I've only skimmed the article but I'd say it's entirely fair. Drexler's nanotechnology vision, in the manner that he described it, is flawed and there is huge hype and misconception about what nanotechnology is. You see it all the time with media outlets constantly attaching artistic impression pictures of microscopic robots onto articles that aren't talking about that at all, most of the time it's just a new type of drug-nanocarrier system.
That's not to say that the wildest dreams of nanotechnology are impossible; medical microbots, self replicating robots, universal assemblers etc. But it's certainly not as simple or mainstream as "nanotech enthusiasts" (for lack of a better term) make it out to be. Professionally I think a lot of people within the field are sick and tired of news and social media misreporting everything to fit within visions laid down by cranks like Kurzweil.
We can't really say what the future will bring. Anyone who thinks they can is either lying or predicting something really simple (or just lucky). So perhaps one day there will be all the stuff Drexler and others have imagined. But it wont operate anything like what we understand today. For example; I can totally see how we might have very advanced bionanotechnology manufacturing in the form of synthetic biology biorefineries. Likewise gene-modified cell therapy could give rise to the type of treatments medical microbots talk are hypothesised to bring. But at the moment it's completely fair to dismiss people who talk about these things as though they are currently or imminently possible.
In terms of OA I think what we have is fine. We posit the development of Drexler-esque nanotechnology as occurring over a very long time scale and we don't go into any real specifics about how it works.
That's not to say that the wildest dreams of nanotechnology are impossible; medical microbots, self replicating robots, universal assemblers etc. But it's certainly not as simple or mainstream as "nanotech enthusiasts" (for lack of a better term) make it out to be. Professionally I think a lot of people within the field are sick and tired of news and social media misreporting everything to fit within visions laid down by cranks like Kurzweil.
We can't really say what the future will bring. Anyone who thinks they can is either lying or predicting something really simple (or just lucky). So perhaps one day there will be all the stuff Drexler and others have imagined. But it wont operate anything like what we understand today. For example; I can totally see how we might have very advanced bionanotechnology manufacturing in the form of synthetic biology biorefineries. Likewise gene-modified cell therapy could give rise to the type of treatments medical microbots talk are hypothesised to bring. But at the moment it's completely fair to dismiss people who talk about these things as though they are currently or imminently possible.
In terms of OA I think what we have is fine. We posit the development of Drexler-esque nanotechnology as occurring over a very long time scale and we don't go into any real specifics about how it works.
OA Wish list:
- DNI
- Internal medical system
- A dormbot, because domestic chores suck!