https://titotal.substack.com/p/diamondoid-bacteria-nanobots-deadly
I wrote this article a month or two ago, thought people here might be interested. Drexler-style nanotech research appears to be effectively dead at the moment.
Oh, and Yudkowsky responded to the article with characteristic obliviousness:
I broadly endorse this reply and have mostly shifted to trying to talk about “covalently bonded” bacteria, since using the term “diamondoid” (tightly covalently bonded CHON) causes people to panic about the lack of currently known mechanosynthesis pathways for tetrahedral carbon lattices.
what an amazing theoretical possibility
“My previous bullshit term didn’t take off, time to try to launch a new one”.
“Covalently bonded bacteria” sounds like something the writers of Star Trek: Voyager would have come up with because they heard that “covalent bond” was a science term but did not know what bacteria are actually made of.