Robots

Nanorobots: Where We Are Today and Why Their Future Has Amazing Potential

A nanorobot, then, is a machine that can build and manipulate things precisely at an atomic level. Imagine a robot that can pluck, pick and place atoms like a kid plays with LEGO bricks, able to build anything from basic atomic building blocks (C, N, H, O, P, Fe, Ni, and so on).​ While some people dismiss the future of nanorobots as science fiction, you should realize that each of us is alive today because of countless nanobots operating within each of our trillions of cells. We give them biological names like a "ribosome," but they are essentially machines programmed with a function like "read messenger RNA to create a specific protein."

That being said, it's important to distinguish between "wet" or "biological" nanotech, which basically uses DNA and the machinery of life to create unique structures made of proteins or DNA (as a building material) and a more Drexlerian nanotech which involves building an "assembler," or a machine that can 3D print with atoms at a nanoscale and effectively create any structure that is thermodynamically stable.