Responsible Nanotechnology

From Heaven to Doomsday

The Hungarian scientist and author Dennis Gabor wrote, “The future cannot be predicted, but it can be invented.”

We will invent (or create) the future; there’s little doubt about that. But will it be the future we want? If we’re not careful, tomorrow may happen accidentally, without forethought or planning. And it may not be a pleasant place to live.

So, what can we do about this? I propose that although the future cannot be accurately predicted (no matter what psychics say), we do have the power to imagine several different possible tomorrows. By doing that, we can choose the future we like best, and then try to make it come about.

In my latest essay for Future Brief, I suggest seven possible futures that I call: Stagnation, Slow Growth, Extinction, Enslavement, Status Quo, Uplift, and Nirvana.                   

Some of them may seem outlandish to you. But remember the words of Arthur C. Clarke: "If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run—and often in the short one—the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.”

Are you ready? Let’s look ahead—over the edge of the horizon, all the way to the end of the 21st century—and envision some of the different roads we might take.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Responsible Aging

A couple of weeks ago, we posted a blog entry about the meaning of 'responsible', from CRN's perspective.

The top five areas we considered were: 1) arms race; 2) monopoly; 3) equal opportunity; 4) environmental impact; and 5) "severe economic disruption, social chaos, and consequent human suffering."

Aging populations (with associated problems and opportunities) were not specifically identified. However, plenty of ethical and practical issues will be raised, especially if radical improvements in healthy life extension are made within the next few decades.

• Will overpopulation reach critical levels?
• Will the Earth's ecosystem be stressed to the breaking point?
• Will increasing numbers of active seniors diminish the ability of younger people to get good jobs and participate in societal decision-making?

As suggested in today's previous post, it's not hard to provide glib answers -- at least to the first two questions above -- if you stipulate that exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing will be developed within the next couple of decades (build huge space habitations, establish oceanic mega-farms, harness huge amounts of solar power, etc.).

The third question is a bit more challenging. Stanford University researcher Shripad Tuljapurkar says the age of retirement should be raised to 85 by 2050 because anti-aging advances could raise life expectancy by a year each year over the next two decades.

But let's go a step further. Picture a society in which active, healthy, competitive centenarians are the norm, in which there are as many able workers over the age of 100 as under. That's conceivable, well before the end of the 21st century, if radical life extension is achieved.

How will human society change? What would 'responsible' governance look like in that new world?

Those are a few of the many questions we may face.

I'm still working on the answers...

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Feeling queasy yet?

Debates about climate change are becoming more frequent and more visible. Topics include:

• Whether rapid global climate changes actually are occurring
• How dangerous they might be
• Whether they are, at least in part, human-caused

Here on our blog (see comments), debates also have centered on whether global climate change matters, in the context of responsible nanotechnology.

CRN has stated that molecular manufacturing is the only emerging technology that may have the capability to slow or even reverse the damaging effects of greenhouse gas accumulation. Some of our readers insist that before these climate changes become catastrophic, advanced nanotech already will have changed the world so much that it won't matter, and/or a technological singularity already will have occurred, rendering such concerns moot.

But, WHAT IF...

• Sea level rise due to global warming occurs much faster than generally expected?
• Molecular manufacturing is not achieved as early as many of us think it will be?
• The Singularity does not come to the rescue?

In other words, what if we are stuck with our existing technological base, along with standard but not revolutionary advances, and the climate change problem keeps getting worse and worse? Is this a scenario worth considering?

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Technology in Fast Forward

From a Georgia Tech press release:

New Device Revolutionizes Nano Imaging
Much faster technology allows AFM to capture nano movies, create material properties images

Georgia Tech researchers have created a highly sensitive atomic force microscopy (AFM) technology capable of high-speed imaging 100 times faster than current AFM. . .

Not only is FIRAT™ (Force sensing Integrated Readout and Active Tip) much faster than AFM (the current workhorse of nanotech), it can capture other measurements never before possible with AFM, including material property imaging and parallel molecular assays for drug screening and discovery. FIRAT could also speed up semiconductor metrology and even enable fabrication of smaller devices.

CLICK HERE for larger image

One hundred times faster -- that's two orders of magnitude. It is advances like this that will enable molecular manufacturing to be developed much sooner than many people expect.

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

The Future and Us

The Future and You is an hour-long, radio talk-show style podcast, hosted by the science fiction author Stephen Euin Cobb.

I was interviewed a few weeks ago for this podcast, and the first excerpt from that conversation is included in the February 11 show. Here's a full description from their web site:

Science fiction authors David Brin and Joe Haldeman are among the guests, along with: the head of a nanotech org, a marketing consultant, a cryonic insurance provider, and the actress Robin Curtis, who played a Vulcan Starfleet officer in two Star Trek movies. This is the February 11, 2006 episode of "The Future And You." [Running time: 79 minutes]

Topics include: [1] David Brin (bestselling author and scientist) warns that "Righteous Indignation" is an addictive high chemically similar to heroin, and also describes our civilization's unfounded Crisis of Confidence. [2] Predicting the risks and potential misuse of nanotechnology's vast and marvelous future is the mission of CRN: the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. CRN's Executive Director, Mike Treder, provides a heads-up. [3] Another installment in our serialization of the novel: "Bones Burnt Black" by Stephen Euin Cobb. [4] More powerful than propaganda, social marketing has been used to engineer changes in the beliefs and behaviours of entire populations, and has suceeded with surgical precision. David Pascal, a marketing consultant who specializes in social marketing, explains this power; as well as how it is used--and misused--in today's american politics. [5] Technological immortality: will we develop it in the next few decades? The award winning science fiction author Joe Haldeman shares a few thoughts on the subject. [6] A few more thoughts on technological immortality; this time from Rudi Hoffman, the world's leading cryonics insurance provider. [7] A listener's comments on the host's use of the word "dead" when referring to the cryopreserved. [8] She worked with Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner and the rest of the cast of Star Trek. A celebrity interview with the actress Robin Curtis, who played the Vulcan Starfleet officer Lieutenant Saavik in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" as well as (the host's favorite of the Star Trek movies) "Star Trek IV: The Journey Home."

Check it out and let us know what you think!

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Defining Nanotechnology

Definitions of nanotechnology are getting broader all the time. A draft definition recently crossed our desks, something on the order of "The study of things too small to see." This is of course far too broad, and does not indicate what is special about nanotechnology.

But what, exactly, is special about nanotechnology? What collective observation -- let alone formal definition -- can be made about a loose association of fields as diverse as fabricating computer chips, making movies of proteins in action, and analyzing the performance of future nanofactories?

The best definition for 'nanotechnology' that we could come up with is:

Engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale.

It goes without saying that this definition will not satisfy everyone. However, it includes most kinds of nanotech that we can identify, while implying the novelty of the research and development.

To anticipate a few objections:

• Many kinds of nanotech are not involved with molecules, but with non-molecular structures. However, "molecular scale" refers to a (broad and fuzzy) range of sizes rather than requiring actual molecules.
  
• "Functional systems" seems to exclude passive nanoscale structures. However, we think this is not actually a bad thing. A structure without a purpose is just a curiosity; conversely, a system can be functional without being active. A buckytube in a composite has the same function as a girder in a bridge.
  
• By specifying "engineering," the definition excludes random discoveries. But by the time a discovery becomes a technology, it will have advanced far from the initial observation or insight.
  
• "Systems" might seem to be restrictive, but it's hard to imagine how a molecular-scale object could be useful without being part of a system--even if only a system of measurement.
  
• Modern microscopy studies the nanoscale without necessarily being built out of molecular-scale systems. However, it seems appropriate to leave tools such as electron microscopes in the gray area, since they existed long before "nanotechnology" was conceived. Proximal probe microscopes do, of necessity, include molecular-scale components.

We like this definition because it encompasses most of today's nanoscale technologies, while simultaneously pointing the way toward increasingly intricate, functional, and active nanosystems. Of course, the nanosystems that we at CRN are most interested in are productive nanosystems: molecular-scale devices engineered for the purpose of building more molecular-scale devices.

Unless one of our astute readers finds a significant flaw in this definition, we will propose it as a suitable definition for situations where authors want to include both nanoscale technologies and molecular manufacturing in their discussions of 'nanotechnology'.

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Deep-sub-wavelength Lithography

The "diffraction limit" used to be thought of as a fundamental barrier: you couldn't do anything with light that involved distances smaller than half a wavelength. Imagine that you're jumping rope while dancing around and using the rope's impact on the ground to sweep patterns in the dust. (Ignore your footprints; the rope is what's important here.) By just spinning the rope around yourself, you can't make patterns that are much narrower than you are.

But if you can shake the rope in intricate, carefully controlled patterns instead of just swinging it around, you can make it touch the ground in smaller and more controlled areas. Similarly, if you send the light through very carefully calculated masks, you can make the energy -- over a very short distance -- take on patterns that are quite a lot more intricate than a simple wave of light.

A bit over a year ago, we posted about deep-sub-wavelength imaging. Now, an article in CCNews describes deep-sub-wavelength lithography. Features as small as 26 nanometers have been generated.

Another rule has been broken by this work -- this one not a "rule" of physics, but a human prediction. As the article explains, evanescent wave lithography wasn't expected to be developed for another five years. Technology seems to have a habit of doing that, these days.

So how long until we see the first positionally controlled, atomically precise diamond fabrication? Anyone want to start a betting pool?

Chris Phoenix

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Talking About Nanotech

I (Chris) recently had a conversation in email about the possibility of speaking to a group of investors about nanotechnology. It turned out that they want to hear about stuff that's almost ready for commercialization. But part of my email seems worth posting here (hyperlinks added for this post):

If your audience wants to hear about nanotech that's being developed in labs today for near-term commercial use, that's a little different from my focus. I focus on the NNI's Stage 4 (or maybe Stage 4+1): active nanomachines--including nanomachines that can do what RepRap is trying to do, but at the nanoscale and with covalent bonds rather than polymer deposition. (For a further explanation, click here.)

From your initial reaction, I suspect your audience would not be interested, and may even be predisposed to dismiss the feasibility. Well, time will tell. Opposition to the theoretical possibility is decreasing rapidly; informed opponents are now saying "Well, OK, I guess you can do it, but it's not worth doing." Only trouble is, the reasons they give would also indicate that digital computers could never beat out analog computers. It's objected that molecular manufacturing is clunky, unnatural, and inefficient; so the only thing it has going for it is precision and speed and general-purpose operations.

Today's nanotechnology related manufacturing tends to use large machines to make relatively simple nanoscale devices/features/materials. The processes are tweakable, but not fully programmable. And they don't result in products, but only materials or at most components. That's the differences.

Points of similarity are developing as well. Some lab work is starting to address nanoscale templates, and even active templating. This is getting incrementally closer to programmable nanosystems that make nanoscale products. Other lab work is progressing toward more active molecular nanodevices. Ned Seeman has built a DNA machine that can be programmed via DNA to make any of several strands of DNA (the output strand's pattern is unrelated to the programming strand). Buckytubes have been used as springs and linear and rotational bearings, and even characterized (e.g. by Zettl). Scanning probes and other micro- and nano-devices have been used to do a variety of covalent reactions, including some initiated by pressure alone (Aono, Oyabu, etc, etc). But as I say, all this is in the very early stages, and a commercially-oriented crowd with a three-year planning horizon might not be interested yet. (On the other hand, a government with a ten-year horizon should be interested.)

In addition to technical studies, I also study perceptions of nanotechnology; I've followed this for seventeen years. Regardless of what field of nanotech your audience works in, they will have to deal with the public's worries about nanobots eating the biosphere or infesting people's brains. I can explain to a nanoscience audience the history behind the popular (and political/scientific) opposition to molecular manufacturing, giving them the background they will need to communicate with a public whose main exposure to nanotech comes from reading uncritical reviews of Crichton's execrable book Prey. I have given talks on this topic to several technical audiences, and have received positive feedback.

I hope this helps clarify what I study. Please let me know if you have an audience who might be interested in any of it.

Chris Phoenix

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Molecular Manufacturing and Culture Shock

In a comment on a recent post, Nato Welch asked, "But will fabs really produce any phenomena so startling revolutionary as their own exponential growth?"

That got me thinking. Exponential manufacturing would be a large conceptual shock to many people. And Nato makes a good point that the existence of any exponential manufacturing system would help people accept MM and encourage them to pay attention to the implications of molecular manufacturing. I certainly don't want to downplay the value of that.

However, I would say that yes, MM fabricators (nanofactories) could produce phenomena (products, capabilities) as revolutionary as electricity was, and very likely more shocking than exponential manufacturing.

Today's nanoscale technologies can create new and improved products. Near-future exponential rapid prototyping may create an industry. But molecular manufacturing could create whole new fields of human endeavor. Imagine what you could do with fuel cells at a gigawatt per cubic meter, and electric motors at a petawatt per cubic meter (this means a car engine could be shrunk to a few cubic centimeters), and a grain-of-rice two-watt Earth Simulator (until recently, the world's fastest supercomputer), and as many molecular sensors/receptors/effectors as you cared to build... Aerospace would be completely revolutionized. Computers would advance as far again as they have since 1950 or so. Some aspects of medicine would become as straightforward as automobile repair.

In fact, even if you look only at the acceleration of medical research that would result from rapid-prototyped massively-parallel molecular-to-meter-scale medical devices (both diagnostics and therapeutics), I think MM will likely present several opportunities for radical and startling revolutions. Anti-aging medicine is not beyond the realm of possibility. I'd think that a 200-year healthy lifespan, or an effective solution to pain, or broad-spectrum neurotechnology, would be at least as much of a shock as exponential manufacturing.

Going back to aerospace, it might take longer to catch on, but I'd think that cheap public access to space would cause a change of worldview. At first it would be extreme sports, but the sports would rapidly become less extreme and less dangerous. It hasn't been that many decades since skiing and surfing were extreme sports. Assuming that civilians are allowed access to space (which is far from certain), I could imagine people vacationing there and deciding they liked it--within two decades after MM, and likely within one decade.

I haven't mentioned weapons yet. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to think up weapons whose mere existence would cause a paradigm shift.

In summary: If you think that exponential manufacturing will be a huge culture shock, then hold onto your hats, because there's a lot more where that came from.

Chris Phoenix

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Scientists have recently discovered that a microbial parasite may be making people schizophrenic.

The story is at Yahoo News. It seems that the parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, has evolved to live in cats and rats. In cats, it sheds eggs that are eaten by rats. The rats remain perfectly healthy... almost. There is a subtle but important effect: whereas uninfected rats are terrified by the smell of cat urine, infected rats are attracted to it, making them convenient meals for felines, and so the parasite completes its life cycle.

Toxoplasma gondii also infects three billion humans--half the people on the planet. It damages astrocytes, cells in the brain that have been found to be damaged in schizophrenics. High levels of antibodies to Toxoplasma in pregnant women mean that their children are more likely to develop schizophrenia. And in cell cultures, growth of Toxoplasma is stopped by haldoperidol (Haldol), an anti-psychotic drug. Haldol also restores infected rats' fear of cat urine; it's as effective as Toxoplasma-specific antibiotics.

If microbes can cause schizophrenia in humans, risky behavior in rats, and gymnastics in ants (also described in the Yahoo article), then we still have a lot to learn about how to be healthy. We have had microscopes for hundreds of years, but it takes more than microscopes to discover links between microbes and illness. There are hundreds of different kinds of microbes in the human body, and most of them are harmless (as far as we know). What we need is to be able to get down to the biochemical level with broad-spectrum chemical probes, diagnostic devices small enough to be safely implanted in living humans, real-time DNA and protein analysis, and computers powerful enough to analyze massive reams of information and look for useful patterns.

Medical research is advancing rapidly, and the next ten years may see a number of new discoveries based on early versions of microbe-analyzing tools. But molecular manufacturing could make it a lot easier to do such research. Vastly more powerful computers, smaller and more numerous sensors, and molecular analysis tools that can be reshaped for each molecule of interest, should make it a lot more practical to learn exactly what our microbe companions are doing to us.