Some of this is terminology, used with intent to narrow the topic - when Eliezer talks about FAI and uFAI, he's mostly talking about potential Artificial General Intelligence. A nano-machine that makes additional copies of itself as part of its programming is not necessarily a General Intelligence. Most of the predicted uses of nano-machines wouldn't require (or be designed to have) general intelligence.
I'm very aware that giving a terminological answer conceals that there is no agreement on what is or isn't "General Intelligence." About all we can agree on is that human intelligence is the archetype.
To put it slightly differently, one could argue that the laptop I'm using right now is a kind of Intelligence. And it's clearly Artificial. But conversations about Friendly and unFriendly aren't really about my laptop.
Fair enough, but the grey goo issue is still probably based enough in programming to categorize it separately from the direct implications of nanotechnological production.
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.