In news:1143378506.042852.234240@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com,
ianparker2@gmail.com <ianparker2@gmail.com> typed:

Well I dare say it would have to be able to cope with missing screws
and that bit that's always left over at the end LOL :)

For a start a closed sytem will make its own screws. If you are
assembling a flatpack the CAD program will draw up an inventory of
parts. A screw is in fact a part and the system checks that the
inventory is present. I have myself written a program which does just
that. It uses Pro Engineer routines to gets the sub assemblies and
then goes down to parts.

If you are disassembling a complicated system it will remember where
it has put all the parts and sub assemblies. Unlike us the system
will not forget.

It's an interesting idea. However what I have difficulty with is even simple
parts like nuts and bolts don't appear out of thin air...

In order to make a simple bolt you need to mine the ore, make steel, cast
the steel, and tread it using precision machining, at every stage in the
process you need more equipment and machinery to carry out those tasks,
industrial plant, mining equipment, and oil refineries (to power the
furnaces), nuclear power or coal for electricity generation, a power grid.
You then need roads and railways, telegraph systems satellites, ships, etc.
In the Human world you also need and army, an air force and a navy and a
whole arsenal of lethal weaponry to protect your supply lines. and of course
you need to manufacture all that equipment and have it in place before your
simple nut or bolt can come into existence.

So at the end of the day even something as simple as a nut or a bolt
requires the industrial might of a nation or even an empire. And you could
argue industrialisation and the need for raw materials was the one thing
that powered and causation of the British Empire, and it also caused 2 world
wars in the 20th century and killed millions of people, and culminated in
the use of Nuclear Weapons against civilians.

So when you think about it the real price of a simple nut or bolt and the
infrastructure it relies upon is mind blowing.

This is why I would argue VN machines are Science Fiction nonsense.
Technology is not a simple matter of CAD design and making things out of
thin air. It requires a certain size planet, with certain resources, and a
population of a certain size and it also required time, because every piece
of technology we have and the whole infrastructure we have in place is a
result of everything that has happened on this planet since the very
beginning of time, it is also incredibly fragile because without resources
and the people to make the machines in the first place it would die and
given a major cataclysmic planetary disaster we could be plunged back to the
stone age within a couple of generations.

Well I suppose that would limit their options and mean they would
have to remain loyal to humanbeings. Of course they would have to be
intelligent to the point of knowing they couldn't take over the
maufactuing process So staging a mass revolt and declaring war on
their masters would be futile.

As I keep saying. The system would really be no more intelligent than
ProEngineer. The system will be derived from PE and have it and all
the user callable subroutines available.

But Intelligence isn't really the problem. Any form of technology that could
self replicate would need a massive industrial complex behind it, a whole
network of supply and ample resourses. The sustainace of technological
development is impossible without that and it's incredibly fragile.

OTOH Life can replicate and evolve with practically no infrastructure, it
would seem to me some form of genetic engineering would be a more effective
way to create self replicating technologies, or beings which we could use as
slaves. Well slavery is the thing, without slaves or workers there would be
no industrial complex and no technology and it still relies on slavery in
some form or another and I dare say it always will.

-- 
Amanda