Responsible Nanotechnology

Nanotech & National Security

US Navy Lieutenant Commander Thomas D. Vandermolen is officer in charge at the Maritime Science and Technology Center in Yokosuka, Japan. Tom, who is also a member of the CRN Global Task Force, has just had an article on "Molecular Nanotechnology and National Security" published in the Fall 2006 issue of Air & Space Power Journal.

Molecular nanotechnology, when fully developed, will provide the basis for the next technological revolution, possibly the most beneficial yet disruptive in human history. By allowing inexpensive mass production with atomic-level precision, this infant technology has the potential to create whole new classes of weapons and economic, political, and social disruptions serious enough to threaten international security.

In order to minimize the threats while maximizing the benefits of molecular nanotechnology's impending development, the United States should take the lead in creating a cooperative strategy of international regulation. Further, the strategy should be initiated as soon as possible to allow for the uncertain timeline of molecular nanotechnology development and the inherent difficulty of establishing such a regulatory process. Molecular nanotechnology's arrival will cause an avalanche of problems and threats, many of which the human race has never encountered; the control strategy must therefore be ready before that day arrives.

Read the whole thing.

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

A Lovely Day in Auckland

I'm writing this from a hotel room in Auckland, New Zealand. I've just arrived after a grueling 26 hours of travel from New York to Los Angeles to Papeete (Tahiti) and finally to Auckland. It's a beautiful late winter day here, with blue skies and temps in the low 60's -- oops, make that 17 degrees C.

Tomorrow (Saturday) morning, I'll be a guest on Kim Hill's popular program on Radio New Zealand. Then my lecture tour begins Monday in Dunedin. I'll be giving a series of talks around the country on the subject of "Disruptive Abundance: Nanotechnology in Our Lives." It's great to be in New Zealand, and I hope to meet some of our blog readers while I'm here, or in a couple of weeks when I'm in Australia.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Unintelligent Molecules

I (Chris) got an email today from someone who had read my Nanofactory paper and asked: How can molecules be intelligent?

I assume they meant: How can molecules be active and make engineered stuff?

The answer is that molecules can be active the same way a robot or other factory equipment is active: a computer can drive them. In a modern factory, much of the machinery moves under automated control. But that does not mean intelligence is moving it.

When molecular manufacturing develops to the point that it can build machine components by joining together molecular fragments, it will be able to build computers. A nanofactory will have vast numbers of computers, all working together. Those computers will drive the robotics of the factory to make exactly what the blueprints call for. The blueprints will be fed in from outside, just as files are sent from one computer to another today.

The idea of a molecular machine making stuff might seem spooky, but it is no more weird than an industrial robot arm. There is no "special sauce" needed to make a nanofactory work. It's just a lot of mechanical engineering, and a small amount of reasonably creative chemical engineering, and a lot of fairly straightforward computer programming. We are not proposing to build life, or even intelligence--just to build new types of machines.

Chris Phoenix

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Conference Deadline Looms

We've mentioned before that readers of our Responsible Nanotechnology blog can attend the upcoming Nanotechnology 2006 conference at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, for FREE.

Registration for the September 25-26 event normally would be $150. However, if you contact us by SEPTEMBER 10, we can register you at no cost. Please note that you cannot directly register on the conference web site to receive this offer -- you must go through us.

Chris Phoenix

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Regulating Disruption

I was asked to provide an answer to a new question in the "Brain Parade" series posted at the Meme Therapy blog. Here is the question, and my answer follows:

Do you think the global economy and already existing regulatory structures will be able to adapt to the impact of nanotechnology without large-scale negative disruptions?

Probably not, or at least not without far greater anticipation and preparation than we’re seeing today. It’s not clear yet whether new administrative or regulatory structures will be needed, but in any case the existing structures will need to be highly flexible and forward-thinking if severe disruptions are to be avoided.

It’s not hyperbole to say that molecular manufacturing (which is part of nanotechnology’s fourth generation of development, due in 10 years or so) represents the next Industrial Revolution. We’re talking about a manufacturing technology that could turn out low-cost, highly advanced products from a desktop appliance: a personal nanofactory. And one product of that nanofactory could be another nanofactory, and another and another.

We'll have the possibility for exponential proliferation of the manufacturing capacity. Think about all the transformative change of earlier tech-based revolutions — from steam power, electricity, the automobile, plastics, and computers — packed into the span of just a few years. It’s that rapidly accelerating pace of change that makes nanotechnology potentially so disruptive.

Patrick Lin, a member of the CRN Global Task Force, also gave an answer, which included this point:

Now, some people believe that when nanotechnology advances, molecular manufacturing techniques will enable us to create virtually anything we want: we just need to program these little black boxes with the right blueprints, and they will crank out the desired product, one molecule at a time. If this happens, then there may be severe disruptions on many levels. The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) is the only organization looking into this, as far as I know.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Limits of the World

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Tag: quotes

CRN Goes to MIT

Now in its 6th year, Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT features a mixture of keynote speakers, insightful panels and breakout sessions. The two-day program -- September 27-28 -- will bring together world-renowned innovators and business leaders to discuss emerging technologies.

I'm currently planning to "live blog" this conference, similar to the well-received coverage we provided from Stanford's Singularity Summit. Among the many speakers of special interest to us are:

Jeffrey P. Bezos
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Amazon.com

Vicki Colvin
Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Rice University

Barbara Karn
US Environmental Protection Agency

Jonathan F. Miller
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, AOL

Sebastian Thrun
Director, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Stanford University

If you also attend the conference, look me up and say Hi!

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Maintaining Equilibrium

David Howell, a former British Cabinet minister and former chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, has written a penetrating opinion piece for the Japan Times (hat tip to Rocky Rawstern).

To the dismay of the Israeli public, and the surprise of a large flock of defense experts accustomed to high-speed Israeli victories over weak Arab neighbors, the Hezbollah guerrillas continued raining down rockets on Israeli towns for weeks. Worse still, armed with their ultra modern, armor-piercing and laser-directed missiles, they were able to knock out Israel's invincible tanks and then to melt into the hills and villages of southern Lebanon. They proved to be an elusive enemy that all the bombs and reconnaissance from the air could never somehow pin down. . .

As one weary Israeli soldier observed, this was an enemy that seemed to combine all the advantages and flexibility of an irregular underground fighting force, operating in its own familiar territory, with the technology and firepower of a modern and fully equipped army. . .

[T]he miniaturization of weapons, along with the miniaturization of everything from mobile phones to computers, has enabled the modern guerrilla not only to harass regular forces, as he (or she) always could do, but to match their firepower and to destroy them. All that is now needed for a group to acquire the firepower, and therefore the power, to match a full-size, fully trained army is a few months of preparation, time to build up stocks of weaponry, a degree of training in handling the new technology and, of course, plenty of cash to hand to the willing sellers of such arms who populate the world's armament bazaars. . .

When they see what is happening in Lebanon, Western policymakers may at last begin to grasp what should have been obvious from the onset of the information and electronic revolution over 20 years ago -- namely and simply that the microchip disperses power into more and more hands (good and bad) and smaller and smaller groups, and that where the microchip leaves off, nanotechnology -- packing power into invisibly small entities and sources -- will take over. Sheer weight of arms no longer translates into power and influence. Big fleets of carriers, squadrons of tanks, armadas of aircraft and strike fighters with devastating rocket power are no longer the key to domination or the insignia of over-arching authority.

Small remains beautiful but small has also become lethal. Those who would seek to establish a new political and social architecture, and a new equilibrium in the unstable and dangerous Middle East, will from now on have to live with that fact.

To this we would add that those who seek to maintain equilibrium within the global political and social architecture must come to grips with the destabilizing and potentially disruptive impacts of tomorow's nanofactory technology.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Kurzweil on "The Daily Show"

Earlier today we mentioned that the Burch/Drexler nanofactory video had made it into pop culture with a posting at YouTube. Well, tonight, more evidence that nanotechnology may finally be "ready for prime time," as inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil makes an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Kurzweil, who is a member of the CRN Global Task Force, spoke about medical nanobots and the future merging of man and machine. Of course, the segment was played for laughs and Ray was a good sport. Tonight's program will be shown again on the Comedy Central cable channel (in the US) at 1 am EST, and several more times tomorrow, including at 8 pm EST.

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

The Jetsons & the Nanofactory

It seems that Productive Nanosystems, the computer-animated video about nanofactory technology made by John Burch and Eric Drexler, has moved from the leading edge of futurist thinking -- originally posted at the Nanorex site -- into the mainstream -- posted at Google Videos -- and now has gone all the way into pop culture, with a posting on YouTube!

Yes, I know, that intro that's been tacked on (by someone called Duane Kuss) is pretty cheesy, but still, it's good to see these ideas reaching a wider audience.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog