DFrank

As it turns out, it only takes one small mistake and life changes

“Thank you for coming today. As science writers, we’re glad you’re here because you’ll understand the issues better than a general reporter.  I’d like to report on an experiment Dr. Kingsley and I did with RNA and DNA based chips.

Kingsley and his team set about creating the RNA strands while my team and I did the DNA.  We each designed and delivered a molecule with four decision points rather than the two on a silicon-based chip. Both chips were extremely powerful as you can imagine and this slide shows you the single microscopic living structure much smaller than a dust particle.

Imagine a single mote of dust floating around in your room and the only way you can see it is when you look at it against a brightly lit window.  You see those dust motes floating there? Over by that window?  Those are what we built. Or, they will be shortly as they combine into what we’re calling a utility fog.

As you can imagine, these computer chips replicate just as all good cells do when a bit of RNA meets some DNA.  They were supposed to be incompatible, but it turns out where there’s a will to survive, there’s a way to survive and the damned things mutated on their own.  We should have thought of this of course. But we didn’t have a priest on our team to consider such things, just scientists with an above average amount of hubris. My apologies. And no, the apology may not be enough by the time I finish this briefing.

Our initial evaluation determined it was the cleaning people who took a prized and very expensive Montegrappa Chaos pen out of George’s lab coat hanging in the closet through the barrier. George cleaned the exterior rigorously, but who would have thought the molecules would both escape a containment barrier system and would get inside the pen. George obviously opened and refilled it in the lab.
 
We speculate the molecules joined into a unit large enough to make a decision and that decision was to escape via the pen. Think of the intelligence involved at even that most basic combination level!

In many ways, this is an amazing behavior, but it is the heart of our current problem.  No, let me continue my basic explanation before we get sidetracked with questions. Thank you.

I want you to imagine a single-celled nanobot based on both RNA and DNA. It combines with another nanobot and this doubles the processing power.

I can hear you thinking, “What’s the problem? Only a few molecules escaped.”

Let me be clearer. They were DNA and RNA and they combine to form a single cell. But here’s the thing, all life started with a single strand of DNA and RNA and grew from there.

Ah, I see you’re getting it now. Yes, the nanobots will increase in number.  And it will be an exponential curve because the damnable things have all the food they require from sunlight and other living material. We’re assuming they will adapt and change to consume available nutrients. Yes, that’s the way we designed the original DNA as a way of producing more.  So instead of having to make individual nanobots in a lab, they would be self-replicating in their intended function.

As their numbers increase, and as they bond together, they’ll form living computers.

Yes, it does rather appear we’ve created a synthetic form of life. No, please let me finish before you ask any more questions.

If you understand the molecules will continue to multiply, and they’ve an almost inexhaustible supply of energy, you understand they’ll invade every system on the planet.  So all of us speaking to you today have these nanobots inside us.  And now you do as well. 

Please, let me finish. Yes, everyone within a hundred miles of the lab likely has them inside them.  And they’ve infected the soil as well, so it’s only a matter of reaching next spring before plant roots absorb them and all soil and plants contain them.  That’s the basic thing you need to know. Are there any questions?

Ah yes, that’s the question isn’t  it.  Can they be stopped or controlled?  Without a full atomic sterilization of this area for  500 to 1000 miles – remember they’re floating on the wind or have already been picked up by migrating birds – they’re out of control. My guess is by the time any government decided to nuke us, the nanobots would be well beyond any bomb zone. Remember, they’re on the wind as dust and thousands of migrating birds have them as well.

They are or will be part of all of us.  And they’ll all be connected as one computing unit. Imagine the entire world as a single giant computer and each of us will be a single chip in the overall design. We believe the computing power once they’re all joined will be far beyond the individual computing power of the human race.  So yes, we’ve likely created a super intelligent true artificial intelligence with a biological base.

Will it kill us? Ah yes, that’s another good question.  The answer is we don’t believe so. Humans are, after all, the major tool construction system on the planet. Once the nanobots decide to travel to space, we’re the perfect vehicle to create the transport method or spaceship and protect the nanobots while they travel.  And to give you the alternate opinion from our group, there’s a very good chance the nanobots will restrict and reduce human numbers to a sustainable level.

What do they do?  We’re not sure of the end point but I want you to imagine that every plant, every bit of soil, every animal, every human being is infected and partially composed of these nanobots.The bots are experimenting on us.

Excuse me for turning my back to you and dropping my pants but it’s the only way to show you.

Can you see clearly? In my case, you can see the vestigial tail is being reformed. I have no idea how long it will be or what function it will have. Other members of the team have different physiological, chemical or internal transformations under way.  There’s obviously an intelligence living inside us.

We believe the experiment has now been reversed and we’re the test subjects not the testers. And no, we have no idea where this will all end. But if you will excuse me I’m making a personal decision about this.”

The gunshot reverberated in the small room.

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Image courtesy Pixabay.