Claim · 1997-04-01 · revision · Stated in source · Supported

Chapter 11 of Drexler’s Engines of Creation, in the Foresight Institute’s web edition (page updated 1 April 1997), says that nanotechnology combined with advanced AI will make possible intelligent, effective robots, and that with such robots a state could prosper while discarding anyone, or in principle everyone.

One recorded claim. The claim panel gives its qualification, the source passages with their place in each source, and how it was checked.

What it connects

Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology → articulates → Catastrophic risk from misuse

Where it appears

Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI, 1863–2026 →

Claim and evidence

Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnologyarticulates ↓Catastrophic risk from misuse

Machine-checkedStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1997-04-01 · revision Records dated 1997 →
Wording attested: 1997-07-09. Wording of the Foresight Institute’s web edition as captured on 9 July 1997, read in the raw replay by the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02.
Claimed date: 1986. The chapter’s copyright notice (“Copyright 1986”); the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02 did not compare the 1986 printing, so the notice does not date the quoted web-edition wording.
Role: Earliest located
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction

Scope and limitsA conditional account of what a state could do with AI and nanotechnology together; it does not isolate AI as the enabling technology. The following paragraphs discuss the elimination of populations. The wording is that of the web edition, attested by the capture of 9 July 1997; the 1986 printing was not compared. Earliest located means the earliest text found by the collection’s searches, the cross-family re-check of 2026-11-02 and the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02, not a first statement.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Engines of Creation, chapter 11: Engines of Destruction (web edition)

Foresight Institute (web edition of Engines of Creation) · 1986

Archived copy, captured 1997-07-09: Engines of Creation, chapter 11: Engines of Destruction (web edition)

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt

“The combination of nanotechnology and advanced AI will make possible intelligent, effective robots; with such robots, a state could prosper while discarding anyone, or even (in principle) everyone.”

Location in source Engines of Power (#section02of05), paragraph beginning “But with advanced technology”, final sentence

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-11-02

Source details and check notes

Authors: K. Eric Drexler
Version: Web edition page as captured by the Internet Archive on 1997-07-09 (timestamp 19970709112434); it carries the notice "Copyright 1986, K. Eric Drexler". Retrieved 2026-10-06.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-06
Language: English (en)
Archive copy: Open archived copy, captured 1997-07-09: Engines of Creation, chapter 11: Engines of Destruction (web edition). An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 1997-07-09. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-06.
Attribution: K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (1986), Foresight Institute web edition.
Reuse: All rights reserved, according to the page’s copyright notice.. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Quotation as given verbatim by the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02 (research/archive-fetch-held-2026-11-02/report.md, role 55), which read it in the raw replay of the capture of 9 July 1997 (timestamp 19970709112434; SHA-256 a9d3c80e17c988ebb7202c73f976cfc643e1a87a5093751f17309519eb85cc17 of the response body as served). That retrieval, by a model of another family, is the cross-family read of this passage; the session applying the decision could not reach the archive and took the passage from the report. The cross-family re-check of 2026-11-02 (review/earliest-located-recheck-2026-11-02.md, role 55) proposed this text for this proposition and role. Admitted by the maintainer’s decision of 2026-11-02. No human editorial review.

Status and meaning

Editorial status. Machine-checked. Machines found this record and checked it against its sources; no person accepted it individually. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.

Relation. A passage of the document meets the proposition’s criterion. The record documents what the text states, in its register (fiction and satire are labelled); it is not evidence that the proposition is true and implies no influence on or from another text.

Record ID rd-r09-drexler-1986-engines-of-destruction