There's probably some really impressive nanotechnology we could theoretically build today, bootstrapping off our today's tech fairly quickly, if we just knew what we were doing. I don't mean necessarily a full-on self-replicating machine, necessarily, but who knows, maybe even that, with the right bootstrapping sequence. We just don't really know what we're doing today.
In A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, one of the minor points is the bootstrapping hobby that some in the galactic civilization undertake, trying to determine the minimal steps that could be transmitted to primitive civilization to most rapidly bootstrap them to "real" civilization. I find myself curious about that too, and would probably enjoy that hobby, but alas, we lack the knowledge and perspective to properly play today.
In A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, one of the minor points is the bootstrapping hobby that some in the galactic civilization undertake, trying to determine the minimal steps that could be transmitted to primitive civilization to most rapidly bootstrap them to "real" civilization. I find myself curious about that too, and would probably enjoy that hobby, but alas, we lack the knowledge and perspective to properly play today.