The Problem with Prey

Questions about Prey won't go away, but at least it won't be coming to a theater near you any time soon.

At speaking engagements and through email, we often are asked about Michael Crichton's horror novel Prey. Is it real? Could it actually happen? Is that why we should fear nanotech?

Although it appears that plans for a film version of Prey have stalled (they've been in "pre-production" mode for over a year now), Crichton's fanciful conception of nanotechnology appears stuck in the public imagination.

Well, we're happy to report, again, that Prey is not real and that what the book presents could not actually happen. CRN's Chris Phoenix has published an extensive criticism of the novel and its "science." Read that before you take what Crichton writes as fact instead of fiction.

The biggest problem with Prey is that it focuses public concern on the wrong issues. Security risks, unstable arms races, geopolitical turmoil, and other dangers are where we should be looking.

As with "gray goo," the attention paid to an unlikely (or, in the case of Prey, impossible) threat from nanotechnology diverts attention from more serious and imminent concerns -- and this includes not only risks, but also ways to realize and maximize the potential benefits.

Mike Treder

Comments

[Alan B. Shalleck]

The way our industry can shift off "prey" is to take the toxocology and risk effects out of the hands of the regulators and the public by creating an industry financed "NanoTech Council of Risk Assessment" made up of recognized independent "authorities. " This "Council of Peers" should be empowered by the entire industry to create product standards, tests, and performance and safety criteria for the entire industry.

If we aggressively take a stand and provide an open and auditable procedure ourselves, we can gain the credibility and the confidence of the public in what we will inevitably create and develop.

If we create this Council now for "mods of products", the procedures will be in place and accepted when we get to the "self assembling designer molecules" of the next few years. We have to be pro-active.

I've said this at many meetings and I don't see anything happening. I hear words from the NanoAlliance people but not from the top executives of nanocompanies. These line guys are the necessary ones. If the public sees line executives placing their careers and bonus's on the line for societal concerns, we will take a major step in building public approval of nanotechnology and preventing unwanted, unjustified and restrictive regulation.