Responsible Nanotechnology

Dialogue of Civilizations

Tonight I am flying from New York to Rhodes, Greece, to attend and participate in the World Public Forum's "Dialogue of Civilizations," an annual event that brings together experts, politicians, public and religious dignitaries from all the continents of the world.

I have been asked to deliver a report broadly based on nanotechnology and globalization. The title I have chosen is: "From ‘top down’ to ‘bottom up’ -- in technology, economics, and geopolitics."

Here is the mission of the World Public Forum:

World Public Forum is a deliberative-consultative body that unites various public organizations, members of organs of government, representatives of intellectual, cultural, spiritual, business and political elite from different countries, representatives of various cultural traditions, people that strive for contribution in dialogue among civilizations.

Key objects of the Forum are the following-uniting of efforts of world community for protection of spiritual and cultural values of humankind, organization of the space of constructive dialogue among the main civilizations of the modern world. Activities of the Forum aimed at elaboration, development and spreading of dialogue culture, cultivation of collaboration and understanding spirit in everyday life.

World Public Forum is aimed at the creation of effective and democratic instruments of solving of global problems and realization of evolutionary changes in the structure of modern society.

I look forward to meeting and exchanging ideas with the event’s esteemed participants.

During my travels, I'll try, if possible, to maintain some blogging, but I can't be certain how much time and how much online access I'll have.

Mike Treder

Human Extinction Scenario

Our most recent C-R-Newsletter includes a feature essay from Jamais Cascio, CRN's Director of Impacts Analysis.

Here is how it begins:

It's 2019. A major pandemic has swept the planet, with upwards of 25 million people infected. Global food networks have collapsed, and riots over food supplies are in daily headlines around the world. The transition away from fossil fuels is underway, but a lack of standards, failing infrastructure, and catastrophic mistakes have made the shift far more painful than expected.

Pirates fill the seas, hackers attack key networks, and "griefing" has moved from the world of online games to our information-laden real lives. War, drought, and climate disruption have pushed millions out of their homes throughout the world, a global diaspora that grows daily.

And into this set of interwoven crises, an announcement: According to the most sophisticated global computer simulations ever run, the human species is likely to go functionally extinct by 2042...

READ THE REST

C-R-Newsletter #65

The latest edition of the C-R-Newsletter has been posted on our main website.

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:

Global Catastrophic Risks
Convergence 08
Scenarios Becoming Real
The End of Capitalism?
CRN Goes to Spain
Funding for Independent Researchers
CRN Goes to Greece
Feature Essay: The Human Extinction Scenario

Read the whole newsletter here — and sign up for a free subscription here.

Upsetting the Existing Order

Tomorrow I'll be spending the afternoon with a select group of U.S. Navy captains being groomed for admiralty at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

This is the third year in a row I've been invited to meet with members of the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group (SSG), which "generates revolutionary naval warfare concepts."

Our three-hour presentation and discussion this year will be divided into three parts: Accelerating Change, Nanofactory Technology, and Military and Security Implications.

According to the SSG web page: "Revolutionary implies that the concepts would upset the existing order. . . The SSG focuses its efforts on warfighting concepts that appear to have great potential, but Navy organizations are currently not pursuing. "

CRN believes that molecular manufacturing is very likely to upset the existing order in numerous ways, including naval and other types of warfare. Therefore, we are pleased to share our outlook with the SSG and with any other significant group -- military or not -- that seeks to understand and prepare for the revolutionary changes that are coming our way soon.

Mike Treder

Superstruct Launch!

In his capacity as an affiliate with the Institute for the Future, CRN's Jamais Cascio has been deeply involved in developing a massively-multiplayer forecasting game called "Superstruct."

Read the game scenario here.

Watch descriptive videos here.

Find answers to FAQ here.

Get involved and help superstruct the future!

Building a Resilient Civilization

CRN is proud to join with the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies in presenting this exciting and informative one-day seminar. Learn about threats to the future of humanity, natural and man-made, and the pro-active steps we can take to reduce these risks and build a more resilient civilization.

SEMINAR FACULTY

• Nick Bostrom Ph.D., Director, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University
• Jamais Cascio, research affiliate, Institute for the Future
• James J. Hughes Ph.D., Exec. Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
• Mike Treder, Executive Director, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
• Eliezer Yudkowsky, Research Associate. Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
• William Potter Ph.D., Director, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies

This event comes just ahead of -- and is organized with the cooperation of -- the futurist mega-gathering Convergence 08, November 15-16 at the same venue. You can get more information on our seminar and register to attend right here.

Convergence 08

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Pretty cool! Discounted early bird registration is only available, by the way, for about another 30 days.

Also, watch this space for another important event announcement, coming soon.

C-R-Newsletter #64

The latest edition of the C-R-Newsletter has been posted on our main website.

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:

Big Boost for Molecular Manufacturing
CRN Goes to Oxford
Looking Ahead
CRN Goes to Washington
Superstruct the Future
Nanotech and the Big Picture
CRN Going to Spain
Guest Essay: The Perfect Storm

Read the whole newsletter here — and sign up for a free subscription here.

Radical Technologies

In 2005, for my first appearance at the annual conference of the World Future Society, I was given a small room with only 25 chairs, and I was scheduled for a 9:30 PM presentation. My topic was "Do Sweat the Small Stuff: Why Everyone Should Care about Nanotechnology." To my surprise and delight, the room was full and in fact we had another 10 or 15 people standing at the back.

Last year in Minneapolis, I gave my second talk at a WFS annual conference, this time on the topic of  “Nanotechnology and the Future of Warfare.” The room was larger, with seating for about 50, and again it was filled to overflowing.

Yesterday I traveled to Washington, DC, for the 2008 World Future Society conference, where I gave a one-hour presentation on "Radical Technologies, Rapid Change, and the Real World." This time, they were prepared for a bigger audience to attend, with a large room and seats for a hundred people. But guess what -- it still wasn't big enough -- once again, we had a standing room only crowd.

Here you can download a PDF [4.3 MB] of the presentation I gave yesterday.

I offered to give all attendees a free CD containing the full scenarios series, but it turned out we had more people asking for them than we were able to satisfy (I'd brought 100 CDs with me). If you'd like to download each of the eight scenarios, plus the introduction -- exactly the same thing as on the disk -- you can find links to them at this page.

Many thanks to all who attended!

Mike Treder

Back from Oxford

Sorry for such slow blogging over the last couple of weeks. Now that I'm done globetrotting for a while, I'll try to catch up with the backlog of what's been going on, and keep you up to date on the rest of our activities.

Last Sunday at Oxford University in England, Chris Phoenix and I had our first opportunity to do a co-presentation. In about 45 minutes, we tossed the microphone back and forth and tried to do justice to the topic of "Small Machines, Big Choices: The Looming Impacts of Molecular Manufacturing."

Apparently, we did fairly well. Or at least that seems to be the verdict of Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine, who attended the conference and wrote:

Next up was Michael Treder and Chris Phoenix from the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. They cannily opened with a series of quotations claiming that science will never be able to solve this or that problem. Two of my favorites were: "Pasteur's theory of germs is a ridiculous fiction" by Pierre Pachet in 1872, and "Space travel is utter bilge," by Astronomer Royal Richard Woolley in 1956. Of course, the point is that arguments that molecular manufacturing is impossible are likely to suffer the same predictive failures. Their vision of molecular manufacturing involves using trillions of very small machines to make something larger. They envision desktop nanofactories into which people feed simple raw inputs and get out nearly any product they desire. The proliferation of such nanofactories would end scarcity forever. "We can't expect to have only positive outcomes without mitigating negative outcomes," cautioned Treder.

What kind of negative outcomes? Nanofactories could produce not only hugely beneficial products such as water filters, solar cells, and houses, but also weapons of any sort. Such nanofabricated weapons would be vastly more powerful than today's. Since these weapons are so powerful, there is a strong incentive for a first strike. In addition, an age of nanotech abundance would eliminate the majority of jobs, possibly leading to massive social disruptions. Social disruption creates the opportunity for a charismatic personality to take hold. "Nanotechnology could lead to some form of world dictatorship," said Treder. "There is a global catastrophic risk that we could all be enslaved."

On the other hand, individuals with access to nanofactories could wield great destructive power. Phoenix and Treder's chief advice is more research into how to handle nanotech when it becomes a reality in the next couple of decades. In particular, Phoenix thinks that it's urgent to study whether offense or defense would be the best response. To Phoenix, offense looks a lot easier—there are a lot more ways to destroy things than to defend them. If that's true, we should narrow our future policy options.

You can read the rest of Bailey's observations on the conference here, here, and here.

Mike Treder