I don’t think this is a fair representation of what happened. The only thing that Eliezer appears to have “made up” is the name “diamondoid bacteria” – the idea of diamondoid mechanosynthesis doesn’t come from him, nor does the idea of applying diamondoid mechanosynthesis to building nanorobots, nor that bacteria provide a proof-of-concept for the possibility of nanorobots, nor that artificial nanorobots may share some resemblance to bacteria. Eliezer also doesn’t claim to have come up with any of these ideas. You can debate the merits of any of these ideas, as well as whether it was a smart move for Eliezer to come up with the term “diamondoid bacteria” (and his arguably unclear communication about having come up with the term), but that’s different from him having just made up the ideas.
Fair point, and I rephrased to be more clear on what I meant to say—that the scenario here is mostly science fiction (it’s not as if GPT5 is turned on, diamondoid bacteria appear out of nowhere, and we all drop dead).
I do think “diamondoid bacteria, that replicate with solar power and atmospheric CHON” from List of Lethalities is original to Eliezer. He’s previously cited Nanomedicine in this context, but the parts published online so far don’t describe self-replicating systems.
The requirement for elements that are relatively rare in the atmosphere greatly constrains the potential nanomass and growth rate of airborne replicators. However, note that at least one of the classical designs exceeds 91% CHON by weight. Although it would be very difficult, it is at least theoretically possible that replicators could be constructed almost solely of CHON, in which case such devices could replicate relatively rapidly using only atmospheric resources, powered by sunlight.
Did Eric Drexler not describe ideas like this in Engines of Creation? Either way, I would guess that Drexler has thought of similar ideas before (sans the phrase “diamondoid bacteria”) and has also likely communicated these ideas to Eliezer (albeit perhaps in an informal context). Though it’s also possible Eliezer came up with it independently, as it seems like a relatively natural idea to consider once you already assume diamondoid mechanosynthesis creating atomically-precise nanobots.
Not really a surprise that this story is basically science fiction.
I don’t think this is a fair representation of what happened. The only thing that Eliezer appears to have “made up” is the name “diamondoid bacteria” – the idea of diamondoid mechanosynthesis doesn’t come from him, nor does the idea of applying diamondoid mechanosynthesis to building nanorobots, nor that bacteria provide a proof-of-concept for the possibility of nanorobots, nor that artificial nanorobots may share some resemblance to bacteria. Eliezer also doesn’t claim to have come up with any of these ideas. You can debate the merits of any of these ideas, as well as whether it was a smart move for Eliezer to come up with the term “diamondoid bacteria” (and his arguably unclear communication about having come up with the term), but that’s different from him having just made up the ideas.
Fair point, and I rephrased to be more clear on what I meant to say—that the scenario here is mostly science fiction (it’s not as if GPT5 is turned on, diamondoid bacteria appear out of nowhere, and we all drop dead).
I do think “diamondoid bacteria, that replicate with solar power and atmospheric CHON” from List of Lethalities is original to Eliezer. He’s previously cited Nanomedicine in this context, but the parts published online so far don’t describe self-replicating systems.
Edit: This is wrong—see Lumpyproletariat below.
It’s from the paper “Some Limits to Global Ecophagy” (which he’s cited in this context before): https://lifeboat.com/ex/global.ecophagy
I see, thanks! Section 8.2, “Gray Dust”:
Did Eric Drexler not describe ideas like this in Engines of Creation? Either way, I would guess that Drexler has thought of similar ideas before (sans the phrase “diamondoid bacteria”) and has also likely communicated these ideas to Eliezer (albeit perhaps in an informal context). Though it’s also possible Eliezer came up with it independently, as it seems like a relatively natural idea to consider once you already assume diamondoid mechanosynthesis creating atomically-precise nanobots.