Nanotechnology Policy Gap

Earlier today, CRN issued this statement:

British Breakthrough Highlights Nanotechnology Policy Gap

An urgent need for new nanotechnology policy is highlighted by breakthrough results from a recent British government funded project. For the first time ever, a group of high-level scientists assembled for the purpose of inventing something as close as they could get to the long-sought nanotechnology goal of building precise products atom by atom. The remarkably advanced projects those scientists produced -- which they hope to complete in three to five few years -- suggest that the era of molecular manufacturing could arrive far more swiftly than previously imagined.

"What this shows, even more strongly than before, is the critical necessity of additional work on implications and policy," said Mike Treder, Executive Director of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN). "Existing nanotechnology policies, and most proposed policies, do not address huge new areas of concern raised by tomorrow's revolutionary manufacturing potential. That gap could be calamitous."

Nanofactories will use vast arrays of tiny machines to fasten single molecules together quickly and precisely, allowing engineers, designers, and potentially anyone else to make powerful products at the touch of a button. In a single week of intense interdisciplinary work, an "IDEAS Factory on the Software Control of Matter" produced three ground-breaking research proposals that bring the nanofactory concept closer to reality. The project was sponsored by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), a national science agency that also will fund the proposals.

"If, as expected, nanofactories can be used to build more nanofactories, then the impacts on society may be extreme," said Treder. "From remarkable advances in health care, environmental repair, and poverty reduction, to severe economic disruption, political upheaval, and the possibility of a new arms race: all these implications and more must be understood. Now it appears that our time to prepare is getting shorter."

The goals of the IDEAS Factory project were audacious: to make progress toward the vision of a "matter compiler" that could build atomically precise products under computer control. The forward-looking proposals coming from the IDEAS Factory should expand expectations as to what's possible at the nanoscale, and hold the potential to accelerate the development of nanofactory systems.

"This shows that molecular manufacturing, which has been considered a far-future result of nanotechnology, is now a fruitful topic for current scientific attention," said CRN Director of Research Chris Phoenix. "We expect that the IDEAS Factory will be a trend leader, inducing other nanoscientists to use molecular manufacturing as an inspiration and target for their work."

Participants in the IDEAS Factory designed research projects using an innovative process in which scientists from many different fields work together to bypass the conventional limitations of their fields. The three proposals they developed are expected to accomplish in just a few years what might have taken twenty with traditional approaches. Funding has already been assured by the EPSRC and experimental work will begin shortly.

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Comments

[Jan-Willem Bats]

I'm gonna need some extra explanation on this one.

You say that three breakthrough research proposals can bring MM very close to reality.

What exactly are these proposals in detail?

Calls for directing money at MM research?

Smart ideas that will help to build MM tools?

[Mike Treder, CRN]

Jan-Willem,

What's most significant is not just these particular breakthroughs -- although they are impressive -- but the fact that the breakthroughs occurred when a group of researchers got together, allowed themselves to think outside the box, conducted real-time peer review, worked cross-discipline (even having a sculptor involved!), and accepted a challenge that each of them alone would likely have dismissed.

The IDEAS Factory scientists took what many would have considered a 50-year goal, treated it like it was a 20-year goal, and then made a solid plan to get one-quarter of the way there in just a few years. They did it because they tried to do it, instead of simply assuming it couldn't be done.

This confirms for us, once again, that molecular manufacturing is likely to happen in less than 20 years. Probably much sooner, in fact, because CRN expects the rate of progress to continue accelerating.

The experimental projects they chose, assuming they are successful, should provide what one of the lead scientists called "proof of principle" for this type of molecular machinery. That's significant. But even more important is that the innovative process they followed could stimulate other scientists in other countries to try something similar. And even more important still is that these results are likely to encourage other researchers to adopt molecular manufacturing as an inspiration and target for their work, instead of limiting their focus to shorter-term goals.

For more on the specific proposals, see the "Software Control of Matter" blog. Note that fully detailed information has not been made public yet, but will be after the projects reach final approval.

[Jan-Willem Bats]

Okay, that makes it a little clearer.

Reminds me of George Danzig, who got 9 problems as homework from his professor. His professor didn't tell him they were unsolved problems in science.

George solved 6 of them in a few weeks time, all the while thinking they were standard homework that his classmates had already solved earlier.

A little while ago, Chris made a post about psychologicla barriers around solving math problems. That was essentially the same thing.

What the IDEAS factory has done is yet another example of what can be achieved as long as you don't shut doors on yourself mentally.

Does this progress make your "probably by 2015"-prediction shift to a "probably by 2012"-prediction?

[Martin G. Smith]

I would suggest that every step in the direction of positive development is a step in the right direction [Bias Declared]. Too, I would suggest that there need to be much less chanting about who is going to control, Read, Take credit for it and more about how we can all cooperate in achieving the common goal of responsibility.
Interesting case in point. Lucy [AKA BPM 37093] the White Dwarf was first discovered last September by an amateur using SLOOH.

[Chris Phoenix]

Jan-Willem, the Dantzig story has grown in the telling. It was only two problems. He solved them both. The prof had written them on the board, and Dantzig was late to class, missed the explanation, and assumed they were homework. They weren't given to him personally as homework.

http://www2.informs.org/History/dantzig/in_interview.htm

But I definitely agree about the psychological barrier. That's one reason I'm so convinced MM will happen sooner than most people expect. Most people in the US have that barrier. But it only takes a few who don't.

Chris

[Jan-Willem Bats]

Chris,

I had no idea I had read the blown up version of the story.

It just goes to show... always check your sources.

Well thanks for putting me in touch with reality anyway. ;)

Jay