Common misconceptions about atomically precise manufacturing
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Almost everything will be buildable - often misunderstood
It is often thought that APM is supposed to be able to produce almost anything (often formulated: all allowed structures permissible by physical law) including e.g. food, wood, plastics and metal parts but this is surely not the case.
Take a look at the "mechanosynthesis" and you will find that the range of materials and strucuctures targeted lies in a very narrow range. The magic lies in the diamondoid metamaterials that emulate properties above the atomic level.
This is not to say it will be impossible for all times to assemble materials lying outside the set of now targeted materials. When the technology will have been around for quite a while [advanced extensions] may be able to do this but this is way beyond the scope of any current day APM attainment project.
No food
Advanced APM is not in any way intended to be a means for food production. Some proteins are a good examples of "anti-diamondoid" materials. Very cold temeratures and highly complex tooltip chemistry would be needed. Information extraction from DNA to an atom configuration is not straightforeward to say the least. Trying to compress atom configuration data hirachically like in diamondoid APM systems would probably lead to strange compression artefacts and would need some kind of very advanced scan of the real thing to be made in advance.
Note: Plants are already self replicating and thus cheap. Most people just dont grow all of the ones they consume because they need space, sun, soil, and often industrial post processing. APM will bring all the other stuff to the same or lower price level per mass. Including means for easier plant breeding.
No disassembly
It is often thought that the capability of taking things apart atom by atom would be become available just when one starts to be able to put things together atom by atom. This is far from true. Taking things apart atom by atom is a much harder problem that is probably impossible in many cases. For the details visit the "atomically precise disassembly" page. Beside other factors the inability to consume just about anything harshly this limits the grey goo scenario.
APM is not nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is a huge field and a big part of research is done on interesting things that are on the verge of falling apart.
