Hype and Fear

Australia's leading newspaper, The Age [web access may require free registration], has an article today by Dr. Gyorgy Scrinis that begins...

If you believe the hype, the nanotechnology revolution will deliver a future of unprecedented material abundance for everyone, limitless energy, ecological sustainability, improved human health and performance, and smarter, cheaper and more efficient materials and products.

However, Scrinis also says...

There is another nanotechnological future that we are beginning to hear more about. This is one of toxic nanoparticle pollution, powerful new military equipment and weapons, ubiquitous surveillance devices, widening global inequities and the further concentration of corporate ownership and control across all industrial sectors.

So, should we believe the hype or the fears? Or both, or neither? In a short but interesting interview with Businessweek, Chad Mirkin, director of Northwestern University's Institute for Nanotechnology, seems to take both sides at once.

Mirkin says...

Nanoscience is about redoing everything. Everything when miniaturized will be new. We now take what Mother Nature gives us. We take a tree, and we turn it into a table. We take a metal with conductivity, and we turn it into wires. The new approach is that you break everything down into building blocks and reassemble them. . . Nanotechnology involves rebuilding the earth as we know it, atom by atom.

His description of what nanotechnology might accomplish sounds awfully familiar.

But Mirkin also says that nanorobotics is not the way to go...

I'd love to see an article [saying] that nanotech is not about nanobots. There are almost no credible efforts that focus on that goal. There are certainly no credible business efforts. This [topic] is dominated by Hollywood and by some folks that aren't very informed.

To be fair, it's not clear whether Mirkin is objecting to the fictional versions of nano-robots popularized by such writers as Michael Crichton and Dean Koontz, or if he is taking exception to the whole field of molecular manufacturing research. If the latter, it makes one wonder how he envisions "rebuilding the earth as we know it, atom by atom" without using some sort of automated productive nanosystems.

Our opinion is that both the hype and the fears are justified (within reason, of course), that honest skepticism is understandable and often warranted, and that denialism -- claiming that something is impossible just because it hasn't been done yet -- is foolish and irresponsible.

Mike Treder

Comments

[Hal Finney]

I think the real question is the one you mentioned: if Drexlerian nanotech won't work, as seems (IMO) to be the mainstream view, what justification is there for either the hype or the fear? Don't we need an equivalent of Nanosystems but without the diamondoid and robot arms, to prove that nanotech will really be able to remake the world? The whole point of that book was to make the case for the technology truly being transformative. But if that technological approach is ruled out, how do we know that nanotech can truly accomplish all that much? Nanopants and sunscreens hardly make the case.

[John B]

I think a common (but not necessarily majority) theme in people who dislike Drexlerian nanotech for whatever reason is that they discount the positives while crediting the negatives. This may or may not be a studied response - some people like the debate position this leaves them in, others are reacting on a gut level.

Additionally, people are used to extrapolating from what they know. If you have a dangerous chemical (according to some research, buckyballs fall into this category) then you restrict its usage. And buckyballs are "nanotech", according to what they hear. Therefore, nanotech is dangerous and should be restricted.

Finally, the history of 'goo' concepts is beginning to haunt nanotech. It was the most out-there science and the most interesting to the writers of articles for quite a long time - still today, in some areas - and this means it got discussed. Alot.

Modern designs for nanomechanical systems are quite a bit different, but they have to (somehow) beat off the preconceived 'blob' concepts that people have. IF this can be done, and IF it can be shown that such devices are safe in terms that people can appreciate, they MIGHT have a chance. If not, they'll have much less of a chance, IMO.

-John

[michael vassar]

I think that if molecular manufacturing didn't bill itself as Drexlerian or "nanorobotic" it would do much better in the public opinion contest. Drop reference to Engines type ideas entirely and keep the focus on mechanochemistry, an (as far as I can tell) untainted term.

[Chris Phoenix, CRN]

Hal, the idea that Drexler's ideas won't work is certainly the loudest view. But that doesn't make it correct, or even consensus.

Michael, if we focus only on mechanochemistry, I don't see how we can talk about performance and implications. Which we really need to do ASAP.

Chris