Talk:Gray goo/Archive 1

Deffense against goo?
Has any noteable person suggested a deffense against this hypothetical scenario? I'd think that all you need is a really big magnet or electromagnetic weapons. Or.. if we had the technology to develop this "goo", we'd certainly ALSO have the technology to create a goo-killing nanobot. Of course this is just speculation so I'm wondering if there have been any noteable critics of the goo scenario. 99.246.109.131 (talk) 22:04, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Doomsday Device
Doomsday device points to MAD, which is not exactly correspondent. My understanding of doomsday device is as an outlandish device meant to bring on world devastation or destruction. While MAD certainly qualifies, it is not the only member of the set of potential doomsday devices ("grey goo" being another, etc.). I found this cross-reference singularly unhelpful. Anyone else want to comment? Baryonyx 20:37, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)

NPOV?
However, it should be noted that it is unlikely that nanotechnology will be capable of creating grey goo at all.

Who believes that? Certain nanotechnology advocates and/or researchers? Doesn't it need to be contextualized so it is NPOV? Even if it really is unlikely, it's not for Wikipedia to decide the facts of the matter, but to report the differing views on the subject. Jdavidb 14:30, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Biologists would certainly believe that. We're studying existing nanoreplicators today. They've been evolving for millions of years. They've covered the entire planetary surface with a greenish kind of goo. :-)
 * These new fangled nanoreplicators which might be made by humans are welcome to try to invade the ecosystem. But I'm very skeptical. The first self-replicators made by humans have been made out of RNA. The story goes that all you need to do is *touch* the solution those replicators live in, and an enzyme called RNAse from your fingertip will rip through and destroy the entire system.
 * Many organisms have mechanisms with which they hunt down and destroy anything that's dangerous to them, or they learn to resist it *really* quickly.
 * Biological adaptation rates are simply amazing, and you wouldn't believe it until you actually see it. Entire nano-scale wars are fought over, under and through your body every day. Immunology is one of the coolest subjects I've ever learnt about. I think you can easily compare an immunology book with Jane's Defence Weekly, with the immunology coming off looking rather good.
 * So knowing that, I think the day the grey goo escapes, it's going to have a really hard day.
 * Kim Bruning 23:21, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't know if this kind of commentary is appropriate, but the 'wild car' statement seems to ignore some of the fundamental requirements of nanotechnology. In order for a holographic (the whole in the part) technological structures to work, they need to have a certain amount of loose programming, that is, self-correcting autonomy. In this way, it does not seem unreasonable that the collective program of the nanotechnology will make decisions that result in dangerous conditions. Unless every eventuality is programmed in the hardware, the nanotechnology may find a very creative solution to a problem, a solution that may be harmful to people.


 * I'm very sceptical about that. I think it'd take thousands of years to catch up. Kim Bruning 15:16, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Green goo origin
This was just added to the article:
 * The term originates from the science fiction classic, Soylent Green.
 * (SPOILER WARNING!!! If you want to see the movie Soylent green, dont read on) Soylent green has nothing to do with nanotech goo. It was food made of dead humans, not some nanotech that was introduced into the world. It was just that the human race started to recycle old humans into food. For more see the movie page Soylent green.

It surprised me since I had thought that the term was instead a reference to environmentalism, specifically to the "deep green" movement that advocates drastic reduction of human population. I have no source for that, though, so I'm bringing it up here in Talk: to see what others think. Bryan 00:57, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * A possible origin of "green goo": Nick Szabo, Green Goo message Astudent 12:24, 2004 Aug 7 (UTC)

Golden goo
I've removed the last sentence from the following: ''Golden Goo is the backfiring of a get-rich-quick scheme to assemble gold or other economically valuable substance. The details are left to the imagination.'' This is supposed to be an encyclopaedia, not an exercise in imagination - it is supposed to inform and impart facts, not hint at ideas.


 * I think that's a very interesting topic to add to this seeing as how it's hypothetical. However, such things should be put at the end of the article because they would interfere with the topic at hand. --Cyberman 07:08, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


 * This is stupid. Gold can't be assembled on a nano-scale. To produce gold you would need atom core fusion, which is completely different to assembling molecules out of atoms

Consumption And Competition Against Organic Life
It seems to me that inorganic  (perhaps silicon-based)  grey goo could use organic compounds for energy from organic life assembling itself from dissolved minerals. This grey goo would consume organic life, yet be inedible to organic life. It would consume all eukaryotic life, leaving rapidly reproducing bacteria with whom it would exist in a predator/prey-like balance. -- &#364;alabio 07:42, 2005 Jan 6 (UTC)


 * This strategy isn't going to come cheaply, though. The grey goo organisms will need to expend a great deal of energy refining the raw inorganic materials in their environment and converting it into the forms it needs, since none of it comes in pre-catabolized form like organic compounds do. Furthermore, the preyed-upon bacteria can potentially develop defences against whatever means the grey goo uses to attack it, even if they can't feed on the goo itself - it's all chemical warfare at that scale, and bacteria are good at that sort of thing. I don't think this is necessarily an automatic win for the goo. And BTW, please refrain from overlinking like that; links like those are rarely necessary in talk: pages and clutter things up rather messily. Bryan 09:05, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * I apologize for overlinking. I thought that linking is the wikiway.  It seems to me that if organic life can make hard mineral parts from ions dissolved in water, so could artificial lifeforms.  Even if bacteria could fight back  (sheep fight back, but lions are not extinct),  eukaryotic life would be extinct.  Maybe intelligent life will evolve from the grey goo.  If individuals in religious groups would descended from grey goo clame intelligent design they would be right.  ;-)  Grey goo as an Omega Technology could explain the Fermi paradox.  Soon a Wesley Crusher working on a project for school could accidently destroy the world.   -- &#364;alabio 06:57, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)


 * Linking in the articles is, but not so much in talk pages since they're not intended for a general audience. Also, linking "and" is almost never relevant. :) When you are deciding whether to add a link for a word, consider whether the reader is likely to find it useful to read more about what's linked to as a way to help him understand the current subject. Manual of Style (links) and Make only links relevant to the context have more on this.


 * Anyway, regarding grey goo with inorganic materials, I'm not saying that I think it's impossible. However, I do think it's a rather large assumption that they'll be able to do so significantly easier than biological life does - at least, not without a whole heck of a lot of very dedicated design work. Diatoms have shells made of calcium carbonate or of silica glass, but they're still easily preyed upon by other eukaryotes and tend not to do much predation themselves. Lichens break down solid granite over time for its mineral content. Basically, life on Earth has spent four and a half billion years evolving ways to eat and ways to avoid being eaten, and I think it'll take more than a school project to come up with something dramatically better. Bryan 08:12, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Diatoms do not eat other lifeforms because the are autotrophs. Other organic lifeforms consume them because the are organic lifeforms.  Let us go back to first principles for a second:


 * Diatoms are autotrophs for a reason. How does one eat something when you're encased in solid armor? How would one come up with enough metabolic energy to both synthesize that heavy armor and run around killing prey, especially in competition with predators that don't bother synthesizing armor? Building grey goo primarily out of inorganic compounds is going to be very metabolically expensive for the grey goo. Bryan 07:03, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Under the right conditions, complex organic compounds form. (Miller-Urey experiment) With the right catalysts such as clay colloids, chains a few dozen monomers long, can make crude copies of themselves. A few hundred million years of chemical evolution, would yield metabolism  (catabolism and anabolism),  autonomous reproduction, a membrane separating the inside from the outside, and a specialized informational molecule which carries instructions for making itself and other kinds of molecules.

Grey goo is basically machines which copy themselves. They cannot spontaneously arise because someone has to make them. Once made, they can make themselves.

The grey goo I envision is little machines, a few microns across. They eat organic compounds for using the hydrogen-ions for powering fuel-cells. It would use the energy for assembling new machines. Unlike the diatoms, these machine-organisms would have almost no organics to eat '''  --  they would be top predators. ' Someone who comes into contact with these machines would be eaten away like necrotizing fasciitis  (the immune-system would be useless against the grey goo, as would maggot-therapy, and antibiotic). '' Ecophagic grey goo would consume al mcroscopic life and most microscopic life with the exception of some bacteria which reproduce faster than the grey goo would eat them. The grey goo would love diatoms because the organics are an excellent source of energy while the glass-skeleton is a nearly pure source of silicon. --	&#364;alabio 02:18, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)


 * The problem is that you're simply defining these grey goo machines to have these characteristics without actually getting into the details of how these characteristics are possible. It's all well and good to say "grey goo can consume organic life but can't be consumed or killed by it in turn", but unless you go into some detail about why that's the case you might as well say "grey goo can use antigravity to fly to the Moon and turn lead into gold." How exactly do these grey goo machines eat living organisms? What enzyme-analogues do they use to break down organic molecules, what receptor-analogues do they use to recognize and bind to their prey, what mechanism is used for taking the material in? These are all chemical processes that are amenable to being defended against by organic life forms, since they're things that organic life forms have been doing to each other since time immemorial. You're going to have to come up with some novel mechanism that is better than what current life has available in order to resoundingly defeat it, and that's also metabolically cheap enough to make a "profit" for a self-replicating predator using it. I have yet to see any convincing proposals for such from nanotech proponents. Bryan 07:03, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * I imagine that the nanitic machine-organisms would mechanically draw into themselves cells which which they would grindup and feed to the fuelcells. I know that some fuelcells can run off of hydrogen, hydrocarbons, or alcohols.  It seems that these fuelcells could power the grey goo.

--

&#364;alabio 10:37, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)


 * I think what's going to happen is that the nanotechnological devices will have gastrobotics that can consume carbon based lifeforms. Not only will they be able to consume carbon based lifeforms but they will also be able to find a way to sort out the other minerals, metals, elements into a section or assembled way to duplicate their being. Through gastrobotics a nanobot could certainly power itself to do more. Seeing as how many bacteria are based off a type of carbohydrate system, nanotechnology would most likely eat the bacteria first and then duplicate to take on stronger lifeforms as it duplicates. I don't think it would gain intelligence, but it would certainly have natural intelligence for its electrons to figure out that it should take the work of the next best thing that allows them to power themselves for energy consumption.

bacteria>plants>animals>human is how i see their foodchain which is quite scary when looking at it twice because it seems to be in the divine order. I don't know if they would be able to go against plants versus humans as easily because the lifeforms are very different. But I would consider the idea of the nanobots becoming a type of flesh eating disease, such a thing would take time as they duplicated. I figure once the nanobots obtains enough resources through chemical breakdown and seperation, it will be programmed to replicate itself and program the other nanobot as well. Whether or not the nanobots will stick together is undecided. The intelligence for them to follow one another like an army of ants would have to be inserted. The question is, would they part or stick together so they could consume more things at once with teamwork? --Cyberman 07:25, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Fictional depiction vs Bibilography
I just drastically shortened some of the "fictional depiction" entries. Still, they seem to have a lot in common with the bibliography; maybe the sections should be merged. Phaunt 14:38, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Virus: Bio vs. Mecha
I see in this article discussion about how the nanobot's grey goo theory could be put to the example of a biological virus. This is all nice and stuff, and I understand that viruses have been around the Earth for billions of years. Despite that, those are biological viruses not mechanical viruses. We have created medicinal treatments and cures for bioligical conditions that harm animals and plants, but yet, there aren't many cures or treatments for an unpredicted mechanical attack from nanotechnology. There's a difference between carbon based lifeforms and something that runs off of metallic resources. You can't simply kill a robot with a shot of pennacillin. If they were to be a virus, it would be hard to get rid of them. Perhaps there would be a way to disarm the metallic creatures from doing what they were programmed to do, but getting them out of the body would be a different story. --Cyberman 07:34, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


 * No, this is completely wrong. A virus is ALWAYS organic, because it is produced by organic cells. Grey goo in contrast are more like bacteria. They search raw material and use it to construct copies of themselves.

Irreducible complexity?

 * However, some proponents of nanotechnology argue that it is possible nanomachines could be developed that are able to outcompete natural life through the use of novel chemical processes that life would be unable to develop via natural evolution due to irreducible complexity.

Is it a good idea to include psuedoscience as an argument against without mentioning that it is indeed considered psuedoscience? --204.210.200.251 21:21, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * IMO it's only pseudoscience when it's being applied to naturally-evolved organisms that aren't actually irreducibly complex. Since self-replicating nanotechnology would be unambiguously an "intelligently designed" organism, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that it might include design features that wouldn't be able to evolve in the conventional way. Bryan 22:04, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

.... Since the neurological pathways and physical components of the human body run off many chemical attributes that keep a balance within the human body through many pathways, it could be possible to create an electrical system with chemical attributes in a robotic system that would allow a robot to actually think like a human. The only thing that really messes up all of this science is the fact that humans are analog and robots are digital. We can evolve to unlimited possibilities keeping intune with universal physics. Robots are somewhat limited UNTIL they can find a way to tune into the universal physical laws thus finding an infinite attribute to unlimit themselves to.. but god hope that doesn't happen cause we'd be screwed. --Cyberman 11:07, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * WTF? 202.180.83.6 06:50, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Removal of irreducible complexity argument
Fuzzform removed the paragraph regarding irreducible complexity on 30 November, describing it as "unscientific and baseless foolery". I don't see this: the argument seems to be a good one to me. Evolution is (roughly) a hill climbing algorithm, and is therefore subject to the same problem of local maxima that that class of algorithm is. The term "irreducibly complex" is a good and intuitive one for the otherwise difficult to understand "local maximum that is difficult to reach due to being completely surrounded in the fitness landscape by local minima". It is unfortunate that its association with the intelligent design movement has caused it to be viewed in such a negative light, but this does not mean that any use of it is automatically unscientific or baseless.

That said, I have been unable to locate a verifiable source for the possibilities that such designs will allow nanotech devices to perform better than biological equivalents, so I haven't added it back in. Does anyone know of such a source? If so, please restore the paragraph and add a reference to it. JulesH 20:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

'Mataglap?' I don't recall such an Indonesian word...
... referred to as "mataglap", from an Indonesian word meaning "dilated eye" (referring to the look on one's face when they go berserk).

As far as my life experience with the language could enlighten me, I have not encountered the word "mataglap" in any work of Indonesian writing, neither scientific nor humanistic, technical nor literary. Perhaps I haven't been reading enough required-reading novels in grade school...

But the phrase "mata gelap" is often used (at least as recently as the early eighties, during the last days of 'classic' Indonesian cinema) as an adjective to describe the state of being blind to reason and/or totally controlled by irrational (often hostile) emotions. Clouded eye, or clouded judgement, if you will.

Now how to integrate this information into the article, in understandable English... --Lemi4 17:50, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The spelling error, if that's what it is, is entirely Walter Jon William's. His personal FAQ clearly states that he intended the word to refer to some Indonesian expression meaning "Dark eye," or "Dilated Eye." "Cloudy eye" would seem to be in the same vein, so I think Mata Gelap is what he was thinking of. Maybe add a stronger reference to "Walter Jon William's opinion is that Mataglap means..." But how much do we want to dwell on that one book? I love it, but that's no excuse.

Tarbox --216.12.72.26 18:04, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I know this is silly..
But under the fiction heading shouldn't we have Star Trek's "Trouble with Tribbles" as a type of goo? Just a question/suggestion. JoeHenzi 23:09, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * They're not microscopic and they're not artificial, which are two of the major defining characteristics of the various goos on this page (except pink goo, I should add a note to that one mentioning it's an exception). If simply being "rampantly self-replicating" was enough to qualify as goo, then kudzu could belong here too. I think that'd be stretching the definition a bit far. Bryan 15:37, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

is black hole consider a grey goo?
im puzzled, is black hole also a grey goo?


 * I don't see how it could be, it's not a machine and it doesn't reproduce. Bryan 17:12, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also : grey goo is matter (nanoparticles) when black holes are -commonly defined as- a lack of matter. grosmarcel 17:16, 1 Feb 2006 (CET)


 * Though I have never heard that definition of a black hole before and don't really see how it applies, so I'd doubt the "commoness" of it. :) Bryan 16:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Interesting discussion Grey goo impossible due to energy problems
I had not come across an article that analysed the energy side of the story as far as Grey goo is concerned. This guy have written an interesting and detailed discussion of the problems that would hinder any attempt to lanch a successful Grey goo. It worth a read. 


 * Grass is an excellent grey goo. One of the toughest, meanest replicators out there. Um, but it hasn't quite conquered the planet yet. :-) Kim Bruning 19:41, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Viruses and Bacteria
The page suggested that you should "consider viruses as the most perfect example of nanotechnology"... which isn't a reasonable comparison as viruses are not capable of self replication, but rely on subverting a host organism's cell division to reproduce. I changed the link to point to bacteria, which are self replicating. JulesH 21:24, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I think that comparing nano-computerized self-replicating autonomous bacteria to the bacteria that naturally evolved on this planet in balance with the rest of the life cycle is moderstely absurd. The reasoning should be self-evident. -thelxepeia


 * Could you make the reasoning explicit anyway? It's not self-evident to me, nor do I see why it should be. It's not like naturally evolved life forms "deliberately" seek some sort of balance with the rest of the life cycle (not sure what that means for that matter), and Earth is severely chemically imbalanced as a result of the life on it. Bryan 00:00, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Lost?
I don't recall any references to 'organic grey goo' in the television series Lost...can anyone provide a citation? --prefers to remain numbered, Nov 9th 2005, 16:29 PST

Revision as of 07:41, 23 June 2005 seems to have added 'Watch Lost on ABC.', which seems to have evolved into the reference seen in more recent revisions, by a well-meaning editor who wasn't familiar with the show. I follow the show and haven't seen any references to organic grey goo (although I see how it could be speculated upon given the events of the show). Unless the show presents something more appropriately encyclopedic, I'm going to remove the reference, if nobody minds. --SleepyHappyDoc 02:32, 13 November 2005 (UTC) (oh, and I signed up for an account since I posted the question a few days ago...that's not a sock puppet above, just me before I logged in.)

Useless info
This article is full of random information that has nothing to do with the hypothetical idea of grey goo. For instance, the grammatically incorrect and non-pertinent paragraph ending with: "some proponents of molecular nanotechnology argue that artificial nanomachines might be able to outcompete natural life because they could have irreducibly complex designs that life could not have developed via natural evolution."

I would be interested to know who these proponents are, and whether or not they operate out of the basement of a church. Also, note that machines (and thus nanomachines) are made to specifications set forth by humans. It would be ridiculous to try to argue that Ford's auto plant is irreducibly complex, therefore irreducible complexity has no place in engineering whatsoever. I'm going to go ahead and delete this foolery. Fuzzform 00:35, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstand it. I'm pretty certain it wasn't written by someone operating "out of the basement of a church" because the underlying assumption is that nothing natural is irreducibly complex (i.e., the primary thrust of the intelligent design argument is wrong) but that some human designed things are, therefore human design might be able to produce something "better" than evolution can.
 * It makes perfect sense to me in this form. And why would it be ridiculous to argue that an auto plant is irreducibly complex?  It would be a very sensible stance to take in an argument if your opponent was suggesting that making cars can't be done, because it isn't something that occurs in nature.  The point is that it's too complex to evolve by itself, therefore it must be engineered.  It's the same argument used by the intelligent design movement, only applied to things that really are designed, not evolved.
 * But -- I haven't added it back in because in order to do so, we should at least have some idea of who "some proponents" are. I haven't been able to find them with a quick search. JulesH 14:40, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

bacteria is life?
Dacoutts, thanks for your work adding references to this article. Could you clarify what Margulis and Sagan meant by "bacteria is life"? Surely no one would deny that bacteria is a form of life. Did they mean to claim that bacteria is the only important form of life? --Allen 02:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's a fuller quote

"One legitimate answer to the question 'What is life?' is 'bacteria'. Any organism, if not itself a live bacterium, is then a descendant - one way or another - of a bacterium or, more likely, mergers of several kinds of bacteria. Bacteria initially populated the planet and have never relinquished their hold." --Couttsie 02:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Couttsie. I've edited that section in a way that makes it seem clearer to me.  Let me know what you think.  --Allen 02:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the word I'm looking for is "excellent"

--Couttsie 09:29, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Prince Charles
I wonder if anyone knows the exact brilliant quote by Prince Charles on nanotechnology and grey goo, about us not being able to rely on natural chance? --Adam7davies 18:01, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Pink goo
I object to the term "Pink goo." Isn't it somewhat racially biased? I contend that humanity of every shade is equally capable of destroying the Earth. :-) Serendipodous 09:31, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Ha, just what I came to this page to say... "pink goo" sounds like the kind of thing Wade W. Nobles, the professor (used generously) at S.F. State, would call those of us he thinks of as evil, melanin-deficient mutants. Then again, can't call it "rainbow goo" since that not only sounds all too friendly, but rather like something from the far right anti-homosexual scare. Oh well, I guess I won't bother to lose any sleep over it, though it does seem to have taken over, whatever we call it. --Fitzhugh 21:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

You could always think of it as referring to the fleshy insides of the person, rather than the skin color.

Mutlicoloured goo
The various other shades of goo appear to have been unreferenced for a long time and seem to be in neologism territory. The article is also about grey goo, not assorted goos. I'm removing them from the piece per WP:V, if a source indicating the relevance of any of the other goos and their relevance to the topic of grey goo can be established, I'd have no problem. If other goos are notable but unrelated to this topic, consider creating a new page.  Dei zio  talk 23:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Origin of the actual term
There are a couple of good Drexler quotes in the section talking about the origin of the term, but that section needs a quote where he actually uses the term 'grey goo'.

I'm removing the Ayn Rand quote about the world having turned to goo because, although it is a cool quote, no relevance to nanotech grey goo is claimed. Tempshill 16:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

"Replicators"
The Replicators article is linked several times from this page, but that one talks about an artificial race of the Stargate movie/series. However, the Replicator article seems to talk about the right thing. What should/can be done about this? Vegard 06:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I changed the "Replicators" redirect to go to "Replicator" instead, and disambiguated the one link here that was meant to go to the Stargate article instead. I'm going through other articles that linked to replicators and disambiguating those links too. Bryan 07:02, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What about the episode where the Replicators, stuck in a time displacement field, transform a whole world into replicator blocks. This article should mention that some where, maybe in the grey goo in science fiction section.  I know those blocks were not nano sized, but rather the large ones.  I would add it myself but I cannot find the episodes that this took place in.
 * By the way grey goo in science fiction should simpley be titled Science fiction based on | heading rules(IRMacGuyver 23:08, 8 November 2007 (UTC))

List of doomsday scenarios
Could use votes to save this article, thanks MapleTree 22:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[sic]?
Take the following QUOTE:

"Thus the firsti replicator assembles a copy in one thousand seconds, the two replicators then build two more in thel next thousand seconds, the four build another four, and the eight build another eight. At the end of tein hours, there are not thirty-six new replicators, but over 68 billion. In less than a day, they would wkeigh a ton; in less than two days, they would outweigh the Earth; in another four hours, they would eexceed the mass of the Sun and all the planets combined - if the bottle of chemicals hadn't run dry longg before."

"firsti"? "thel"? "tein"? "wkeigh"? "eexceed"? "longg"? Are these all spelling errors in the original quote, or did the person who typed this somehow make so many mistakes? Thanks. -- RattleMan 01:29, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Just plain old vandalism. --Bisqwit 14:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Awesome. By the way, I love your tool-assisted speedrun page. I really enjoy it. -- RattleMan 18:16, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Sea of dirac?
the concept of dirac sea in the animated Neon genesis evangelion "end and rebirth" is quite similar in funtionality to the grey goo. would anyone like to add it on the main page. 202.63.229.194 16:06, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Humans as goo
What about all the humans who have been growing so much lately? The term seems to fit them adequately. Are there any references to humans being the goo? --Amit 17:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Grey goo in fiction
I have forked out the lengthy list of fictional references to a new article. Antony-22 07:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Bringing back the multi-colored goos....
Here is a source that can be used to justify the inclusion of the various "other" goos (blue, green, red, etc.) in the article. Feel free to use it. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 18:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

WE'RE THE GOO, PEOPLE.
Self-replicating? Destroying the environment? Spreading out of control? Sounds like grey goo to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.63.22.223 (talk) 16:56, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Old entries
The most interesting part of this page used to be the reference to other types of goo. If they are not going to be listed here anymore, they deserve their own article. This page should have section containing a link directed to this collection.

I think this talk page should be split up into section links. --Cyberman 07:27, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

self-replicating robots and Von Neumann machines are not synonymous, so the reference in brackets is misleading and needs qualifying in some way.

I'm undecided as to whether to just delete the other "goo"'s. Are they common (and thus worth NPOVing) or just somebody's idiosyncratic turns of phrase? --Robert Merkel


 * I've seen blue goo referenced in other places, often enough that I think you could use it amongst science fiction fans and expect many of them to understand what you're talking about. Khaki goo, too, I have heard before. As for the others, well, kryptonite lists all the known colors, so why not here too? :) I think this article needs to make it clearer that the "grey goo" doomsday scenario is not very realistic, however; grey goo is a form of chemical life just like the one that's been evolving on Earth for billions of years, and so is not likely to have some dramatic and overwhelming advantage over what we've already got. Too often, people imagine nanotech as having magical abilities. Bryan


 * I get Tokerboy's point about putting Pink Goo ahead of Green Goo. Kind of spoils the punchline though... ;) -Nommo


 * "Pink Goo" and "Green Goo" seem to be violating NPOV, and do not really refer to gray goo in the sense that the previous entries do. They seem to be terms more specific to Greg Bear's novel, and as such probably belong in a seperate entry. Alba 22:07, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This article seems to me to be seriously violating NPOV (advancing some rather suspicious arguments against the grey goo hypothesis without giving any attention to the counterarguments). For example, I don't see anything limiting the worst-case grey goo scenario to the milky way, as opposed to the entire universe (or, on a nearly historic timescale, the local group).

I believe the whole text starting from "However, it should" and ending with "indigenous life" should be deleted, or clearly marked as a summary of arguments against the possibility of a grey goo accident. The following arguments should probably be clearly marked as suspicious:
 * "not a lot of energy out of eating inorganic matter". Considering coal (if you would count that as inorganic) alone could generate sufficient energy for humanity for a number of years, it should be considered "a lot of energy" for most purposes
 * "competing with natural life forms ... resources". This seems to suggest that it would be unlikely for nanotechnological replicators to achieve higher efficiency in using sunlight than chlorophyll-based life can.  I seem to remember that some photoelectric cells are more efficient than chlorophyll today, so that suggestion would be misguided.  It is also not mentioned that organic processes are fundamentally handicapped in which processes they can use to derive energy from organic matter without destroying themselves.  When burning wood, human technology competes against all sorts of wood-eating bacteria, but we win because we can use a high-temperature reaction, for example.

Sorry if this got a bit long.


 * Coal is not inorganic, it is an organic compound (being mostly carbon). Calling it "inorganic" contradicts Organic_chemistry.

thats ok long is good by me :) HEY maybe sombody should google "smart dust" ;) its not science fiction so much anymore.

--TravisBarker --Prumpf 10:44, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * A valid criticism, I'll take a crack at NPOVing the article tonight. I don't agree with your objections, but they should be noted anyway. :) Bryan 23:53, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I like all those goofy goo-color explanations. Please leave them there.8)

Would HIV/AIDS qualify as a fine model for green goo? Besides, scarcely disguised- Goo has taken over already a lot of power on the internet..yes you guessed it.. the undefiable GOOgle-machine that lead me straight to you people, wuuhahahaha.

Veerle**No worries, you can always trust your the Goo-vernment** van Mansfeld

btw PIIIIIIINK is my fay-vah-ridd collah :D.

It has started.
Macro-scale self-replication has begun. See article at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080605211522.htm. The end has begun. &mdash; Eric Herboso 18:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

اليمن صنعاء اليمن —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.64.16.214 (talk) 04:25, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

This article has gone downhill
This article was a lot more informative a couple of years ago, but since then it's been shrunk down to barely a stub. Check out this revision from 2008: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grey_goo&oldid=184298949 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.78.240.7 (talk) 23:16, 8 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow. Looks like entire sections were blanked by IP users in 2008 here and here and here.  The users who reverted the vandalism didn't bother to sort through the edits and failed to restore them.  I'll restore the sections&mdash;thanks for bringing this to my attention.  Antony-22 (talk) 05:34, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Green goo?
The page Green goo redirects here, but there is no mention of the term here (except of three links in Further reading section). I think that either the redirect should be removed or it should be explained here what it is. Svick (talk) 20:31, 7 May 2009 (UTC) the beginning of photosynthetic life killed pretty much everything else that was anaerobically eating whatever was lying around at the time Zaphraud (talk)

What about entropy?
I think that this scenario: "all of the matter in the universe could be turned into goo (with "goo" meaning a large mass of replicating nanomachines lacking large-scale structure") violates the second law of thermodynamics, as nanomachines are significantly more complex than almost all of the universe.

There's no "Movie" section for fictional depictions, but Mission Impossible III should be on that list if there is one.


 * Presumably a large percentage of the universe's matter would be converted into energy (with attendant entropy) rather than into more nanomachines, so there would be no second law violation. Dysfunction (talk) 04:33, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

um
so the entry itself almost doesn't even describe the concept well, doesn't discuss how others have discussed it, and is 90% pop culture references. given that there have been lots of serious papers about whether grey goo is possible, probable, etc., surely this entry could be rewritten and de-crufted. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:39, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Overzealous deletion of Sci-fi examples?
I think the recent deletion of all examples from science fiction is a bit too heavy-handed. Most of the examples referred to articles, and from what I can see, those articles commonly do establish the facts mentioned about the source material here. I am not advocating using wikipedia as its own source, but just noting that there are sources for most of this - they just aren't mentioned in the bottom of this article. I personally do not believe wikipedia would be improved if we took a week out to delete everything which is not sourced. And I certainly do not think we should delete outright the stuff which is not sourced properly in the right articles, but for which sources do exist. I say reinstate the examples based on good articles - people can check those articles if they have doubts about the veracity of the claims here. And that is really the standard, isn't it? Verifiability? (All that said, some of the examples were... less than noteworthy). Lundse (talk) 19:05, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Did anyone notice how they also didn't mention a poignant example of this from pop-culture media?? There was no mention of the "replicators", which featured prominently in several seasons of Stargate SG-1. These machines are a great example of this idea of self-replicating machines and some of the "possible" outcomes of such an "outbreak" are depicted in many episodes of this TV show. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.104.118.52 (talk) 20:45, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

SG-1 would be a fair addition to the 'in fiction' section, as it seems like it would be more recognizable to the broader populace than some of the examples that are there now. If the article is going to reference mangas and video games, it might as well mention the cartoons Gargoyles (the episode "Walkabout" focuses on an all consuming nanotechnological grey goo unleashed in Australia) and Justice League Unlimited (Season 1, Ep10, "Dark Heart", which presented the possibility of an extraterrestrial weapon run rampant). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.82.96.108 (talk) 01:54, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

self-replicating?
I have heard the theory of a robot programmed to make two copies of itself, half its size, out of any available materials, with the same instruction. That would not be self-replication, so is the mention of self-replication necessary?--Richardson mcphillips (talk) 16:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

REASON I REMOVED TAG OF MERGE
"However, the word "ecophagy" is now applied more generally in reference to any event—nuclear war, the spread of monoculture, massive species extinctions—that might fundamentally alter the planet." Because of that quote, you can't merge the articles. You could edit this article to focus on the now more general reference, but not merge with the specific goo article. Beam 16:38, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Prince Charles?
I thought it was Prince Charles who, although not necessarily inventing the term, certainly brought it into the mainstream during a speech about the onslaught of nanotech and GMOs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.6.35.235 (talk) 02:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

This already happened
Consider removing the word "hypothetical" because this has already happened once - at the beginning of photosynthetic life. So really, the only thing hypothetical about the scenario as it is presented in the article is the color "grey" - when it actually happened, the goo was green! Zaphraud (talk) 05:49, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The term grey goo only applies to non-biological machines. Biological cells don't count. Rreagan007 (talk) 20:07, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I've heard the term "green goo" being used to refer to bioengineered graygoo. --TiagoTiago (talk) 05:00, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Clanking replicator
What is the relation between this article and Clanking replicator? Why does neither of them mention the other, and in fact, should they be merged? Shreevatsa (talk) 08:25, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Or, for that matter, why not include reference to the "Replicators" from Stargate: SG-1? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.51.32.147 (talk) 04:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Are humans a form of grey goo, or is grey goo a specialized form of a larger concept?
Grey goo is..."a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario [involving molecular nanotechnology] in which out-of-control self-replicating [robots] consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves, a scenario known as ecophagy ("eating the environment")."

Omit the qualifier "involving molecular nanotechnology" and replace "robots" with a more generic term like "entities", and is there a name for the concept? Under this concept, humans might qualify as a possible entity. Humans are consuming an exponentially increasing subset of the biosphere. If there is a separate concept for what I'm getting at perhaps it should be mentioned and linked here, to distinguish that concept from the more specialized concept called "grey goo". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.49.8.237 (talk) 21:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The term 'Grey goo' is strictly a nanotech apocalypse.  If you can find reliable sources (Reliable_sources that suggest a more general concept, go for it!  Guyonthesubway (talk) 01:51, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Macroscopic Grey goo?
The conventional definition of grey goo being microscopic artificial self-replicating consumers, is there an equivalent term for a macroscopic variety? The specific example that makes me ask is the Slylandro probe from Star Control 2, which, due to a programming error, seek materials for replication above all else, even if those materials come from a starship holding alien life. The game postulates that, within just a few years, millions of these probes will inhabit the galaxy, with the number growing exponentially. They seem to fit all of the criteria for grey goo (artificial, self-replicating, consuming all, able to snuff out life) save one (being microscopic). Could grey goo even include such constructs that are macroscopic? --74.192.54.152 (talk) 16:03, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Self-replicating machine is the more general term, but I don't think it would be considered grey goo unless it were nanotechnological. All the sources in this article seem to be talking specifically about uncontrolled proliferation of nanorobots.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 17:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Computing. adding the character "Agent Smith" from the Matrix.
After reading the computing section of this article, it seems that Agent Smtih fits the profile of a "Grey Goo", since he 1) continues to copy himself, and 2) uses this to take over, and control the matrix, and 3) threatens to crash the matrix system, thus affecting the real world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gizziiusa (talk • contribs) 07:04, 26 November 2011 (UTC)