CRN Task Force member Jamais Cascio, co-founder and senior contributing editor of WorldChanging.com, offers an excellent overview of nanotechnology's present and future, including a compelling exposition of why the task force is needed now.
Consider what might happen as desktop nanofactories, able to build just about anything that can fit within them, become cheaper and more sophisticated (remember: nanotechnology has much more in common with electronics than with traditional production techniques, and is likely to be subject to an acceleration similar to Moore's Law). Economies dependent upon material production (of shoes, of utensils, eventually of electronic devices) find that they have fewer markets as more people are able to "print out" their own customized objects. Economies specializing in raw materials might see a boost at first, but would decline as well as designers figure out ways to use less-expensive, more-commonplace materials as feedstock, eventually even disassembling old objects, becoming the ultimate recycling system.Consider what might happen if we start to apply the same kinds of intellectual property regimes to our products that we do to our music and movies.
Consider what might happen if advanced weapons were as easy to build with nanofactories as running shoes and cell phones.
Consider what might happen if everything we built with nanofactories consisted of materials with high-efficiency photovoltaic properties.
Read the whole thing here.
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
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