Responsible Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology Incentives

Let's say you are the leader of a country containing hundreds of millions of people, and growing fast. Let's say you have few natural resources — no great reserves of petroleum or precious minerals — and that the vast majority of your population is illiterate and in poverty. You have a limited industrial base, a miniscule tax base, and slim prospects for economic competition in the world, short of grossly exploiting your own poorly trained work force.

What would you do? It sounds like a no-win situation, but it's not far from the dilemma in which China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, and many other nations find themselves.

A story this week in the Washington Post describes the environmental catastrophe taking place in China as that country struggles to modernize and raise their standard of living. Reporter Joshua Kurlantzick writes: "the country is now home to the world's worst environmental problems," and "it is totally unprepared to combat them."

By some measures, at least six of the world's 10 most polluted cities are in China, including Beijing and Urumqi. Several have the highest rates of airborne carbon monoxide in the world. The country's environmental agency says that living in Chinese cities with the worst air pollution does more damage to an average Chinese person's lungs than smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. . .

China's environmental protection agency estimates that the quantities of carbon, nitrogen and other gases in Chinese cities will make the air too toxic to breathe in the most polluted urban areas within a decade.

It's an ugly story. Forests are being ripped up and turned to desert; rivers are filled with garbage, human waste, and dead fish; and even city aquifers are loaded with heavy minerals. Why must this be? The article continues:

The environmental catastrophe is the result of a storm of factors.

In the past two decades, China has witnessed an extraordinary migration from rural to urban areas, as more than 200 million people, looking for work, have moved to the cities, overstressing resources. In the next two decades, another 300 million are expected to join them. . .

As far back as 1982, the Chinese leadership placed an environmental protection section in the national constitution. Today, the director of the government's environmental agency frequently warns that China's development is ecologically unsustainable, and that the country will not be able to reverse the damage once it has attained a higher gross domestic product.

These warnings go unheard, because breakneck urbanization and industrialization have benefited too many Communist Party leaders.

China is committed to an historically unprecedented rate of rapid industrialization, and the country often is touted as an economic miracle, but at what cost?

Those of us who read (and write) this blog know, of course, that there is an answer to these problems: a clean, cheap, environmentally friendly form of light manufacturing that will provide high quality goods to all without raping the land, and that could turn China into the envy of the Earth. It may be just a matter of time until nanotechnology can deliver on these promises and more, but will it be soon enough?

A few days ago, we mentioned here that molecular manufacturing might, in fact, be invented somewhere in the developing world sooner than in the United States, Europe or Japan. Considering the enormous incentives — economic, environmental, and, yes, military — that less developed nations might see in nanotechnology, this scenario does not seem at all implausible.

You also could make a strong argument that such a beneficial technology should be developed as rapidly as possible. You could argue that the humanitarian and ecological benefits alone should be enough to motivate all leading nations to band together and bring this to pass. You could say this, and CRN does say this!

Mike Treder

Not Nanotechnology

Argh. One of the basics of effective policy formulation is clear definition of terms. But when someone makes a list of today’s "Top 10 Nanotechnology Products" and defines nanotechnology as "technological developments and manipulations of nano-sized matter towards a commercial application", it makes the picture far less clear.

Broad, vague, and misleading definitions have a seriously negative effect on the ability of the public and of policy makers to understand what nanotechnology is and what should be done about it.

That’s why we were pleased to read a recent article by Andrew Woolls-King in Electronics News. He begins:

Nanotechnology is being called many things: A massive investment opportunity; an incredibly promising next generation electronics technology, and even a threat to humanity.

For the electronics sector, fabrication of chips with nanoscale (nm) features is becoming routine. Yet while semiconductor manufacturing is dealing in nanometres, it too is still to be affected by true nanotechnology -- or more accurately "molecular nanotechnology".

Molecular nanotechnology (referred to as nanotechnology for the rest of this article) means constructing materials and devices virtually one atom at a time. It’s the exact opposite of how things are made today: currently engineers take a group of limited (natural or synthetic) macroscopic materials and, for example, refine, combine and catalyse them to produce something useful. In contrast, nanotechnology constructs useful devices from individual atoms and molecules (atoms and molecules mingle and combine on an atomic scale) to make whatever material, device and (eventually) machine that’s desired.

This sort of contrast and comparison is extremely helpful. We hope other writers will follow his example.

We also were pleased that some researchers are being careful to say that the work they currently are doing is not nanotechnology.

For example, the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Chemistry has published a fact sheet about their "Mechanized Molecules" project, in which they specify:

This is not nanotechnology (at least not in the established sense of manufacturing devices at nanometer length scales from "top-down" or "bottom-up" approaches), rather we are advocating the use of molecular motion to bring about completely new types of property changes on a macroscopic scale.

Hurrah for clarity!

And three more cheers for Dr. Christoph Gerber of IBM Zurich Research Centre, who says:

Our cantilevers are 16 nm thin and 80 microns long. We have a resolution of 10-22gr. That takes us into the realm of individual atoms. We have the device, now we need to work with it. In my definition, this is still not nanotechnology. We are at a stage where we try to understand the nature of science. Our tools are micro-instruments doing nanoresearch. We aim for nanobots doing nanotechnology.

As we move closer to the time when nanotechnology research will result in exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing, urgent and meaningful discourse about effective policy will be a necessity. But that can’t be done in a fog.

It’s vital that we encourage others to use the word 'nanotechnology' in a specific way — to describe the construction of materials and devices from the bottom up with atomic precision — and make it clear that everything small is not nanotechnology.

Mike Treder

Nano Crossroads

SAGE Crossroads today posted the 60-minute webcast program on which I was a guest. Topics included the effects of nanomedicine on battling disease and aging, the need for further public discussion of both the risks and benefits of molecular manufacturing, and the possibilities and desirability of human enhancement technologies. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Mike Treder

New research website: Wise-Nano

The Wise-Nano.org website has just come online. The site is designed to support collaborative research on the implications of nanotechnology and how to deal with them. In the process, it will produce a body of work on the technology, risks and benefits, and policy.

The site is hosted by CRN and created by CRN's Director of Research, Chris Phoenix. But it is intended to grow far beyond CRN's control, attracting researchers from all over the globe who are concerned about the various aspects of nanotechnology.

It's based on the excellent MediaWiki software, which was written for Wikipedia (the free collaborative encyclopedia), which currently has over a million articles in dozens of languages.

This blog has seen some great discussions. But those discussions became inaccessible as soon as they were finished, because they're not indexed. We will be suggesting that some discussion threads move to Wise-Nano pages, where they can be categorized, summarized, and turned into articles. We will also be posting our Thirty Essential Studies there over the next few weeks.

We expect that these will be just a small fraction of the projects hosted on Wise-Nano.

Please let us know what you think of the site. Were you tempted to add an article or two? Did you? Would you use it to get feedback or help on your projects? Why or why not? What would make it more usable? What would inspire you to tell your friends about it?

Global Governance

We live in a very different world in 2004 than we did just twenty years ago, or, for that matter, even five years ago.

The Cold War is over, and the War on Terror has begun. Today we can see trends that weren’t apparent until recently, such as economic globalization, worldwide cable television networks, the astoundingly rapid spread of Internet access, and the near ubiquitous use of cell phones and other wireless technologies in villages that only a few years ago—or maybe still—had no running water.

Yesterday we wrote about the challenge of making the benefits of molecular manufacturing available to people not just in the developed world, but also to the other 80% of the planet’s population.

However, one caveat to remember when considering this issue is that advanced nanotechnology might be invented somewhere in the developing world first! It’s quite possible that progress could occur faster in China, India, Singapore, Brazil, or somewhere else, instead of in the United States, Europe, or Japan.

If this happens, then the decision of whether or how to share it with the "rest of the world" takes on a different aspect.

And another thing — what gives us, the minority who were lucky enough to be born in the developed world, the right to decide about the lives of those billions who make up the majority of our species?

Such questions must be asked. In fact, they are beginning to be asked. The recent aggressive imposition of United States will on two nations in the Middle East, the introduction of the new Bush doctrine of pre-emption, the direct challenge from the US to multilateral institutions — all this is making people around the world ask serious questions about governance.

Today, people far from America's shores do indeed pay for the consequences of US actions. The citizens of Iraq are the obvious example, living in a land where a vile dictatorship was removed only for a military occupation and unspeakable violence to be unleashed in its place. The would-be voters of downtown Baghdad might like a say in whether their country would be better off with US forces gone.

These quotes are from a September 22 column in the UK’s Guardian newspaper.

Everyone from Madrid to Bali is now drawn into the "war on terror" declared by President Bush. We might believe that war is being badly mishandled—that US actions are aggravating the threat rather than reducing it—and that we or our neighbours will eventually pay the price for those errors. We might fear that the Bush policy is inflaming al-Qaida, making it more not less likely to strike in our towns and cities, but right now we cannot do anything to change that policy.

Are we approaching a time when some form of global plebiscite will make sense? Perhaps an actual vote of all the world’s citizens on questions of planetary importance is too radical, or at least too unworkable, but some new mechanism for making such decisions seems inevitable. The question is, how will it be determined: how fairly and how peacefully?

Mike Treder

Globalization and Nanotechnology

Taking a long view of history, identifying strong underlying trends, trying to understand where current events are taking us and how we might influence the course of change — such is the challenge for an organization like CRN, and for anyone else who hopes to have a meaningful impact over the long term.

One of the trends that must be assessed is globalization…

The notion that we live in a global economy is now a commonplace. Supply chains extend halfway around the planet, and no respectable corporation would dare show its face without at least pretending to have a well-defined global strategy. The funny thing about the global economy, though, is how much of the globe has been left out of it. Four billion people still earn less than four dollars a day, and as far as the global economy is concerned they hardly exist—except, of course, as cheap labor.

A recent commentary in The New Yorker magazine suggests that global consumer capitalism can be seen, however, to have beneficial effects, at least in certain circumstances.

Critics of consumer capitalism like to think that consumers are manipulated and controlled by those who seek to sell them things, but for the most part it’s the other way around: companies must make what consumers want and deliver it at the lowest possible price. In a market economy, the best thing to be—aside from an oil company, perhaps—is a customer.

Consumerism, of course, has its pitfalls and is hardly a cure-all. But if companies started trying to sell things to the poor it would have immediate consequences, chief among them a reduction of the so-called poverty penalty. It’s expensive to be poor. Poor people pay more to eat, buy, and borrow, because they have so few choices and so little bargaining power, especially in the developing world. Moneylenders, purchasing agents, and retail stores typically have local monopolies that allow them to gouge their customers. If more companies reach these customers, prices will fall.

In the near future, when molecular manufacturing reaches the stage of exponential proliferation and has general-purpose application across nearly all segments of society — then the question of how (or whether?) to extend its benefits to the 2/3 of the world’s people who live on less than four dollars a day will confront us.

Better, though, that we consider this challenge now, that we learn what we can from history, consider the strength of underlying trends, and begin putting in place solutions that will avoid the greatest risks of nanotechnology while maximizing the great potential gains for all humanity.

Mike Treder

Unanswered Questions

Todd Andersen, one of our regular blog readers and frequent posters, last night posed a series of interesting and important queries. As he says, there are dozens -- if not hundreds -- of vital questions about nanotechnology that must be answered. CRN will continue working on this, of course, but we have only begun to scratch the surface.

So, this seems like a good time for a few plugs...

First, CRN's Student Research Program -- to cover the full spectrum of issues raised by advanced nanotechnology is much more than one organization can do without assistance. That's why we have created a program of research projects in a joint collaboration between CRN, instructors, and students. The program is targeted at undergraduate and graduate students, though advanced secondary school students also may be able to participate. Please contact Chris Phoenix if you would like to learn more.

Second, for those in government, corporate, academic, and civil society organizations that seek to understand the transformational power of molecular manufacturing, we recommend starting with CRN's Thirty Essential Nanotechnology Studies. Again, if you'd like more information, write to us and ask, or if you have already begun studies of your own, please share with us what you are doing.

Third, you may have heard that CRN's Director of Research, Chris Phoenix, has been hard at work on an important new endeavor. We're almost ready to unveil it, in an alpha stage, for your review. It's called the Wise-Nano project, a collaborative website to study the facts and implications of advanced nanotechnology.

Building a foundation for wise nanotechnology will not be easy. Chemists, political scientists, physicists, lawyers, engineers, economists, sociologists, medical doctors, environmentalists, and ethicists will need to work together to ask and answer the right questions.

The point is, safe entry of the human race into the nano era will require more than just brilliant molecular engineering. The brightest minds and clearest thinkers, the most energetic activists and committed organizers, the smartest scientists, most dedicated ethicists, and most creative social planners desperately will be needed, or should I say, are needed.

We look forward to your participation in one or more of these areas.

Mike Treder

Consultant Status

We’re pleased to report that the American Council to the United Nations University (AC/UNU) has designated CRN as a Consultant to their Millennium Project. We’ve written before about this fascinating project, an ongoing survey of attitudes and forecasts concerning advanced technology and changing societal conditions over the course of the next several decades. Because nanotechnology will make significant impacts on virtually everyone, it’s vital to include an exploration of benefits and risks -- as well as administration options -- in their future scenarios.

Anyone interested in contributing opinions to the current AC/UNU survey on "Environmental Pollution and Health Hazards Resulting From Military Uses of Nanotechnology" is invited to participate.

The Nano Papers

For those seeking an overview of current thinking about advanced nanotechnology -- where the technology might be going, how soon, and what can be done to manage it responsibly -- a reading of some or all of CRN's published papers is recommended.

The key papers to read first are "Safe Utilization of Advanced Nanotechnology" and "Three Systems of Action: A Proposed Application for Effective Administration of Molecular Nanotechnology", but all are important and informative.

Of course, we'll be adding more. Chris is making three significant talks in the next month or so, and Mike is making at least two; we'll post the associated papers after they are completed and presented.

Most of CRN's papers and articles are available in PDF format (no charge) for downloading and easier reading, and many also are available in a bound, hardcopy format (for a fee). Here is a complete listing:

Safe Utilization of Advanced Nanotechnology - published January 2003, revised December 2003

ABSTRACT: Many words have been written about the dangers of advanced nanotechnology. Most of the threatening scenarios involve tiny manufacturing systems that run amok, or are used to create destructive products. A manufacturing infrastructure built around a centrally controlled, relatively large, self-contained manufacturing system would avoid these problems. A controlled nanofactory would pose no inherent danger, and it could be deployed and used widely. Cheap, clean, convenient, on-site manufacturing would be possible without the risks associated with uncontrolled nanotech fabrication or excessive regulation. Control of the products could be administered by a central authority; intellectual property rights could be respected. In addition, restricted design software could allow unrestricted innovation while limiting the capabilities of the final products. The proposed solution appears to preserve the benefits of advanced nanotechnology while minimizing the most serious risks.

Applying the Precautionary Principle to Nanotechnology - published January 2003, revised December 2003

ABSTRACT: The development of general-purpose molecular manufacturing through nanotechnology carries numerous risks, including the production of potentially unhealthy nanoparticles, the possible creation of tiny, destructive, self-replicating robots, and many others. The Precautionary Principle is often invoked when dealing with situations that might be hazardous; however, the label "Precautionary Principle" is attached to at least two different ideas, which must be analyzed separately. This paper discusses two forms of the Precautionary Principle, which we will call the "strict form" and the "active form", and relates them to the purpose of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, and to CRN's policy recommendations.

Molecular Manufacturing: Start Planning - published August 2003 in the Journal of the Federation of American Scientists

ABSTRACT: Despite claims to the contrary, molecular nanotechnology manufacturing is coming soon. Because it will be so useful, there will be strong pressure to develop it as soon as possible, and past a certain point it could happen quite rapidly. Macro-scale integrated nanotech manufacturing systems will improve product functionality, product design time and manufacturing speed and cost by orders of magnitude. This advance may profoundly affect economics and geopolitics, creating enormous benefits and risks. It will be difficult to prepare adequately for such a powerful technology. For all these reasons, molecular nanotechnology should be a current topic in high-level policy and planning.

Technical Commentary on Greenpeace Nanotechnology Report - published September 2003

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this document is to augment a portion of the August 2003 Greenpeace report on nanotechnology and artificial intelligence and to comment on a few specific statements in it. That report's treatment of molecular nanotechnology (MNT) was necessarily brief and did not cover several key areas. The present document supplements Greenpeace's work, explores further some of the misconceptions of MNT, and describes one area within MNT, limited molecular nanotechnology (LMNT), which is currently being pursued by most MNT researchers. LMNT can produce most of the desired medical devices, advanced materials, and product innovation goals sought after today and will be significantly easier to achieve. CRN believes that recent advances in LMNT research should underscore to policy makers the urgent need for discussion of possible consequences, both positive and negative.

Three Systems of Action: A Proposed Application for Effective Administration of Molecular Nanotechnology - presented at the October 2003 "Discovering the Nanoscale" conference in Darmstadt, Germany

ABSTRACT: Within the next few decades, and perhaps sooner, a new type of manufacturing will be made possible by molecular nanotechnology (MNT). Considering its enormous potential for profound economic, environmental, social, and military impacts, MNT has received insufficient attention in ethical and policy discussions. The first section of this paper provides a brief introduction to MNT, in order to establish the need for increased policy attention. The second section describes three different approaches to policymaking, each based on a different system of action, or set of principles, used for solving various kinds of problems. The third section demonstrates that MNT, as a flexible “general purpose technology”, will require a flexible approach to policymaking that encompasses all three systems of action. The fourth section presents specific recommendations and possibilities for accomplishing this difficult balance between incompatible policy styles.

Design of a Primitive Nanofactory - published October 2003 in the Journal of Evolution and Technology

ABSTRACT: Some theorists expect that molecular manufacturing will cause a sudden, rapid advance in our ability to design and build nanotech products. Others argue that each product will require significant debugging, so that products will arrive in a stream rather than a flood, even after the first self-duplicating assembler is built. This paper will describe the mechanisms and processes required to bootstrap a macro-scale, programmable nanofactory from a single self-contained assembler. Nanofactory structure, power requirements and thermodynamic efficiency, control of mechanochemistry, reliability in the face of radiation damage, convergent assembly processes including joint mechanisms, product design, and bootstrapping steps are discussed in detail. Bridging the gap between the first assembler and the flood of nanotech products can probably be accomplished in a matter of weeks.

Of Chemistry, Nanobots, and Policy - published December 2003

ABSTRACT: The ability to build products by molecular manufacturing would create a radical improvement in the manufacture of technologically advanced products. Everything from computers to weapons to consumer goods, and even desktop factories, would become incredibly cheap and easy to build. If this is possible, the policy implications are enormous. Richard Smalley, a prominent nanotechnologist, has tried for several years to debunk this possibility. Most recently, he participated in a published exchange with Eric Drexler, another prominent nanotechnologist, who has been the primary proponent and theorist of molecular manufacturing. This paper examines the arguments presented by each side and concludes that Smalley has failed to support his opinion that MNT cannot work as Drexler asserts.

Invited Commentary on Royal Society Nanotechnology Workshop - published December 2003

ABSTRACT: CRN is encouraged by many of the opinions expressed in the report, especially the interest in issues of nanomaterial safety. However, we believe that the report pays insufficient attention to a significant expected application of nanotechnology: molecular manufacturing. Direct chemical manufacturing of complex nanosystems surely will be extremely difficult to develop. However, recent work has produced well-grounded and limited proposals that retain high value and utility. Sufficient effort might develop such systems in as little as a decade, and large incentives may motivate such early development. This possibility can be addressed within the current framework of your studies.

Projected Environmental Impacts of Molecular Manufacturing - published December 2003

SUMMARY: Nanotechnology may lead to a breakthrough manufacturing technology. Some projected implications have been extreme enough to inspire disbelief and fear. The resulting lack of attention and active opposition are unfortunate, because limited versions may be developed in the next decade, and may require proactive environmental policy attention. If the stated theory is correct, mechanical chemistry can form the basis of a general-purpose fully automated manufacturing system capable of directly fabricating additional manufacturing systems, and also capable of manufacturing large products with nanoscale features and atomic precision. Such a system would be cheap to operate, and manufacturing capability could be increased exponentially at low cost. These pages provide supplemental information to the presentation made by CRN before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board on December 11, 2003.

Accurately Describing a Technology That Does Not Yet Exist - published March 2004

ABSTRACT: This paper explains CRN’s ongoing process of defining and describing our work. By carefully and repeatedly examining our terminology, we hope to succeed in walking the narrow middle line between dispassionate observation and zealous activism; between being boosters for nanotechnology and being sentinels. We aim to avoid being marginalized as irrelevant fanatics, and instead fulfill our chosen function as informed, principled, interested analysts and effective advocates for responsible use of nanotechnology.

Thirty Essential Studies - published May 2004

ABSTRACT: These 30 studies are organized in several sections. The first section covers the fundamental theory: insights that may be counterintuitive or unobvious and need explanation, but that can be double-checked by simple thought. The second section addresses technological capabilities of possible molecular manufacturing technologies. The third section addresses 'bootstrapping'—the development of the first self-contained molecular manufacturing system (which will then be able to produce duplicates at an exponential rate), including schedule considerations. The fourth section explores the capabilities of products, building toward the fifth section, which raises urgent questions about policies and policymaking. The overall objective is to acquire a preliminary but comprehensive understanding of all significant issues related to molecular manufacturing, in preparation for its possible development within the next ten years.

Safe Exponential Manufacturing - published in the August 2004 issue of the Institute of Physics journal Nanotechnology

ABSTRACT: In 1959, Richard Feynman pointed out that nanometer-scale machines could be built and operated, and that the precision inherent in molecular construction would make it easy to build multiple identical copies. This raised the possibility of exponential manufacturing, in which production systems could rapidly and cheaply increase their productive capacity, which in turn suggested the possibility of destructive runaway self-replication. Early proposals for artificial nanomachinery focused on small self-replicating machines, discussing their potential productivity and their potential destructiveness if abused. In the light of controversy regarding scenarios based on runaway replication (so-called ‘grey goo’), a review of current thinking regarding nanotechnology-based manufacturing is in order. Nanotechnology-based fabrication can be thoroughly non-biological and inherently safe: such systems need have no ability to move about, use natural resources, or undergo incremental mutation. Moreover, self-replication is unnecessary: the development and use of highly productive systems of nanomachinery (nanofactories) need not involve the construction of autonomous self-replicating nanomachines. Accordingly, the construction of anything resembling a dangerous self-replicating nanomachine can and should be prohibited. Although advanced nanotechnologies could (with great difficulty and little incentive) be used to build such devices, other concerns present greater problems. Since weapon systems will be both easier to build and more likely to draw investment, the potential for dangerous systems is best considered in the context of military competition and arms control.

You can access all of the papers here.

Nanotechnology Security

CRN has worried about powerful stealthy devices being used for crime, including extortion. Improved manufacturing and robotics could make it easier to launch long-distance anonymous attacks, and we do not expect that civilians will generally be prepared to defend themselves -- any more than they practice good computer security.

We have been told by others that extortion won't be a big deal because extortionists can't easily get paid. However, a recent article in Information Week gives reason for concern. Threats of computer-based extortion have hit at least 17% of small and midsize businesses; another 13% were unsure. (One hundred businesses were surveyed.) The article says: "Most extortion plans fail", as 70% of those threatened say the attempts were unsuccessful. But that implies that 30% of the extortion attempts were successful.

One company paid $100,000 to harden itself against attacks. But 45% of companies "express a lack of confidence in their technical department's ability to respond to security incidents."

Let's hope this is not a preview of things to come.

Chris Phoenix