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The Foresight Institute recently announced a new initiative with a stated goal of "making molecular nanotechnology (MNT) happen sooner rather than later." CRN agrees that a planned program for early development of the technology is probably a good idea for a variety of reasons.
Early development of molecular manufacturing capability increases some risks, but reduces others; overall, we think it's safest to develop as soon as possible. This is a preliminary conclusion, and we may change our opinion, but there are solid reasons for taking this position. The development of this new technology seems inevitable sooner or later. If development is delayed, it will rapidly become easier and cheaper, thus harder to control. Also, it's probably the case that early development will allow more time to develop nanotechnology-based protective technologies—which may be necessary to cope with some dangerous ramifications of the technology. Finally, if it's done right, molecular manufacturing could save millions of lives per year and greatly decrease the environmental damage we're already doing. The costs of delay are significant, and may even outweigh the risks of development.
That's an overview of our reasoning. Read a more detailed analysis here.
C-R-Newsletter #16 has been posted and, for some of you, delivered to your email inboxes.
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
CRN goes...to China! ...to California! ...to South Carolina! ...to Florida! ...to the Internet!Nano politics goes ballistic...
A technical briefing from Chris Phoenix on nucleic acid engineering...
...and more!
Read the whole newsletter here — and sign up for a free subscription here.
On Monday, March 3, the European NanoBusiness Association (ENA) will brief the European Parliament on nanotechnology. Founded in 2002 by leading players in European nanotechnology, the ENA is a Brussels based non profit organization "dedicated to promoting a strong and competitive European nanotechnology based industry".
Their presentation is titled Explaining the science - Identifying the issues. The speaker panel includes:
- Professor Mark Welland (Director, Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Nanotechnology, University of Cambridge)
- Dr K. Eijkel (Director Nanotechnology Institute Mesa and Technical University Twente)
- Professor Wolfgang Heckl (Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich)
- Ms Fiona Fox (Science Media Centre, London)
- Dr Renzo Tomellini (EC Nanotechnology Programme)
- Mr Tim Harper (European Nanotechnology Business Association)
- Dr Julia King (The Institute of Physics, London)
To their credit, the ENA appears to have kept an open mind about both the potential benefits and the possible risks of exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing -- unlike their US counterparts, the NanoBusiness Alliance. CRN expects that the ENA briefing for the European Parliament will be reasonably balanced. We look forward to hearing a report about it from our friend Tim Harper, one of the presenters.
When exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing becomes a practical reality, it will immediately create several severe risks—and each risk will tempt a simple and extreme solution. However, a patchwork of extreme solutions will be both destructive and ineffective. For example, some have proposed halting nanotechnology research entirely. Attempting this would not achieve the desired goal; instead, it would relocate the research to less responsible venues. The risks might be delayed by a few years, but would be far worse when they appeared because the technology would be even less controllable. To take another example, economic upheaval might be prevented by strict commercial licensing of all uses of the technology. This has two problems. First, digital protection schemes for commercial products have often proved quite easy to crack. Second, if the technology is so restricted that it cannot disrupt existing economic systems, continuing poverty will kill millions of people each year, fueling backlash, social unrest, espionage, and independent development. Each risk must be reduced by some means that does not exacerbate others. This will not be easy, and will require creative and sensitive solutions.
That's a basic overview of the complex challenge we are facing. Read a more detailed analysis here.
John Robert Marlow’s novel Nano and a subsequent interview with the author have generated considerable discussion over at the sci.nanotech group, as well as numerous comments here on our blog. We think it’s good that people are talking about the potential consequences of advanced nanotechnology. Sure, Marlow takes some creative liberties and exaggerates the technology a bit for dramatic purposes—but it’s a science fiction story, after all, and one purpose of storytelling is to make people think about and talk about important issues.
The discussion of how fast (or slow) gray goo could spread is important. Clearly it warrants further study. But other issues beyond gray goo must be studied—some quite urgently.
Here’s what CRN Director of Research Chris Phoenix says:
A gray goo will be very hard to build. It'll need a metabolism, a fabricator, a control computer with full blueprints, and an environmental shell with chemical/mechanical interfaces... all in a very small package. Note that this means that there's no way a nanofactory can accidentally mutate into a gray goo. If gray goo happens, it will be deliberate.Long before goo is designable, it'll be possible to design UAV's (unmanned aerial vehicles; think cruise missiles) that can spread it very quickly. But why bother spreading goo? With much simpler robotics/avionics, you can just kill the person (or city) you want to kill; no need to destroy the world in the process.
If we ever get to the point where script kiddies can release dangerous gray goo, we're probably doomed—since it'll surely be harder to stop goo than to stop slow-moving, slow-thinking meat robots from pushing the wrong buttons. But we will have much more severe dangers to deal with before that point. Like nano-arms races with weapons much more rapidly destructive than gray goo—and much more controllable, hence easier to justify using.
In any event, the book actually scared me—and I've been thinking about this stuff for a long time, and I know all about doing the math on physical limitations, and I spotted lots of places where things couldn't work the way he wrote them. But the strength of the story is that it doesn't really depend on the technological details. Make a powerful enough technology—and diamondoid molecular manufacturing certainly qualifies—and you're opening the door to all sorts of human-invoked destruction.
The position of CRN is that gray goo eventually may become a concern requiring special policy. However, worse and more imminent dangers may come from non-replicating nano-weaponry. Since there are numerous greater risks from molecular manufacturing that may happen almost immediately after the technology is developed, gray goo should not be a primary concern. Focusing on gray goo allows more urgent technology and security issues to remain unexplored.
Although not specifically a CRN issue, the effort to cure the disease of aging and radically extend human healthspans is of interest to us for two reasons: first, because Chris and I both would prefer to live longer and healthier lives than what nature allots us; and second, because the regulatory climate that surrounds aging research may hold lessons for the administration of research into molecular manufacturing.
This post at The Longevity Meme reports that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "blocked a new stem cell therapy for heart damage that has proven very successful in trials. The therapy uses stem cells from the patient's own blood, directly analogous to using your own blood for transfusions in surgery."
As Chris notes, "It's worth asking whether valuable nanotech research might similarly be blocked due to the most trivial of hot-button-word politics."
On this topic, a post by Reason at the Fight Aging site says, ""Heavy handed or not, I am deliberately setting forth the position that Leon Kass, the Bioethics Council, President Bush and his administration, in their deliberate, successful attempts to block progress towards regenerative medicine, will have as their legacy more death and suffering than was caused by all the wars and dictators of the 20th century."
The Washington Post printed an article today on the present-day business of nanotechnology. It's written primarily as advice for investors. Here are a few excerpts:
For several years, government leaders have referred to nanotechnology as the "next industrial revolution," and predicted that products based on it could be worth $1 trillion in a decade. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has become a big booster. The Bush administration is pouring billions into nanotech research.Indeed, a few products have already trickled out of the laboratory into the marketplace -- stain-resistant trousers, deeper penetrating lotions and longer-lasting tennis balls -- and companies say more are on the way. Exceedingly spacious computer hard disks based on nanotechnology have already made a huge splash -- in fact, they are roiling entire industries.
Glimpsing the possibilities, scientists spent the 1990s trying to manipulate matter at the nanoscale, as it's called. By now they've built all sorts of experimental gadgets and discovered new properties, and efforts are afoot worldwide to commercialize the technology.
Overall, though, success in the laboratory has been remarkably difficult to translate into real-world products. It's one thing to make a prototype of a device far too tiny to detect with the human senses; it's another problem entirely to make millions of them reliably and cheaply.
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