as a completely disarmed country would have the potential to assemble an entire arsenal – say of cruise missiles – in the span of a day or less.
Why would the existence of nanotechnology imply that it is very rapid? I can easily imagine needing a large factory to build the more complicated nanotech. Just like with current technology it takes months and millions of dollars of investment to create computer chips.
Remember that technology is not magic, and we shouldn't base our inferences on science fiction books. Change will happen gradually, nanotech assemblers will at first be crude, coarse grained, unreliable and expensive. These machines will require power and raw materials, which will not suddenly be free. For most products, traditional manufacturing will remain orders of magnitude more efficient. Just like the desktop printer didn't eliminate the printing press.
Drexler has some scenarios, based as far as I can tell in solid science, showing that the nanotech manufacturing revolution could be extremely rapid. And an economy based upon raw materials and energy is very far from our current one (and nanotech recycling could have large effects on the need for raw materials; energy is the main bottle neck, in theory).
The FHI's mini advent calendar: counting down through the big five existential risks. The third one is a also a novel risk: nanotechnology.
Nanotechnology
Current understanding: low
Most worrying aspect: the good stuff and the bad stuff are the same thing
The potential of nanotechnology is its ability to completely transform and revolutionise manufacturing and materials. The peril of nanotechnology is its ability to completely transform and revolutionise manufacturing and materials. And it’s hard to separate the two. Nanotech manufacturing promises to be extremely disruptive to existing trade arrangements and to the balance of economic power: small organisations could produce as many goods as much as whole countries today, collapsing standard trade relationships and causing sudden unemployment and poverty in places not expecting this.
And in this suddenly unstable world, nanotechnology will also permit the mass production of many new tools of war – from microscopic spy drones to large scale weapons with exotic properties. It will also weaken trust in disarmament agreements, as a completely disarmed country would have the potential to assemble an entire arsenal – say of cruise missiles – in the span of a day or less.