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Replicators are not freeOne of the clichés one hears about nanotechnology is that diamondoid products will be "as cheap as potatoes." Why potatoes? Why not caviar, mahogany wood, orchids, ivory, and pearls? Products produced by natural replicators may be cheap, or they may be rare and expensive. This will also be true for artificial replicators. Whenever someone says something will be free, the question to ask is: why are things not free now? Why are oranges not free, for example, since they grow on trees? Orange trees produce oranges all by themselves, in a certain sense, but they have to be bought at a nursery, planted in a suitable location (the right soil, the right climate), fertilized, watered, protected from insects, etc. And then the oranges have to be picked, put in boxes, shipped to the store, sold... The store has human employees, the trucking company has human employees, the fertilizer company has human employees, the commodities exchange where they deal in orange juice futures has human employees, and so forth. The land, fertilizer, trucks, warehouses, etc. have to be paid for. The orange tree doesn't exist in some separate space by itself. It is part of the economy. That's why oranges are not free. The same considerations would apply to diamond trees, if they existed. If diamonds are made by replicators, that does not imply that they will be free, or as cheap as potatoes. In fact when you go from natural trees to diamond trees, the situation will change for the worse. Natural trees don't require much of an investment. Agricultural land is not expensive. Neither is fertilizer. Agriculture is a fairly low-tech business. A "diamond tree" (i.e. a machine that uses replicating atomic positioners to produce diamonds) will require an enormously complex and expensive environment. Besides, an orange tree doesn't have to be designed. A diamond tree does. (No, don't tell me about Genies!) The nanofactory is going to require an investment, comparable to any other high-tech factory. A chip factory costs in the neighborhood of a billion dollars, and, as I argued in the previous section, a factory that makes use of atomic positioners will cost even more. Its products won't be free, and won't necessarily be cheap. Any organism grows best in a certain optimal environment, which may or may not be easy to create. Some organisms will always be easier to cultivate than others. Some chemical processes will always be easier to set up than others. This is a general fact that isn't going to change just because manufacturing becomes fine-grained all the way to the atomic level, or just because we learn how to create artificial organisms. Some products will come from organisms or processes that push the envelope of what's possible, and these products will be expensive. There will always be expensive products side by side with cheap products. We will always have both designer silk shirts that cost hundreds of dollars, and polyester shirts that are just as good for most purposes, selling for a few dollars. Assume we have molecular manufacturing, in the sense that we can grow (some) products out of diamondoid materials. Nanites assemble them according to our specifications, like ants building an ant hill according to the specifications that are wired into them. These nanites are going to require programming and design, just like any other fine-grained apparatus. Some programmers and designers will do their jobs supremely well, and produce masterpieces of whatever they are making. Other programmers and designers will give less attention to their tasks, and they will produce cheaper, generic diamondoid products (some of which may indeed be as cheap as potatoes). The economy will continue to adjust itself so that typical working people can afford typical mass-market products, and wealthier people can afford carriage-trade products. Artificial replicators will emerge within the same capitalist economy that we live in now. Factories will still be factories. They will require elaborate buildings and millions of dollars' worth of specialized equipment. They will employ nanotechnologists (or biotechnologists) with rare and expensive skills. Factories will still be owned by investors who want to get their investment back. They will produce products for the market, and buy inputs from the market. In other words the advent of molecular technology will merely be an adjustment within the existing economy. The economy itself won't cease to exist. |