Preparation, Not Prediction

In this month's C-R-Newsletter, our feature essay is by Jamais Cascio, CRN's Director of Impacts Analysis. Instead of excerpting the essay, as is our usual custom, we're going to post the whole thing here, because it is an important restatement of CRN's purpose...

How soon could molecular manufacturing (MM) arrive? It's an important question, and one that the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology takes seriously. In our recently released series of scenarios for the emergence of molecular manufacturing, we talk about MM appearing by late in the next decade; on the CRN main website, we describe MM as being plausible by as early as 2015. If you follow the broader conversation online and in the technical media about molecular manufacturing, however, you might argue that such timelines are quite aggressive, and not at all the consensus.

You'd be right.

CRN doesn't talk about the possible emergence of molecular manufacturing by 2015-2020 because we think that this timeline is necessarily the most realistic forecast. Instead, we use that timeline because the purpose of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology is not prediction, but preparation.

While arguably not the most likely outcome, the emergence of molecular manufacturing by 2015 is entirely plausible. A variety of public projects underway today could, with the right results to current production dilemmas, conceivably bring about the first working nanofactory within a decade. Covert projects could do so as well, or even sooner, especially if they've been underway for some time.

CRN's leaders do not focus on how soon molecular manufacturing could emerge simply out of an affection for nifty technology, or as an aid to making investment decisions, or to be technology pundits. The CRN timeline has always been in the service of the larger goal of making useful preparations for (and devising effective responses to) the onset of molecular manufacturing, so as to avoid the worst possible outcomes such technology could unleash. We believe that the risks of undesirable results increase if molecular manufacturing emerges as a surprise, with leading nations (or companies, or NGOs) tempted to embrace their first-mover advantage economically, politically, or militarily.

Recognizing that this event could plausibly happen in the next decade -- even if the mainstream conclusion is that it's unlikely before 2025 or 2030 -- elicits what we consider to be an appropriate sense of urgency regarding the need to be prepared. Facing a world of molecular manufacturing without adequate forethought is a far, far worse outcome than developing plans and policies for a slow-to-arrive event.

There's a larger issue at work here, too, particularly in regards to the scenario project. The further out we push the discussion of the likely arrival of molecular manufacturing, the more difficult it becomes to make any kind of useful observations about the political, environmental, economic, social and especially technological context in which MM could occur. It's much more likely that the world of 2020 will have conditions familiar to those of us in 2007 or 2008 than will the world of 2030 or 2040.

Barring what Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls "Black Swans" (radical, transformative surprise developments that are extremely difficult to predict), we can have a reasonable image of the kinds of drivers the people of a decade hence might face. The same simply cannot be said for a world of 20 or 30 years down the road -- there are too many variables and possible surprises. Devising scenarios that operate in the more conservative timeframe would actually reduce their value as planning and preparation tools.

Again, this comes down to wanting to prepare for an outcome known to be almost certain in the long term, and impossible to rule out in the near term.

CRN's Director of Research Communities Jessica Margolin noted in conversation that this is a familiar concept for those of us who live in earthquake country. We know, in the San Francisco region, that the Hayward Fault is near-certain to unleash a major (7+) earthquake sometime this century. Even though the mainstream geophysicists' view is that such a quake may not be likely to hit for another couple of decades, it could happen tomorrow. Because of this, there are public programs to educate people on what to have on hand, and wise residents of the region have stocked up accordingly.

While Bay Area residents go about our lives assuming that the emergency bottled water and the batteries we have stored will expire unused, we know that if that assumption is wrong we'll be extremely relieved to have planned ahead.

The same is true for the work of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. It may well be that molecular manufacturing remains 20 or 30 years off and that the preparations we make now will eventually "expire." But if it happens sooner -- if it happens "tomorrow," figuratively speaking -- we'll be very glad we started preparing early.

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics blog

Comments

[Hal]

I see that you have, as of three days ago, removed the claim that MNT was "likely" by 2015 from your timeline page, http://www.crnano.org/timeline.htm . I am glad that you keep a record of such changes but I do think that this deserved a bit more attention.

I have had a number of debates with CRN members (particularly Chris Phoenix) over the years in which I complained about their over-aggressive predictions. It is good to see that CRN is now characterizing its timeline as being more a cautionary scenario than an actual prediction, but frankly I don't think this is how it was being presented in the past.

If so, I would like to see CRN more plainly admit that it is becoming more pessimistic about the possibility for accelerated That might help to inform the larger nanotech-enthusiast community about diminished prospects for near-term development of this technology.

[Mike Treder, CRN]

Hal, thanks for your comment. I think the essay from Jamais addresses all the issues you raised. But I'll reiterate that CRN never has suggested or even implied that the timelines we offer were intended as predictions.

We've consistently emphasized that we are urging people to get prepared for the earliest plausible development of nanofactory technology; and if it doesn't turn out to happen as fast as we think it might, that's fine (although the benefits therefore will be slower in coming).

It's like going to the airport to catch a plane -- if you're an hour too early, you might have to sit around and wait a while, feeling annoyed, but if you're one minute late, it's a big problem. So, let's be prudent and plan ahead.