7.3 KiB
What To Do with Hard Light Constructs?
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Author: u/RolandsVaria *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3odq2z/what_to_do_with_hard_light_constructs/
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Score: 0
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Created: 2015-10-11T22:19:56
Post:
Alright, imagine you have a cheap technology that allows you to form constructs out of light. These constructs can be as hard as steel or as soft as a pillow. They can have many different sorts of textures, be solid or liquid, can be massive or small, etc. Additionally, these constructs can be effortlessly moved around by the operating machine, which can give commands of some complexity (something like "create floating panel and use to move luggage," but not "create pen and write the next great American novel.")
So I'm wondering, what all do you think could be done with this tech?
Comments:
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+9] Mouse Army (19 minutes later)
... Everything? Built houses, cars (if the machine can use those panels to move itself), clothing, furniture, complex machinery...
This machine effectively solves a lot of material problems, only food is left. It also reduces the amount of labor needed like everywhere.
Why build a house out of matter if for a low energy cost you can have a new mansion every week or so? You'd get funny cleaning procedures: during a rainstorm, tell the machine to cocoon every real thing, then vanish the house; then re-appear it again.
We'd get a huge market of free, proprietary, and cracked blueprints.
u/JackStargazer [+7] Primordial Apologist (21 minutes later)
Well, that's like, half of what a goddamn power ring can do.
So, anything a power ring can do?
Basically anything.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+5] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (2 hours later)
Defy the tyranny of the rocket equation.
u/Jiro_T [+1] (16 hours later)
More specifically, I would build a space elevator with it, assuming that it doesn't work like a power ring and just let you lift something into space anyway.
u/traverseda [+3] With dread but cautious optimism (3 hours later)
Use it as the containment vessel for a fusion reaction.
u/None [+2] (4 hours later)
Can the hard light construct take the shape of a functional hard light construct generator?
u/RolandsVaria [+1] (6 hours later)
No, it depends, but generally I don't think they can do the sort of complex machinery that has stuff like circuit boards.
u/Shadawn [+2] (6 hours later)
Do hard-light constructs have mass (if not, easy space tech)? Do they require some sort of continuous support (by that operating machine, or something else)? Depending on it's cost, it can substitute wide varieties of industry.
Can it create molecular-sized constructs, and can those interact with matter on chemical level? If true, it can be extremely useful in pharmacy (or any synthesis) or even food industry (and eventually humans may change into light-constructed humans).
u/RolandsVaria [+1] (16 hours later)
They have mass. Yes, they need to be continuously materialized by the operating machine.
Don't think it can operate on a molecular level, no. Not that precise.
u/rdalex [+2] (8 hours later)
Well first you do everything you can to hide this tech from anyone that has anything to do with any military. If you fail this step, you won't be able to do anything with this tech, because you'll be dead...
u/Gurkenglas [+2] (11 hours later)
First, figure out how it changes the computational landscape. If something it does can be used to solve NP-hard problems, privately acquire omnipotence. If not, figure out how it changes the military landscape. If it is powerful enough to circumvent the MAD of nuclear weapons (which must be pretty damn powerful), choose the world power closest to your ideology and give it to them so they can quickly and painlessly take over the world. If not, patent it patent everywhere and use the gigantic revenue to fund value alignment research.
How can it be used in the latter case? Most importantly, shorten the feedback loop to produce more hard light constructors. From what I'm reading, that just means circuit boards, i.e. mining, electricity and machinery. Can it command a generator to spin for a perpetuum mobile? How much power can it use in the commands? "Drill that mountain down and centrifuge it into its component atoms."
Other than that, drive every menial laborer out of a job. (Maybe I can use some of my gigantic funds to provide global base income.)
u/RolandsVaria [+1] (16 hours later)
Yes, perpetual motion should be easy with this sort of device. It was actually the first thing I thought of.
A command like that should be within its capabilities, assuming you can generate a device that is capable of centrifuging things into atoms.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+1] Champion of Justice and Reason (31 minutes later)
How much light can it transform at a time? Can it be used to make more than one construct simultaneously? Do you have to know what it is that you're making? Could I do something like make a cure for Alzheimer's disease out of light using this machine, even if I didn't know anything about the cure for Alzheimer's except that it would cure Alzheimer's?
Turn light into gold, then sell it for lots of money, then use that money for effective altruism. Since the technology you're using is cheap, others will have their own and will be doing the same thing, which means if you want to make gold and sell it for a lot of money, you have to do it before the value of gold goes down too far from its overproduction.
And again, you could make medication with it.
Make weapons, like Welexi's spears of light in Alexander Wales' "Shadows of the Limelight". Probably not effective against modern artillery, but would be cool.
Haven't thought of any others yet.
u/RolandsVaria [+1] (an hour later)
Yes, multiple constructs at once should be OK.
I don't think you'd be able to make a cure for Alzheimer's, no. Partly because you'd need to know what materials you'd use beforehand, also because I imagine the tech as more something that that mimics the textures and shapes of objects rather than actually becoming them.
u/iamthelowercase [+1] (2 hours later)
Soo a power ring without the AI, pretty much.
How big is this machine? Relatively portable? Can I build it into, say, a gauntlet? Can the hard light stop, for example, bullets? Could I make lightweight practical bulletproof armor with it?How small can the hard-light-constructs go? Small enough to move around individual molecules? How about individual atoms? If I can program it to move around individual atoms then I'm going to set it to knitting together a space-elevator cable out of pure carbon fiber.
Rescue equiment. Build evacuation-slide projectors into every building taller than two stories, and suddenly the death-toll from a fire in the Empire State Building or another World Trade Center is a lot smaller.
u/RolandsVaria [+1] (3 hours later)
It's a large projector-like object, you could fit it on a truck, but not carry it.
The constructs aren't that precise. I don't think you'd be able to manipulate things on a molecular level.
Nice thoughts otherwise.