Future Challenges

Challenges of surviving, sustaining, and flourishing in a nano-enabled future look suspiciously like challenges we face today, only with much higher stakes. Although "past results may not be an indication of future performance," our track record is not all that good.

So how will the future turn out? Let's look at a few challenges of the next 10 or 20 years (with acknowledgements to reader 'cdnprodigy' and her/his comments on the "How Rich?" thread).

1. Avoid situation where initial lead in developing molecular manufacturing (MM) is quickly lost to late-comer(s) with superior resources, leading to potential for out-of-control arms race and/or world domination -- In any exponential curve, nearly all action occurs at the very end; if latecomers have competing, simultaneous crash Nanhattan-programs, none may get necessary lead time to sterilize other programs worldwide. And anyway, would we trust anyone but ascetic Buddhists to do so unmegalomaniacally?

2. Prevent further concentration of power, brought about by MM, into members of elite political and military institutions -- Unless channelled democratically (somehow), MM seems likely to do nothing other than exacerbate the current dynamic.

3. Avert massive job dislocation, global economic disruption, and social chaos (super accelerated "creative destruction") brought about by local, customized, cheap, powerful product manufacturing -- Revolutionary industrial advances historically impact large numbers of people negatively at first, then gradually provide increasing benefits to most, but on a scale of many decades. This time it could happen in just a few years.

4. Convert industrial capacity into supply of basic survival necessities for every human (with surplus split among producers?) -- There has been enough industrial capacity to supply basic survival necessities and thus, fully develop our world's intellectual capital, for a few decades. It hasn't happened, though.

Tough challenges. Precarious hazards.

The preliminary conclusion of CRN's research to date is that molecular manufacturing capacity will have to be regulated, perhaps on the international level. There are several approaches that might help. Note that we are not officially advocating any of these approaches yet; we don't know enough about how the technology will be developed or in what context.

We also have to point out that we don't think any single approach will be sufficient. An effective program will require a balance of several different kinds of administration. Some possibilities include built-in technical restrictions in portable nanofactories; intellectual property reform; and international cooperation or monitoring of various kinds. Despite the difficulties and complexities, we believe a solution can be found (albeit difficult to implement) to preserve most of the potential benefits while averting the most severe risks.

In addition, our early research indicates that developing MM technology sooner, rather than delaying it, may be helpful in avoiding some of the more serious hazards, as well as in bringing needed humanitarian benefits. This does increase some risks, but reduces others; overall, we think it's safest to develop MM as soon as possible.

Without some controls, advanced nanotechnology could be extremely dangerous -- but desirable to many people. In addition, manufacturing systems probably will be portable and easy to duplicate. This means it will be quite hard to control the use of the technology if unrestricted versions become widely available. On the other hand, overly restrictive policy will encourage uncontrolled release. It seems likely that an early, closely guarded, cooperative international development program is probably the approach that retains the most control in the long run. How to achieve this in an effective, responsible and democratic manner is yet to be determined.

Knowing that we have many more questions than answers, that the challenges we face are similar to those we have not yet solved (but with higher stakes), and that the transformational impacts of molecular manufacturing could occur quickly and with little warning, we believe comprehensive and thorough study of these issues is urgent.

The longer we wait, the greater the risk.

Mike Treder

Comments

[Michael R.]

maybe it would be effective to first build nanobots with the purpose to destroy other harmful nanobots that some lunatic would surely try to destroy the world with, the nanobots could be made to replicate themselves only to a certain number and therefore would not be harmful themselves

[Chris Phoenix, CRN]

Michael, nanobots are not, in fact, the major threat, at least not until technology develops quite a bit past the nanofactory stage. It will be much harder to make a free-range self-replicating nanobot than to make more conventional weapons in sufficient quantity and quality to create a world-class military virtually overnight.

And, non-self-rep nanobots can be much more efficient than self-rep nanobots; imagine a race car vs. a car that has to drag around its own oil refinery and mechanic's shop. With nanofactories to turn out vast quantities of efficient clean-bots, self-rep is *not* required to deal with badbots, even self-replicating badbots. I think this is true even for evolving self-replicating badbots, which will be extremly hard to design.

Chris

[Anonymous]

This is a really scary thought, that the world may come to the point of not needing human hands to work directly with the worlds resourses. If we follow through with sciencees like nanotechnology, the whole world could become man-made or somehow altered by our technologies. We need to enjoy the natural aspects of the world for what they are, not what we can change them to be. I mean, who really wants to live in a world run by machines where trees and grass become rare things?

[Rip]

I would think that the world would become more natural, ie. more trees, more grass, more of a return to the Earth's natural environment. After all, we would be producing more precise and more efficient materials and goods to satisfy our needs. Therefore, less of a need to exploit the environment.

[Chris Phoenix, CRN]

Anonymous and Rip are both right. We will be able to have a far smaller ecological footprint; ten billion humans will easily be sustainable. On the other hand, it will be easy to do planet-scale engineering, and we could pave the planet in solar cells or something similarly boring and anti-ecological.

We will have more choices. It will be easier to do the right thing, and easier to do the wrong thing.

Human nature probably won't be enough. We need better decision-making systems. Democracy, free market, and free press will all be helpful. None will be enough by itself.

Chris

Chris