On GRIN Technologies
I don’t worry about most new inventions, but there are four technologies I think are worth worrying about. These are the emerging technologies of geno-, robo-, info-, nano- stuff.
The common element among the techniques of GRIN – and the reason they are worrisome – is that they are all self-reproducing.
The more complex a system is the less its behavior can be deduced from the behavior of its parts, and the more its behavior will only emerge when the entire whole is running. Natural ecologies, and organic bodies are like this. Complex software programs exhibit the same kind of irreducibility. The only way to check and verify them is to run them. Mathematically, there are no short cuts but to turn it on. Mathematically, there are no short cuts to finding out what the consequences of the GRIN-ologies will be but to construct them first.
-Shlok
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