Issue (WIWE) status: Submitted, Unpublished

Wild Card's progress: Advanced

This Wild Card came from: 
Scientists/researchers

Likelihood timeframe and scenario features : 
now-2050

Wild Card's description: 

The old vision of molecular nanotechnology (first introduced by Drexler) materializes. "universal nano-assemblers" or "nanofactories" build objects of practically any arbitrary size and complexity (including copies of themselves) from the molecules up, by using readily-available feedstock molecules (e.g. from garbage) as raw materials. This will mean a new industrial revolution, totally changing manufacturing. All of our material needs are produced at trivial cost, without human labor, and with no waste. Huge economical implications, eliminating scarcity and poverty.