Note that the proposed technology is more about guiding chemical reactions to do molecular assembly than about tiny hands manipulating atoms.
Wow! I didn't think that anyone (Smalley?) would think that it was a digital (finger) process, but rather a molecular (chemical process). Go Figure.
Another recent item:
"Molecular manufacturing will bring both great opportunities and great dangers. Nanocomputers will extend desktop computational power by a factor of a billion or more. Nanoscale sensors, computers, and tools will bring surgical control to the molecular level, enabling a revolution in medicine. Light, strong, and inexpensive aerospace structures will make spaceflight easy.
But the future's faster, cheaper, cleaner production of better products will also bring disruption. Advanced lethal and nonlethal weapons, deployed quickly and cheaply, could make the world a more dangerous place. The list of consequences is long, much of it sounding like science fiction."