Globally Distributed Evolutionary Nanotechnology?

from the intriguing-but-scary dept.
davesag writes "The gRobots project is a forthcoming distributed supercomputing platform specifically developed for the simulation of evolvable nanotechnology. The project is both for the use of evolutionary computation to simulate the design of nanotechnological devices, and for the ongoing simulation of self-replicating devices. The system will be open-sourced so that the broadest range of researchers, evolutionary computing enthusiasts, simulation geeks, chemists, engineers, students and others can participate. " From the site: "We think that the safest and best way forward as these fields merge is to provide a virtual environment for self-replicating machines running evolving software to be tested, evaluated and even farmed." Good idea or too risky–what do you think?