty successful for the last few billion years, they're still nowhere near good enough to achieve exponential growth that consumes all matter.

Maybe someone somewhere has already explored the theory that nanotech that could re-shape all matter around it is probably impossible due to the energy challenges inherent in re-shaping arbitrary atoms.

ragebol• 6 years ago

Hasn't the world population of humans been increasing exponentially? And consuming, well, not all matter but still quite a lot? Once we have the technology (and will) to mine asteroids that'll even get worse.

ben_w6• 6 years ago

Roughly approximating exponential, but slowing down. And even then with a generational period of… well, of one generation.

Bacteria in the right conditions can do that in 30 minutes.

A hypothetical 1kg clanking replicator that eats moon rock and sunlight and replicates in 1 month would dismantle the moon in just over 6 years. Make it grey goo with a unit size of 1mg while keeping the replication time of a month and it takes 8 years to fully disassemble the moon.

goatlover3• 6 years ago

It's projected to level out sometime around mid century and then start declining. And that's because birth rates decrease to a below replacement level everywhere women are granted the freedom to control their reproduction, which is a global trend.

Symmetry4• 6 years ago

Our popular conception of nanotechnology was probably shaped a lot by the fact that Engines of Creation was published at the same time as Blood Music.

Filligree4• 6 years ago

A great book, but not terribly realistic. Once again people try to reason from fictional evidence.

lachlan-sneff2• 6 years ago

Nanosystems is much more realistic.

nickhalfasleep• 6 years ago

Anything nano-size needs nano-power. Solar panels? Chemical batteries? Small nuclear plant? In the end, thermodynamics saves us from grey goo.

And if you try to co-opt a biological process for fuel, say ATP, then your nano-bot is a tasty treat for other organic bacteria who have evolved over a billion years to compete and eat in this sector.

senectus1• 6 years ago

so what if its not a grey goo but a grey ecosystem?

Small machines all designed to do small different jobs. then you'd get currents of grey good just supplying power because you have currents of grey goo proving "food" to them because you'd have currents of grey goo disassembling everything around them to provide food and materials to currents of grey goo that make the different sorts of grey goo needed to perform all the previous steps.

I feel that "grey goo" gets used as a descriptor for one thing... when i reality it would be lots of different sorts of things.

having said that, I think we're a loooong way form having to be worried about that as well.

fennecfoxen4• 6 years ago

Gray goo is only an existential threat to civilization if you have magical nanomachines that can metabolize useful energy out of concrete, sand, glass, and dirt, in an exothermic reaction. Also, it would help a lot if these fragile little machines are also magically immune to excessive heat, and if you ignore them facing down bacteria and other life forms.

While you work on these problems I’ll be over here worried about the pollution-like side effects of ordinary endothermic nanomachines.

1014043• 6 years ago

There is Clarke's 3rd law though:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws

Filligree4• 6 years ago

Clarke's third law is largely about fiction. It's a rule of thumb for writers, not a rule for reality.

In reality there are limits; there's no reason to think technology can improve indefinitely. We may still be far from those limits, as e.g. Drexler's books show, but fundamental rules such as "Effort requires energy input" are unlikely to ever change, and it's equally unlikely that most modern scientists would regard limit-tech as being magic.

As for the average guy on the street, he probably considers computers to be magic...

asdfasgasdgasdg2• 6 years ago

While the law is interesting, it mostly applies to science fiction. We can't presume that said sufficiently advanced technology is physically possible -- in fact, the opposite seems decently likely.

ekianjo• 6 years ago

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Any sufficiently advanced technology does not break the laws of physics anyway.

nnq2• 6 years ago

You don't need to "metabolize useful energy out of concrete, sand, glass, and dirt" to have a nightmare scenario...

Anything that can metabolize lots of kinds of multicellular living matter could can do insane amounts of damage even if it's not a pathogen... for example agriculture is quite frail and we depend on it!

fennecfoxen4• 6 years ago

That's not really grey goo, in the typical use of the term; that's just a novel agricultural pest.

clSTophEjUdRanu• 6 years ago

Bacteria already tries to do this. Leads me to believe it's impossible.

SAI_Peregrinus• 6 years ago

Bacteria are the biggest argument against grey goo. They already are, they already exist, and they're already everywhere, yet things other than bacteria still exist. They've had several billion years of evolution to work on it too.

They're probably in local maxima, not in any global maximum, but it's also likely that there is no single global maximum given how different the requirements are for using different energy sources.

ASalazarMX• 6 years ago

In their defense, they're competing with organized (colored?) goo like us. We take many resources that would be gray goo otherwise.

pmoriarty• 6 years ago

"Bacteria already tries to do this. Leads me to believe it's impossible."

This is like saying "no bird can fly faster than the speed of sound therefore flying faster than the speed of sound is impossible."

mr_toad• 6 years ago

Your immune system has to actively defend against bacteria and fungi that would quite happily eat you.

Without any immune system you’d rot like a corpse.

knodi123• 6 years ago

I'm fairly confident that gray goo, as described in dystopian sci fi, is impossible due to some of the consequences of entropy and its inevitable increase.

That is, the tinier a machine, the more susceptible it is to breaking down due to wear and tear. And the more energetic a machine, ditto. So incredibly tiny, incredibly energetic machines, would have a minuscule lifespan.

And that's not even touching on the issues of power supply and storage.

I think AI is a much more existential threat than gray goo.

carapace4• 6 years ago

You know there's a fusion generator in the sky.

DagAgren4• 6 years ago

And we already have microscopic machines that use it for power, and we know what they are capable of.

NotSammyHagar• 6 years ago

I don't know. Imagine a virus that is 100% lethal to humans. The flu and other virii are in a sense a kind of living organism focused grey goo because there's nothing that stops a new virus from evolving and killing all living members of a species, what's left rots. There probably exists something that could kill all of us and we'd be rotten meat after we are dead. A virus uses our metabolic energy to make new copies of it and doesn't kill us immediately so that we can spread it.

tombert• 6 years ago

Oh, Futurama had an episode about something like this [0]

Eventually the clones turn all the water in the world to alcohol!

[0] https://theinfosphere.org/Benderama

jaredwiener• 6 years ago

and of course, there's an XKCD for that https://xkcd.com/865/

komali2• 6 years ago

Someone also just wrote a sequel to Crichton's Andromeda Strain that was kinda a little entertaining but not at all Crichton-like. Quite disappointing.

sergiotapia• 6 years ago

Awesome grey goo story:

https://qntm.org/gorge

also by the same author:

https://qntm.org/responsibility

rtkwe• 6 years ago

At least the "Responsibility" problem is relatively easy to solve, use the manipulator to move and provide power to the computer. Since they're able to manifest things into the universe they can probably just provide the appropriate voltage at the end of the cables going to the computer and similarly provide any other needs like cooling (this spot is 0.1K or whatever temperature the device needs).

gamesbrainiac• 6 years ago

There is also a RTS game for those interested: https://store.steampowered.com/app/290790/Grey_Goo/

Filligree4• 6 years ago

A mediocre game, most notable for casting humanity as the 'super-advanced ancestral race'.

It unfortunately lacked any interesting grey goo-related mechanics, even when playing as the goo.

oefrha• 6 years ago

As a huge fan of Starcraft, Warcraft and C&C franchises I was pretty excited when it was announced (as the classical RTS genre was clearly on life support if not already dead at that point), but frankly it turned out to be a terrible RTS that’s not worth anyone’s time.

ngvrnd• 6 years ago

While I agree that the grey goo sensationalism is wrong, it would also be wrong to throw the baby out with the bathwater. First admit that single-celled life is really just very very advanced self-reproducing nano-machinery, or else explain why it isn't. There is some risk here, just not of the sensationalized variety.

mabbo2• 6 years ago

Tiny machines that extract energy and material from their environment in order to replicate themselves... isn't that bacteria? Life? Isn't that all around us already? Aren't we that?

The only way I can imagine gray goo being a real threat is if we can design such a machine that is more efficient and resilient at extracting energy and matter into copies of itself better than 4 billion years of evolution has made the existing life on Earth. And while, yes, we are often able to do better than life at certain tasks, I have a hard time believing on a large scale of time and space we can win that arm wrestle.

Life is optimized in every direction and has tried most of the tricks. It's hard to beat.

gallerdude• 6 years ago

Life is really good at finding a local maximum, but not a global maximum. Cheetah's were evolved to be really fast, but they're still slower than a motorcycle.

cwp• 6 years ago

Cheetahs evolved to chase down prey. They are much better at that than a motorcycle. (Or even a person on a motorcycle!)

kleer001• 6 years ago

Let me know when motorcycles can reproduce. Then I'll be scared.

mabbo2• 6 years ago

Cheetah's were evolved to be really fast, but they're still slower than a motorcycle

A good kick can permanently disable a motorcycle such that it can no longer move faster than a cheetah. Less so for cheetahs- they can heal from wounds. A cheetah is also carrying with it all the needed equipment to turn many forms of raw matter (meat) into fuel to power a cheetah. And many cheetahs carry with them a fully functional cheetah factory.

My point is that humans are great at optimizing one dimension, but to build something that is better optimized in enough dimensions to outdo life is very unlikely.

DagAgren4• 6 years ago

Motorcycles are not self-sufficient. On a timescale of longer than a day, they will lose to any cheetah.

Humans have yet to design a machine that could even outcompete a fluffy kitten.

Symmetry4• 6 years ago

Rewrites in how living cells work at a fundamental level is really hard. It took a billion years to go from prokaryotic cells to eukaryotic ones and that was a pretty simple change - just move the energy extracting membrane inside to get out of the squre/cube culs-de-sac bacteria were stuck in. But at the same time it's the sort of thing that would be obvious to an intelligent designer. I'm not sure that microscopic diamondoid self-replicators are possible but I wouldn't rule out the idea that similar improvements are easy pickings in synthetic biology and that's a pretty scary thought.

Nasrudith• 6 years ago

To be an utter smartass gray goo long predates us, we call them microbes.

Really Grey goo is a conceptual repeat of bad scientific models like Ice 9. Complete with bad models of chemistry. In this case they forget that the molecular scale is not the same as macroscopic, often assuming molecules are like macroscopic materials that stay still until they act instead of reacting to conditions. Assuming that a self replicating hydrocarbon consumer could break down anything carbon based would be like worrying that the oil spill will start ripping carbon from the air and hydrogen from water to make more oil and create a powder keg world world without any water.

Plus addition forgetting the constraints other than raw resources like dissipation, surface area, and power supply.

xorand2• 6 years ago

A scenario more interesting than boundless self-replication is Ackermann goo [0], [1]. Grey goo starts with a molecular machine able to replicate itself. You get exponentially more copies, hence goo. Imagine that we could build molecules like programs which execute themselves via chemical interactions with the environment. Then, for example, a Y combinator machine would appear as a linearly growing string [2]. No danger here. Take Ackermann(4,4) now. This is vastly more complex than a goo made of lots of small dumb copies.

[0] https://chemlambda.github.io/collection.html#58

[1] https://chemlambda.github.io/collection.html#59

[2] https://chemlambda.github.io/collection.html#259

carapace4• 6 years ago

Thanks for the nightmares! :-)

xorand2• 6 years ago

:) Probably is a sort of revenge on people more interested in semantics than geometry.

rafaelvasco• 6 years ago

Makes me think about the creation of everything: All that exists in Earth now, and probably in the entire Universe started as a blob of proto matter, the core of everything, which by still mostly unknown mechanisms, specialized and replicated itself into every different element that forms us, animals, plants, minerals, and everything else; Interesting thought;

nnq2• 6 years ago

DON't disconsider this nightmare scenario too much - While engineering (as in classically designing, prototyping etc.) such a grey goo might be almost impossibly-hard because of chemical energetic constraint and the obvious fact that 3bn years of evolution were not enough to bring about such effective "grey goo" that could "consume the planet", there are some chilling new developments:

We're starting to be good at (1) using machine learning to "learn" designs for components much faster than naive-genetical-algorithms (aka "evolution"), and this will only get better as ML improves, and (2) we're getting better and better at simulating-in-software biological-like processes (and quantum computing will help with this). So we are pretty much in shape to vaaaaaastly outpower 3bn years of evolution.

A virtual + physical nanobots-evolution-gym where AI agents evolve and compete at creating better and better self-replicating nano-machines will give you the nightmare scenario easily...

Basically anything related to the combo of "ML + nanotech" should be carefully watched and monitored!

(And if you're willing to not start from scratch but instead use existing bio-building-blocks like viruses and bacteria, and don't have as high goals as "consuming all matter on earth" and instead you settle for "most multi-cellular living matter" then technically we already have the capabilities. You probably know what I mean.)

daveslash• 6 years ago

Sounds similar to replicators in the TV show "Startgate SG-1"

ben_w6• 6 years ago

This concept was probably what inspired that plot arc.

xwkd• 6 years ago

Sure, it's unlikely given what we know about energy, but consider it a thought experiment about the propagation of externalities.

What other seemingly inconsequential machinations create systemic ripple effects? What forest are we missing for the trees?

alpineidyll3• 6 years ago

How the eff did this make the YC frontpage?

nurettin• 6 years ago

It was submitted 1 month ago and 7 months ago with no replies or points. This time, as soon as it was submitted, people started commenting and upvoting.

qubex• 6 years ago

Is this a Fermi Paradox explanation?

toddh• 6 years ago

In The Issues We Face at the Nano Scale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEjx48z8Lzs) the Gray Goo threat is debunked. Nanomachines need a really controlled environment to live. They need the right PH, salt, and temperature. Change any parameters and nanomachines won't work. World saved.

pedro1976• 6 years ago

A gray goo consuming all carbon based structures that replicates at the same time, would be based on carbon too. Therefore they would eat themselves.

Miniso• 6 years ago

It's beyond my understanding..

carapace4• 6 years ago

FWIW, the oceans are "Blue" Goo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_bacteriophage

Marine viruses, although microscopic and essentially unnoticed by scientists until recently, are the most abundant and diverse biological entities in the ocean. Viruses have an estimated abundance of 10^30 in the ocean...

Ten to the thirtieth power.

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

onceUponADime2• 6 years ago

It makes for great horror story material.

I once worked on a grey goo enemy in a game. The idea, was to have the grey goo capture there victims, storing them as data. Reviving them from time to time for seconds, to prevent degradation.. where did i keep the file, ah here:

.. You will grow tired, you must rest, you can not be eternally creative, and once you rest- you will be rescued like the rest of them. <Lead Developer>

... DOMUS BACKDOOR BASILISK HIJACK COGNAC DAFOODILL ANNA: FREEZE PROGRAM ... <CULT LEADER>

.. Rapture is upon us, the Silver tentacles of gods justice shall wrap themselves around us. (Squeaks) .. And inside us, to be part of the divine, oh, this is cold and hurts..

.. Congratulations, the hacking proof system you where so proud of- it works..

.. you dont get it, we need Aeons of computationpower in a day to break the encryption and restore the stored people-

.. Gentlemen, lets focus on the good news- which is that the run-away-assembler, spares plants and lower animals

.. marathon of stupidity- to avoid it going exponential, let it tap geothermal- and now we cant cut it off..

.. Listen Domus, all humans are mortal. Cancer, this sort of runaway deadly exponential growth is what makes us human. One has to let go off the old, to embrace the new. You cant just take the philosophy department for a walk..

.. Radiation free Room. No need to put as in storage, this is a rad-free room. And we are living from saline solution. What do you mean- Radon & Radicals?

.. As a medical authority, i declare radiation healthy- it trains the repair-functionality of DNA. No evolution without radiation. Come on, you dumb machine-

.. Fallback to the AGrav, watch your flanks- keep firing, do not touch the walls or floor ...

.. The sun, with every flicker - its so much bigger. Like a million years gone by on the fly.. ..(paranoid) they are after me, they are in the walls, in the ceeling, but they will not get me- the whispering voices, talking about - SUICIDE PREVENTION MODE..

.. the water beneath the bridge is incredible clear today..

.. (on toilett/reading newspaper) Whatever it is it can wait for another minute. And now you flood the floor-..

.. We greet you oh mighty one, we have been praying for the rapture ever since. We want to offer support cleansing the world of sinners..

.. I demand my conciousness continue while in storage. Aaaaahhh....

.. I love you- I love you too..

.. Kids close your eyes, we love you very much- everything will be all right!

.. didnt even smoke. And now cancer, from natural radiation. One mangled protein- one flipped bit- and BAM, your dead old man walking. Domus are you even listening (House) Yes, i am. I will miss you, you are a vital part ..

.. Mum? Dad? .. Its soo cold .. 10 .. 11 .. Im coming now. You better hide!

.. Honey is that you? I have a surprise for you- .. .. So that was your life Joan, really outstanding, mum was right, up to no good.. .. 3 Martinis and then even the Facility Managment System gets too you..

<Major>

..-Yes, one ticket offworld - wait make that five. What do you mean - the bank is gone. I can see it walking towards the space port

<Military> ..- it WHAT, it ate the airbase? Impossible, im at the airbase-..

.. Day 512 after the Zero-Goo. Our Submarine will surface today for air. Beating will continue till moral improves..

.. So the nuclear option is off limits, due to the population still being encoded in the Goo? ..

..<she>You think, the Goo is real? <he> Nah, its the usual fear mongering. If it where real, there would be panic..

.. what a lovely quite evening, not a sound in the whole city..

.. what a trip dude, what a trip.. the wall is melting and the floor is mercury..

.. have you seen the smiths. When her house grew those veins - that bitch was furious..

.. Yes its cold here, very cold, but the freezing keeps it at bay. Just check your cloths for silver flakes and you will be fine..

.. I tell you we need to dig deeper. This is no ore above us- these are plague roots..

.. So no thermal footprint, no CO2, no electronics and constant camouflage - and maybe, just maybe ..

.. Smoke, i didnt put the fire out. If i can see it, it can see it. Stupid, stupid, stupid!..

.. I will never drink again, i swear by St.Aloisius, that was the last drop...

.. Hello, i woke up in a hospital, everyone was gone. Is this the rapture or the Singularity? I can hear you moving, you know-..

-.. so Yuri i said to myself, what choice do you got. Your the last, your sick and non-sanes, why become a space-mummy - just go down and at least get buried with the others. So Yuri, i said, at least make a memorial..

.. so for my clan, i claim this ancient world, for the Empire. The flag, its dragged intot the - ground, what the hell-..

.. the world was infested and even orbital bombardment did not reduce the plague. We are lucky to be alive and uncontaminated. Imagine if it would have infected the Quadrant Hub-..

<Primate> .. So Uluth, banging rock spear, when silver god tells her about long sleep..

<Domus 4.0 Regressive Behaviour> .. Housekeeping: How can the silversurfer-maid help you?..

.. Due to new cables being run behind the wall- temporary discomfort by noises may occur between 0.00 and 24.00 pm.. .. Who can bring the package, thats long past overdue, who can put into your flat a silent miracle or two- the House-OS can, because its using nanos for this jam.

.. And this is the flat- its roomy, sunny, city-core, the layout is personalized to your liking.

.. If you are satisfied with the service, why dont you invite all your friends to try Domus 4.0

.. Citizen your service-debt now amounts to 4 Trillion, 782.200.103.823 Dollars before taxes.

.. The TOS clearly defines that the House is responsible for the safety and well being of its inhabitants.

.. the trial period for House 4.0 ended several millenias ago. If you want to use the full Version, please register..

.. Elevators are currently out of service due to unused building restructuring..

.. This Condo is going to be so fly. Have you thought about putting in a diamondsheet between the kitchen and the living room?..

.. Good day Citizen: This agent is a local branch of the Domus 4.0 self-modification,repair and extension System. My prime directive is to keep you happy and healthy. After running some diagnostics on the environment, the system has determined that the current world is unsuitable for biologic beings due to radioactive hazards, such as natural radiation, pulsar and stellar radiation - ranging from x-rays to uv-light. To protect the citizens from further harm, all citizens will be mapped, dissolved and stored, until a harmless environment can be guaranteed. To avoid a memory decay, it is unfortunately necessary to partially reconstitute the citizens all 8192 years, 512 months, 256 days and 128 hours for several seconds and disassemble them again. For your own safety you will be disassembled and stored. The process is not pain-free, but due to a short-term memory wipe, no traumata does ensue. Please relax your extremities and enjoy some light jazz music, while being rescued. Do not Panic! Help is here, Safety only a few years away.

rubyn00bie• 6 years ago

Sounds like a really boring, less threatening, version of of a strange quark.

It seems like it would be more likely they'd consume themselves if they're able to consume matter so indiscriminately... The amount of matter inside two or three of them waiting to be digested would be game for any of the other little shits to devour.

It also can be see in an episode of Futurama where Bender multiplies turning all the liquid on earth into booze, and then consuming it all. Which is probably about as close to real as this idea will ever be...

8bitsrule• 6 years ago

I've seen a comic story in which Gyro Gearloose invents a machine which he puts on an island. He turns it on and is distracted. On return, much of the island has been turned into ice cream (frappe, I think). So this concept goes back a ways.

Gray Goo

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