Of course the bigger challenge is logistics. How do you produce 150 billion of anything?
Nanotechnology. Molecular assemblers. Self replication. These things won't be handcrafted! They'll build themselves.
If it takes 1 second to produce 1 drone, that's over 4,700 years to get them all.
Not if millions are being produced simultaneously. You seem to be thinking about this in very conventional terms.
Do you make 3D printers to print other 3D printers to then print these drones? Even at a failure rate of 0.001%, that's 1.5 million drones failing at any given time.
Yes, failure rates would certainly be high as they'll be constantly attacked by the environment. But as long as the replication rate (birth) balances with failure (death), then they'll be ok.
What about costs? $1/drone?
Not even close. After amortization of R&D costs, they'll essentially be free if they can take materials from the environment and self-replicate.
Nanotechnology. Molecular assemblers. Self replication. These things won't be handcrafted! They'll build themselves.
If it takes 1 second to produce 1 drone, that's over 4,700 years to get them all.
Not if millions are being produced simultaneously. You seem to be thinking about this in very conventional terms.
Do you make 3D printers to print other 3D printers to then print these drones? Even at a failure rate of 0.001%, that's 1.5 million drones failing at any given time.
Yes, failure rates would certainly be high as they'll be constantly attacked by the environment. But as long as the replication rate (birth) balances with failure (death), then they'll be ok.
What about costs? $1/drone?
Not even close. After amortization of R&D costs, they'll essentially be free if they can take materials from the environment and self-replicate.