3d Printing An Infinate Super Computer For A Super Civilization

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So I have been thinking about what the worlds governments could do. In fact I dont see a reason why any government wouldnt do this, with the thought that another government may be doing it as well the race for technological superiority must be on.

One idea I have had for a while is a 3d printed city which is actually a massive computer built of many small computers.

For example many small nanobots could become a new kind of universal meta material used to create everything we use as tools, from buildings, to roads, clothes and even our houses.

I imagine a world where a government could have a group of 3d printers that mass produced super computer parts, while other 3d printers would make other items like small worker robots which would continuously assemble the super computer materials. I would imagine this to continue for an unlimited time until the computer was about the size of a city.

Now with a computer with such a capacity could most likely be able to do things our computers are currently unable to do.

As time went on the computer could continually upgrade itself and optimize itself in order to self improve.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

We are decades away from having programmable matter such as nanobots. As well as the AI capability it would require to be able to do this all on it's own without constant human intervention.

It's more likely we will see AI before we see mass production of nano type robots or materials.

The cost of production today would be astronomical. Just making carbon fiber nano tubes is ridiculously expensive and that's sort of the simplest of the nano type stuff we've been able to come up with so far. I assume there are advances in places such as MIT or DARPA that we haven't been made aware of yet as always.

But a giant leap from today's standards to what you are describing is not likely to occur until the 2030's or beyond.

IMO anyway.

~Tenth

You're not going to be printing a semiconductor with a 3D printer any time soon.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

So my grandfather had triple bypass at 52. Father had stints put in through a vein in his thigh at 52. I'm 32 and hoping to swallow some nanobots by the time I need a good cleaning in my arteries.

Look at computer advancements. There were a few breakthroughs going from mechanical to vacuum tube to integrated circuits to microprocessors. I think that's the way to look at it. With current tech linear progression, but in reality radical implements and the great exchange of global information make advancements exponential.

I don't think we're more than 20 years from nanobots being used in many fields.

a reply to: pl3bscheese

I'm in the same boat. And I'd prefer they get a cure to baldness before I'm 90.

originally posted by: pl3bscheese
a reply to: tothetenthpower

So my grandfather had triple bypass at 52. Father had stints put in through a vein in his thigh at 52. I'm 32 and hoping to swallow some nanobots by the time I need a good cleaning in my arteries.

Look at computer advancements. There were a few breakthroughs going from mechanical to vacuum tube to integrated circuits to microprocessors. I think that's the way to look at it. With current tech linear progression, but in reality radical implements and the great exchange of global information make advancements exponential.

I don't think we're more than 20 years from nanobots being used in many fields.

Psst - the trick is, don't get cholesterol clogging up your arteries. Not wait for technology to build microscopic robots to fix you. May as well put your head in a jar and wait for Bender to come along with a cigar.

They have already made tiny nanobot computers that can respond to certain stimulus in the body. They've injected a cockroach with them, and had it do simple gate logic.

The robots were injected into a Blaberus discoidalis cockroach, a species commonly used as pet food for reptiles. Inside each "box" was another chemical, which recognized the hemolymph cells, which are the cockroach's version of white blood cells. The chemical in the box would bind to the blood cells.

But instead of just injecting one kind of robot, the scientists used four: "E," "P1," "P2," and "N."

The different robots carried "keys" to open up the "E" robots in the presence of one or more chemical cues. So, for example, one test was on E robots that opened up only if both cues (call them X and Y) were present. Adding the P1 robots to the mix lets the E's open up in response to X only, while adding the P2 robots lets the E robots open in response to Y only.

This is just like a logic gate in a computer — an AND (X and Y) or an OR gate (X or Y).

www.livescience.com...

I don't think I want replicators inside me, that Anon will turn on us, making us zombie robot slaves for our neo-globalist 99%er masters...

they will you know. they're anonymous.

No, they'll make us WANT the nano medicine. It will target physical flaws and shortcomings. Fear will be replaced by need. And then they'll wonder how anyone got on without it? Life must have been dirt for them.

There'll be a time when it'll be unimaginable to live as we do now. If we existed in the future we'd be considered as existing in high poverty. They'd try to reeducate us and correct our ills, but it's expensive.

It's not silly. People in the past existed without much of our technology and knowledge. And to some extent they didn't live as long because even a small injury could become infected and kill them. A lot of their children died young. Education was mostly parental or tribal, so very limited.

That process wherein new technology and knowledge is gained will continue into the foreseeable future. The only question is how much will we resemble ourselves in 200, 1000, 10,000 or 100,000 years? Will we be biological? I know it's speculation now, but what if biology is inferior? We can hack our dna and combine ourselves with new bio-friendly technology, but what if we strike a hard limit and decide to abandon it altogether by creating a new non-biological body? Will we even exist still in this universe? At some far future time, the universe itself might be "inferior."

EDIT: if ever nanos become pratical and beneficial.

I'm not making a judgemental call whether any of this is good or bad. Are computers bad? Are guns? Atomic bombs? Psychotropics? Surgical implants? So much is different now than in the past. We have the capacity to be mostly indoors 24/7 365 days per year. That has never happened before except maybe for elders or some shamans. There're many strange adoptions and risky evolutionary experiments. I have no idea where it goes. I only can say what the patterns are and it's emotionless.

In my opinion this is so very doable, even without the 3d printing just having computer manufacturers working at 100% capacity with assembly line workers putting together one section of the super computer at a time. I imagine this is already happening with various countries.

Here is some more stuff to fuel our imaginations on building an ever expanding super computer.

Just think if we had volunteers to build the worlds largest super computer by hand, people to do it by hand they could eventually out build anything we have ever seen!

I think this is something worth doing!

Building a worldwide computer FTW!

originally posted by: FormOfTheLord

Just think if we had volunteers to build the worlds largest super computer by hand, people to do it by hand they could eventually out build anything we have ever seen!

This is just to funny!!!

Did you know that there are several places on Earth where the largest super computers ARE being "built by hand"...Though there are no volunteers, everybody get a paycheck...

Right here in the US we have a company called "Cray" who actually build super computers as a business, an ageing, but quite adequate system is called the "Jaguar"...this system has 1000's of processing cores, and continues to do it's thing behind the scenes...where the "fantasy core" of the Human population rarely even looks...

By the way...the "Cray Jaguar" uses older AMD multi-core processors...not unlike what is found in today's PC's...though in my opinion it would be better to use Intel processors...

Can you imagine the power of a system with 16,000 hex core Intel "i7's"??? Truly awesome.

originally posted by: tanka418

originally posted by: FormOfTheLord

Just think if we had volunteers to build the worlds largest super computer by hand, people to do it by hand they could eventually out build anything we have ever seen!

This is just to funny!!!

Did you know that there are several places on Earth where the largest super computers ARE being "built by hand"...Though there are no volunteers, everybody get a paycheck...

Right here in the US we have a company called "Cray" who actually build super computers as a business, an ageing, but quite adequate system is called the "Jaguar"...this system has 1000's of processing cores, and continues to do it's thing behind the scenes...where the "fantasy core" of the Human population rarely even looks...

By the way...the "Cray Jaguar" uses older AMD multi-core processors...not unlike what is found in today's PC's...though in my opinion it would be better to use Intel processors...

Can you imagine the power of a system with 16,000 hex core Intel "i7's"??? Truly awesome.

When I think about it its just materials cost and labor, so a superconductor manufacturing country could if they wanted make it a government project to build the infinate computer. It would probably look like a building but actually be a big computer.

originally posted by: FormOfTheLord
When I think about it its just materials cost and labor, so a superconductor manufacturing country could if they wanted make it a government project to build the infinate computer. It would probably look like a building but actually be a big computer.

Back in the1980's, when Cray Computers was a "big deal", they started to build round computer systems. The reason they did this is that at very high speeds, data paths become "transmission lines", not unlike what is fond in "radio". This changed the rules some what because it also meant that the signal (data) traveled at a fixed rate from one end of the transmission line to the other. So, they made all data paths (transmission lines) the same length, and it was this length that determined how fast the system could ultimately be.

With the maturing of the microprocessor they are able to pack ever more processing power into smaller spaces, it is this continued shortening of the data paths that allows supercomputer to posses the levels of performance they currently have. There are, however, limits to the size / length if these data paths. And while they don't appear to be anywhere close to this lower limit, it does exist. Thus there is an on the speed of a computer.

Today, because these data paths can run a fair distance at some gigahertz, they tend to build super computers using ever more "standard" or common place processing "cores"; like an Intel Core i7, or some other high performance, but still common, processor.

The problem with trying to build a "building sized" super computer is the same as the original issue that Cray encountered in the 80's...transmission line length...at some point they won't be able to increase the size of the machine and gain any performance increase.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

I don't know...We were promised flying cars 60 years ago and supposed to be on Mars by now.

It seems we can envision technologies that could exist, but we only progress in directions that make the most profit.

We still don't even have VR headsets commercially available. I can't go down to Best Buy and get an Occulus Rift yet, and even then it's a huge clunky thing. The best we have right now is strapping smart phones to our faces? Really?

We push our technologies in weird ways that make me shake my head.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: tothetenthpower

I don't know...We were promised flying cars 60 years ago and supposed to be on Mars by now.

It seems we can envision technologies that could exist, but we only progress in directions that make the most profit.

We still don't even have VR headsets commercially available. I can't go down to Best Buy and get an Occulus Rift yet, and even then it's a huge clunky thing. The best we have right now is strapping smart phones to our faces? Really?

We push our technologies in weird ways that make me shake my head.

I think nanotech is the way to go, the building of objects with molucular manufacturing viruses may kick start an industrial revolution.

Here is a 3d printer that can make circuit boards and computer chips. . . .
So a government could build an infinate 3d printed computer that just keeps on printing. . . .
No reason why robots cant be printed too!