Mike Treder at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology reminds us that a 5-minute introduction to the concepts behind molecular manufacturing is available online, here’s how it begins:

“Molecular manufacturing refers to a revolutionary near-future manufacturing technology. Whereas today’s manufacturing uses large and imprecise machines, molecular manufacturing will use molecular machines to build engineered molecular products. The performance, value, and scope of this technology will be revolutionary and disruptive.

The root idea of molecular manufacturing is that molecule-scale fabricators can output their own mass of product in a few minutes. Built from precisely positioned and strongly bonded molecules, the products will be precise and strong. Computer control will enable a wide range of products, including more manufacturing systems. Doubling the number of fabricators every hour would scale a single fabricator into a kilogram-scale personal nanofactory (PN) in a few days. The fully automated PN would contain arrays of fabricators and equipment to join their output into large-scale, integrated, heterogeneous, complete products…”

Read the rest.