the grey goo is almost here

so the folks at cornell are making self replicating robots... well isn't that just dandy... thats all we need, robots making copies of themselves... can you say 'goodbye'? good, now say 'goodbye population control'...

where does the grey goo come in? self-replicating nanobots would, if left unchecked, wind up resembling 'grey goo', gobbling up resources to make mor of themselves... if you've watched enough 'stargate sg1' you probably remember the replicators, or if you watched enough 'lexx' you probably remember what the lexx referred to as "a very large number of mantrid one arm things that fly around"... needless to say, this is not something we want to experience first hand in real life...

now, you tell me - when was the last time we managed to avoid the negative ramifications technological progress... did we avoid the atom bomb? nope... how about bio-weapons? nope... do you really think that someone somewhere isn't going to build a grey goo weapon?



to quote spaceballs - oh shit, there goes the planet...

[via http://www.boingboing.net/2005/05/11/selfreplicating_robo.html]