What technological challenges stand in the way of making molecular assemblers? I mean, what exactly would it entail to generate some sort of nanotechnology that could assemble, from scratch, a car or something? I've heard something about the "fat fingers" and "sticky fingers" problem and something about a debate between Eric Drexler and a professor name Smalley.

 

I'm just wondering if it's possible that we'll, one day, have molecular assemblers. Any thoughts?

Graphene is a form of carbon that is a sheet of atoms one layer thick which is being used in current research for applications involving microchips that are that small. So technology is already doing it. I've seen an application or two involving nanomachines.