Volume 4, Issue 2 
December 2009


Application of Asilomar Guidelines to Self-replicating Machines

Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D

Page 3 of 3

Dr. Gerry O’Neill [1] has written why it can take less than 500,000 years to colonize the entire galaxy using autonomous self-replicating systems, I think that’s the goal that we humans should look to on this Apollo 11 anniversary. It’s taken forty years to get to just a Moon mar3just a few times with Apollo, and not even to really colonize it. Let’s take some inspiration from that to definitely colonize the Moon, Mars, and our solar system. Let’s begin the effort to go beyond and colonize the entire galaxy and realize in order to do that we’ll need to break free of the Asilomar constraints.

O’Neill’s galactic colonization is going to clearly require autonomous self-replication of machines and it wouldn’t be any real fun if we just did the replication with machines. I would ask us to include uploaded minds in each probe including instructions for creating nano or bionano bodies into which those uploaded minds could be downloaded so that everyone who wants to go into space and be part of a galactic colonization team can do so. There would be many of each one of us galactic astronauts out there in the galaxy at the same time, and since each such “mindclone” has a singular identity, it really is like each of us would be simultaneously on hundreds, if not thousands, of different worlds.   Continuous light speed communication links will keep our galactically dispersed selves updated with a common frame of information.

Basically, human colonization is going to require autonomous self-replication and it’s just going to blow a giant hole in the Asilomar Guidelines. In essence, galactic colonization requires something way beyond the Asilomar Guidelines. They basically do not apply to galactic colonization. Asilomar is a nice sub-set tool that can be segmented for galactic colonization within a given planet. The replication system can follow Asilomar-type rules so downloaded galactic astronauts aren’t doing recombinant DNA experiments with toxic elements that could expose all of the galactic astronauts to death on distant planets. Robotic nanobots need to coexist in nanobio bodies for downloaded minds of colonists, so we’re going to be concerned that the robot systems are ones that don’t chew up biology.

Ultimately, once we do create habitable environments on thousands of distant worlds throughout the galaxy we will need to make sure we don’t have autonomous nanobot systems that destroy our ecology. Asilomar is a very nice tool to be used within galactic colonization, but the galactic colonization process itself operates beyond Asilomar.  

The bottom line is that Asilomar makes for good common sense, self-replicating objects should be contained from causing harm while being free to do good, and each case has to be judged by its specific facts. Going forward, self-replicating nanotech is covered by the Asilomar regime, but the Asilomar regime needs to be segmented for galactic colonization because each of us can become, thousands of times over, galactic colonists so long as we’re free to engage in galactic self-replication and that’s what I urge all of us to dedicate ourselves to on this Apollo 11 anniversary.

[1] Gerard Kitchen O’Neill - (February 6, 1927 – April 27, 1992) was an American physicist and space activist. [H]e invented a magnetic launcher called the mass driver. In the 1970s, he developed a plan to build human settlements in outer space, including a space habitat design known as the O'Neill cylinder. He founded the Space Studies Institute, an organization devoted to funding research into space manufacturing and colonization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O%27Neill  August 12, 2009 2:08PM EST

Bio

  Martine  
Martine Rothblatt, J.D., MBA, Ph.D., started the satellite vehicle tracking and satellite radio industries and is the Chairman of United Therapeutics, a biotechnology company headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland. Dr. Rothblatt is also the President of Terasem Movement, Inc. and has authored several books, including The Apartheid of Sex, Two Stars for Peace, Unzipped Genes, and Your Life or Mine.

 

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