We've recently done some housecleaning on our Blogroll (see the list in the panel to the right), and removed several blogs that were either dead or largely inactive.
If you have a favorite blog that's not listed and you think it covers subjects relevant to responsible nanotechnology, please let us know. No guarantee that we'll add it, of course, but we're always interested in seeing good blogs.
Although we call ourselves the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, we've confined our focus to a specific, powerful application of advanced nanotechnology known as molecular manufacturing.
Nanotechnology, in its traditional sense, means building things from the bottom up, with atomic precision. By contrast, much of the work being done today that carries the name 'nanotechnology' is not nanotechnology in its original meaning. Current nanoscale technologies can and do include everything from lithography to optics to metrology, encompassing materials science, semiconductor manufacture, and even ranging into biotechnology.
Not everyone believes that CRN should continue concentrating only on molecular manufacturing and its implications. For example, Mick, writing to comment on our main website said:
Our December 2007 newsletter included a promise that in the next issue we would offer an assessment of CRN’s first five years and present an overview of our accomplishments, our disappointments, and our plans for the future.
In approaching this task, we chose to go back and review what we believed and what we said when we started CRN, and to ponder and report on what we have learned since then.
Early in 2003, we published the following foundational statements that summarized CRN's basic positions:
Let’s take those points one at a time and see if they still apply today, in early 2008...
Many of you probably are familiar with the Wise-Nano wiki site started by CRN a few years ago. I'm happy to report that we have just successfully completed an upgrade to the MediaWiki software, using the expert assistance of Nato Welch, CRN's Tech Support Specialist.
Nato says:
Our wiki at http://wise-nano.org/ has recently been updated to Mediawiki 1.11, the current stable release. Due to some minor problems with spambots, we have instituted a new policy requiring all wiki users to confirm by email before being allowed to edit or create pages. If you have an existing account on the wiki, you can confirm your email in your user preferences.We invite everyone to take a look at the material collected by the community there, and consider making your own contributions. That could be done by improving, editing, discussing, or expanding on existing material, or contributing one or more articles of your own that are relevant to development of molecular manufacturing.
Among the "hot debates" you'll find at the Wise-Nano site are these:
Slope of technology curve: Will exponential production arrive as a sudden leap in technology or will it fit in the incremental growth curve of progress?Should people be required to die at some point, as nanotechnology extends health to 100, 120, even 200 years?
Is there a secret U.S. molecular manufacturing project, or is the U.S. government clueless?
Does molecular manufacturing need breakthroughs, or just lots of R&D?
Will global administration be necessary? Or is that intolerable?
Early MM pros and cons: Is it wiser to develop molecular manufacturing ASAP, or delay it?
We hope you'll enjoy reading -- and better yet becoming an active participant -- in these important discussions.
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics blog
We work hard at CRN to maintain a balance in presenting both the risks and the potential benefits of advanced nanotechnology. Similarly, we try to steer a middle path between optimistic and pessimistic views about the future. That's not always easy, especially when you spend as much time as we do trying to understand the range of bad outcomes that could occur, and how to avoid them.
But amidst the dire predictions of danger from runaway climate change, a nanotech arms race, severe economic upheaval, and so on, it's always nice to find some bright spots.
One trend that should give us hope is the significant long-term reduction in violent crime in our largest cities. For example, in New York, where I live, the murder rate has dropped to its lowest level since 1963, when the city began keeping "reliable records."
Given the fact that the further back in history you go, the more violent and lawless human society has been, you could make a strong argument that New York City's murder rate is now at its lowest rate ever.
The decline is so striking, and apparently inexorable, that it allows headlines like this one:
The Killing of Murder
As the homicide rate continues to drop, the impossible beckons: What would it take to go all the way to zero?
The previously unthinkable "death of murder" (admittedly, an idealistic exaggeration, but still) merges well with an equally remarkable, statistically observable, longer-term historical trend away from violence and toward peace:
Global violence has fallen steadily since the middle of the twentieth century. According to the Human Security Brief 2006, the number of battle deaths in interstate wars has declined from more than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to less than 2,000 per year in this decade. In Western Europe and the Americas, the second half of the century saw a steep decline in the number of wars, military coups, and deadly ethnic riots.
Does all this mean, then, that CRN's concerns about nano-weaponry and the increasing "democratization of violence" are unnecessary? Or should we continue to be wary?
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics blog
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.
In her column on "Creating Productive Nanotech Communities" posted at Nanotech Now, CRN's Jessica Margolin invites readers to join a new Yahoo discussion group, "CRNtalk." She said:
Bring your questions, your observations, those news stories that bother you. Our hope is that this community will help would-be interns find internships, students find mentors, and people find other friends with like interests.
This is an overdue development for CRN, and we're grateful to Jessica for making it happen!
Until now, we've never offered an open forum for feedback, discussion, criticism, sharing, and networking. We have this blog, which allows comments, of course, but only on subjects that we choose to write about. And we have a monthly e-newsletter, but that's strictly one-way communication.
Finally, there's a place for you to bring questions, raise issues, offer ideas, suggest articles of interest, or basically say anything that's on your mind. Naturally, we will expect users to adhere to some basic community standards, but beyond that, it's a wide-open space for sharing and discussion. Enjoy!
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
Some recent commenters have noted that entries on this blog sometimes stray from the immediate topic of 'Responsible Nanotechnology'.
For example, Dan S. says:
I've got an impression that these days CRN is more concerned with problems of climate change, privacy, China, nuclear power, etc. rather then safe administration/development of molecular manufacturing.
There are a couple of explanations for this. One is that after years of writing articles on a fairly narrow range of subjects, it's hard to resist the temptation to occasionally throw in something different, like this, or this.
But a more substantive explanation has to do with how we are, over time, coming to see that the issues CRN is nominally concerned with are inextricably linked with a wide range of other topics.
Molecular manufacturing will not be developed in a vacuum, nor will it emerge unhindered into a welcoming world.
How, when, or even whether desktop nanofactories are finally produced will depend largely on external factors that have little or nothing to do with nanotech. This is a big drive behind our efforts to create a series of professional-quality scenarios about the near-future development of molecular manufacturing within the context of projected trends in science, technology, and global politics.
The task of designing effective policy toward safe development and responsible use of advanced nanotechnology is both highly complex and vitally important. A broad base of knowledge is required for that, including as good an understanding as we can get of the rapidly changing social, economic, and political systems that atomically-precise exponential manufacturing eventually will encounter. Those new conditions must be taken into account, because the world of circa 2020 is expected to be vastly different from 2007 -- and in developing responsible global solutions, context is everything.
Jamais Cascio, CRN's new Director of Impacts Analysis, recently wrote a column for Nanotechnology Now that tackled a whole set of issues beyond the purely technical. He considered:
And that's just one circle of expansion outward from CRN's earlier concerns.
Expect to see much more of this -- including discussions of climate change, privacy, China, etc. -- as we strive to understand the world that awaits the development of desktop nanofactories. We'll try to relate those explorations as clearly as we can to the basic mission of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, but remember, we're on a journey here, a journey together into mostly unknown territory.
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
We spend a lot of time on this blog writing about China, and we think with good reason. It's common to hear the last 100 years referred to as "The American Century," and many observers now suggest that the next 100 years eventually will be known as "The Chinese Century."
Of course, a lot could happen to change that outcome. For one thing, China faces huge internal and external challenges on its path to global supremacy. For another, the United States is still the preeminent superpower in both economic and military terms and is likely to remain so for some time.
But in looking outward over the next several decades, it's hard to conceive a plausible scenario of world development that does not include China in some capacity. So, as we try to envision how, where, and when molecular manufacturing will emerge and what its implications will be, we must include China in our calculations of context.
In an analysis piece this week in the New York Times, Joseph Kahn writes:
To judge by the reports in China’s state-run news media, the Communist Party took a bold step toward democracy at the just completed 17th National Congress, which approved a new leadership team to run the country.President Hu Jintao used the word democracy 61 times in his main address to the congress. The official Xinhua news agency reported that the party nominated 221 candidates to fill the 204 full seats on the Central Committee, meaning that 7.6 percent of those declared eligible did not get a seat. Xinhua called this a “competitive election.”
In reality, of course, China’s one-party system still owes more to Lenin than to Jefferson. It convenes congresses every five years to ratify leadership decisions on policy and personnel. The message is not change, but continuity.
And specifically what type of continuity are they looking for? Kahn says:
They want fast growth, a nonaligned foreign policy and political stability.
Okay, remember that, because we'll come back to it at the end.
An article by John Feffer in the November 2007 issue of The Nation describes various perspectives from which U.S. foreign policy analysts may view China. I'm paraphrasing here, but the basic question seems to be this:
Should America (and the rest of the world) view China as a political threat or partner, as a military threat or partner, as an economic threat or partner, or as some combination thereof?
I encourage reading the whole article (and while you're at it, also read this snarky-but-informed critique by a "Qing historian"). I'll offer a few quotes, and then my own slant from CRN's position.
On the matter of weaknesses that may qualify China's rise to power, Feffer notes:
Foreign policy analysts speak of various crunches that China will face. There's the demographic one, when China suddenly becomes a senior citizen society virtually overnight because of its one-child policy. There is the economic one, when rapid growth begins to sputter and an angry middle class joins hands with the disenfranchised to close down the party. There's the environmental one, when the poisons of industrial development choke the country to death...Washington should pay less attention to the strength of China, some knowledgeable courtiers are whispering, and more to the great country's weakness. In this telling of the story, China is an elaborate pyramid scam, its prosperity resting on a foundation of sand. Only by continuing to generate unprecedented levels of growth -- 11 percent in 2006 -- can China continue to fool its domestic supporters and foreign investors into playing the game.
Inside China, troubling stories appear every day. There is rampant corruption. Some grow impossibly rich while many remain impatiently poor. Tens of thousands of protests break out in the cities and the countryside every year. The AIDS and SARS scandals, the harrowing coal mine disasters, the ruthless suppression of dissidents -- eloquently described by Chinese activists themselves in the new collection Challenging China, edited by Human Rights in China staffers Sharon Hom and Stacy Mosher -- all have the potential of sapping the confidence of the population in the leadership's capacity to govern.
What about the growing military might of China?
The issue of greatest controversy is China's increased military spending. Beijing argues that it is spending around $36 billion a year; some US estimates run double or even triple that amount. However you slice it, China wants a world-class army to match its world-class economy. But with its air and sea power still limited, China has an anemic ability to project force over distance. A mere twenty long-range nuclear missiles serve as a very slender deterrent force. And while the bean counters scrutinize China's arms purchases, the annual US military budget has sailed past $500 billion (not including the Iraq and Afghanistan supplemental spending). To match the United States, China would have to play Soviet-style catch-up, and it knows the endpoint of that strategy.
Finally, Feffer concludes:
Predicting what will happen with China is a fool's errand. China is the exception that proves so many rules wrong. It is a Communist system that has managed a transition to "capitalism with Chinese characteristics." It has fostered market growth without much political reform. And it has pulled huge swaths of its population out of poverty and illiteracy faster than all the well-paid development professionals in the West. Yet as Gifford [an NPR reporter] argues, "For every fact that is true about China, the opposite is almost always true as well, somewhere in the country." The data set is so large that it defies generalizations.
We said earlier that China's leadership wants "fast growth, a nonaligned foreign policy and political stability." But let's assume for a moment that all three are not possible to maintain at the same time...if challenges arise that require China to choose between them, which aims will take priority?
I assume political stability would be valued above all else. Keeping the regime in power is the one essential goal; therefore, sacrificing some amount of growth or even making concessions in foreign policy alignment would be considered before risking significant political instability.
Tomorrow we'll continue this discussion by looking at "Radical Breakdowns."
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
Preparing the public, and especially policy makers, for the advent of molecular manufacturing is a difficult job. It is our opinion that this technology will be extremely powerful, potentially disruptive, and could arrive quite suddenly. But how do we communicate such crazy-sounding ideas without coming across as, well, crazy?
This is the challenge that CRN has faced since our founding in late 2002. In that time, we've worked on gathering and presenting evidence to bolster our assertions of how powerful molecular manufacturing will be. We've endeavored to present the facts and the theories as objectively as we can, avoiding hyperbole, dispelling myths, and rejecting fantasies. We've talked about technical matters, societal implications, and policy options to groups around the world.
Now that almost five years have passed, we've seen a significant shift in how people regard the prospect of revolutionary change triggered by atomically-precise exponential manufacturing. It's no longer dismissed as impossible or even implausible. Today the discussion is much more often not whether this technology is coming, but when.
As a result, our emphasis at CRN is changing. We've done a pretty good job of making people believe it's real. Now we have to work on creating a sense of urgency. That means we have to let people see the direct connection between today's science and tomorrow's technology, between present-day developments and near-future disruptions. It's got to be understood not as something that's "out there" but as something that's "almost here."
Jamais Cascio, our new Director of Impacts Analysis, suggests this model for understanding transformative technology risks:
- Present/near version, with limited but meaningful risks
- Near/medium version, with broader and more complex risks, but still graspable by non-specialists
- Medium/end version, with subtle and deeply complex risks, but clearly along the same history as the past versions
For example:
Version 1 - Fabbers
Version 2 - Block fabricators
Version 3 - NanofactoriesLater versions of the technologies need not be derivative from the first, but the risks and the response models should be clearly related. The solutions that work for Version 1 won't work cleanly for Version 2, but will point us in the right direction; similarly, the solutions for Version 2 will give us a leg up on the solutions for Version 3.
This seems like a useful approach, and it's especially helpful when the relevant Version 1 technologies are starting to attract some notice:
Fab at Home, Open-Source 3D Printer, Lets Users Make AnythingHod Lipson didn't set out to revolutionize manufacturing. He just wanted to design a really cool robot, one that could "evolve" by reprogramming itself and would also produce its own hardware -- a software brain, if you will, with the ability to create a body. To do this, Lipson needed a rapid-prototyping fabrication, or "fabber."
Picture a 3D inkjet printer that deposits droplets of plastic, layer by layer, gradually building up an object of any shape. Fabbers have been around for two decades, but they've always been the pricey playthings of high-tech labs -- and could only use a single material.
"To really let this robotic evolutionary process reach its full potential," says Lipson, a Cornell University computer and engineering faculty member, "we need a machine that can fabricate anything, not just complex geometry, but also wires and motors and sensors and actuators."
Lipson and his grad student collaborators, Dan Periard and Evan Malone, decided to put the problem to the people. They developed a low-cost, open-source fabbing system -- Fab at Home -- and encouraged experimentation by starting an online wiki for hobbyists.
A Fab at Home kit costs around $2400. Lipson compares it to early kit computers such as the MITS Altair 8800, which democratized computer technology in the 1970s. At-home fabrication, Lipson says, "is a revolution waiting to happen." As for that robot? Wait a year, he says, and it really will walk out of the machine.
That's the sort of story that will help people accept the near-future reality of revolutionary desktop manufacturing. Of course, a fabber like the one described above is not the same as a nanofactory (it's not even a direct ancestor), and it probably will not have nearly as much impact, but it definitely does make a difference in communicating the essence of what CRN is talking about.
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
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