Matt Ridley recycles 1986's 'grey goo' panic to question how seriously to take AI doom
connoraxiotes · x · 2026-10-01
In his Rational Optimist column, Matt Ridley argues AI doom warnings echo past panics. He reproduces a self-replicator scenario — doubling every thousand seconds, outweighing Earth in two days, the solar system hours later — then reveals it's from Eric Drexler's 1986 nanotech book Engines of Creation with one phrase swapped for 'artificial intelligence'. Drexler coined 'grey goo' and later regretted the scare it caused. Ridley's point: doom narratives recur, and AI doomerism deserves the same skepticism.
Related event: Matt Ridley: AI Doom Talk Echoes 40-Year-Old Grey Goo Panic(2 posts)→
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