The Dream of the Universal Constructor

Authors

  • Walter Barta University of Houston

Keywords:

replicator

Abstract

Imagine inventing a “Universal Constructor”, a machine that can molecularly assemble anything you want it to (within physical possibility). Should you construct such a machine? And what should you construct with it?

References

Barrat, James (2013). Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era. First edition. New York, Thomas Dunne Books.

Bostrom, Nick (2013). “The Future of Humanity,” New Waves in Philosophy of Technology, eds. Evan Selinger & Soren Riis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009): 186–215.

Bostrom, Nick (2019). “The Vulnerable World Hypothesis”, Global Policy, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2019): pp. 445–476.

Calder, Nigel (1978). Spaceships of the Mind. New York, Viking Press.

Clark, Aurthur C. (1977). An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible. New York, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.

Crichton, Michael (1987). Sphere. New York, Knopf.

Deutsch, David (2011). The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World. New York, Viking.

Drexler, Eric (1986). Engines of Creation. Washington, Fourth Estate.

Freitas, Robert A. Jr.; Merkle, Ralph C. (2004). “3.10: The Santa Claus Machine,” from Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines, https://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM/3.10.htm.

Fukuyama, Francis (2012). The End of History and the Last Man. New York, Penguin Books.

Jones, R.; Haufe, P.; Sells, E.; Iravani, P.; Olliver, V.; Palmer, C.; Bowyer, A. (2011). "Reprap-- the replicating rapid prototyper". Robotica. 29 (1): 177–191.

Le Guin, Ursula (1971). The Lathe of Heaven. US, Charles Scribner's Sons.

Norman, D. A. (2013). The Design of Everyday Things. Cambridge, MIT Press.

Saadia, Manu (2016-09-08). "The Enduring Lessons of "Star Trek"". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2019-07-24 from https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-enduring-lessons-of-star-trek.

“The Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) – Companion document.” Canada.ca. Retrieved 2023-03-13 from https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/innovation-better-canada/en/artificial-intelligence-and-data-act-aida-companion-document#s6.

von Neumann, John; Burks, Arthur W. (1966). Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata. University of Illinois Press. Retrieved 2017-02-28 from https://cba.mit.edu/events/03.11.ASE/docs/VonNeumann.pdf.

Downloads

Published

2024-10-20

How to Cite

Barta, Walter. 2024. “The Dream of the Universal Constructor”. The International Review of Information Ethics 34 (1). Edmonton, Canada. https://informationethics.ca/index.php/irie/article/view/535.

Issue

Vol. 34 No. 1 (2024): Case Studies in AI Ethics

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Walter Barta

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Under the CC-BY 4.0 license, you have the right to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.