Michio Kaku, who qualifies as a superlative futurist if there ever was one, discussing technologies like time machines that most transhumanists consider implausible, recently went on Fox News to talk about molecular manufacturing and the “Second Industrial Revolution” (actually, there already was a Second Industrial Revolution, by some accounts). Note how even the Wikipedia page for “Second Industrial Revolution” has a mention of molecular manufacturing;

At the start of the 21st century the term “second industrial revolution” has been used to describe the anticipated effects of hypothetical molecular nanotechnology systems upon society. In this more recent scenario, the nanofactory would render the majority of today’s modern manufacturing processes obsolete, transforming all facets of the modern economy.

Here is the quote from the interview where Kaku mentions MM:

It could create a second industrial revolution. The first industrial revolution was based on mass production of large machines. The second industrial revolution could be molecular manufacture. We’re talking about a new way of manufacturing almost everything. Instead of having robots that are gigantic and clumsy, you now have molecular robots, because what does a virus do? A virus cuts and splices and dices other molecules. So why not use that molecular ability to create a whole plethora of things for the computer age and the electric age? And so this could remove many bottlenecks in our manufacturing industry.

The idea of MM is flopping around in the mainstream, just like it used to before the National Nanotechnology Initiative starting labeling any nanoscale research “nanotechnology”.

The concept of molecular manufacturing is slightly perturbed by it very often being introduced in the context of a suite of possible future technologies. This is what books like Nanosystems are for — just MM, nothing else, purely a physics-based analysis. This allows you to estimate the long-term plausibility of the technology on its own terms, even if your estimate is guaranteed to be off.

H/t to Chris Phoenix at CRN.