Responsible Nanotechnology

Josh Hall as Foresight Institute President

The Foresight Institute held an event in Palo Alto earlier today, at which Josh Hall spoke in his new capacity as president of Foresight. He has been involved in molecular manufacturing for two decades; his accomplishments include founding the sci.nanotech newsgroup.

I expect Josh to bring a more technical and future-oriented focus back to Foresight, which for the past several years has (from my point of view) mainly been active in promoting stories about how good near-term nanoscale technologies can be. Nanoscale technologies are incremental steps away from familar technologies, and raise familiar issues; they are far less perilous than molecular manufacturing, which is why CRN has largely left them to other organizations.

It sounds like Foresight will be focusing on artificial intelligence as well as molecular manufacturing; Josh is an accomplished AI researcher. (And AI was a focus of Foresight back when it was founded; although it focused on molecular manufacturing, its mission was to address a variety of advanced technologies.) CRN won't have much to say about AI.

But I'll be watching closely to see how Foresight handles molecular manufacturing. Will Josh be able to redirect Foresight away from its current focus on "Advancing Beneficial Nanotechnology" to address the negative implications as well? I asked him today about Foresight's earlier slogan, "Good for people, good for the planet," and he did not like it. So maybe Foresight will be moving toward a more balanced view of the perils as well as the promise of molecular manufacturing. If they don't, CRN will just have to do our best to balance the picture.

Chris Phoenix

Destructive Nano Video

Well, that's a nice welcome-back-to-work for you.

Two days into my new/old job, and I hear from Mike that there's a nano video going viral. It's hosted, no surprise, by none other than Wired, which also published Bill Joy's anti-nano article in 2000. Nanotechnologists take note: Wired wants to destroy your funding.

I wish I thought that videos like this would raise public awareness of the implications of molecular manufacturing. But I don't. This video is not just about destructive nano - it is a destructive video about nano.

So what's wrong with the video? Like all good lies, it contains grains of truth. Here are a few of the half-truths:

• "Because it takes so many of these microscopic machines to do large-scale work, self-replicating nanobots will be pretty common in laboratories."

It is true that it takes many small machines to do large-scale work. The lie is that these machines will be free-floating and self-replicating, rather than being fastened in place like the conveyor belts and drill presses in a factory.

• "Rather than replicating using the rarest materials, program the nanobot to use the commonest."

It is true that molecular manufacturing will provide lots of design flexibility. The lie is that machines can simply be programmed to change their fundamental construction: it's like saying "program the tree to grow on gasoline." More accurate would be "Design a whole new nanobot from scratch, because nothing like it will exist."

• The overall message of the movie is that molecular manufacturing is powerful enough to be extremely scary.

It is true that molecular manufacturing will be immensely powerful and easy to misuse. The lie is that grey goo is the biggest danger. Deliberate institutional misuse of the products will generate more perilous and more urgent threats, which will be more difficult to prepare for.

At least I can hope that, nine years after Bill Joy's article scared nano researchers into claiming that molecular manufacturing was impossible, the researchers will react a little more calmly and reasonably this time. CRN has been explaining the realities of grey goo for years, and I co-authored a paper, "Safe Exponential Manufacturing," with Eric Drexler in 2004 on the topic.

While this video may scare the uninformed, perhaps the actual discussion of molecular manufacturing will emerge stronger and more sensible than before. I welcome your suggestions and actions toward this goal.

(Edit: I originally said Joy's article was in 2001)

Chris Phoenix

Adapt or Collapse

Apocalyptic thinking is frequently found in certain future scenarios, especially when those scenarios are created by people concerned with military conflict, climate change, artificial intelligence, disease outbreaks, or other scary possibilities. CRN has ourselves participated in the making of such scenarios involving nano-weaponry, and our co-founders wrote a chapter for a book on global catastrophic risk.

So, for anyone who's read this blog for a while, or who has kept up with general trends in futurist thinking, the projected "end of civilization" is not an unfamiliar theme.

A recent article in the New Scientist suggests that "the demise of civilization may be inevitable."

It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually, it reaches a point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything crashing down.

Some say we have already reached this point, and that it is time to start thinking about how we might manage collapse. Others insist it is not yet too late, and that we can -- we must -- act now to keep disaster at bay.

The upshot is that a certain level of complexity is unsustainable, and that we have reached or are near that point in numerous areas, including energy production, environmental management, finance and credit, etc. Assuming you accept the premise of the article, our choice -- that is, the collective choice of our modern industrialized society -- is to either adapt or collapse.

Adaptation will mean huge changes in the way we function. This is not a new idea, of course. Since "The Population Bomb" (1968) and "The Limits to Growth" (1972), we've been hearing increasingly dire warnings about being on the wrong path and what we must do to correct it. But today, in the face of massive evidence that global warming will dramatically change our world no matter what we do, adapting in order to survive seems more urgent than ever.

Is total collapse actually possible? Well, obviously, ours would not be the first civilization ever to perish or to crumble under the weight of its own unchecked enlargement. So certainly it's possible.

As pointed out in the New Scientist article:

The stakes are high. Historically, collapse always led to a fall in population. "Today's population levels depend on fossil fuels and industrial agriculture," says [Utah State University's Joseph] Tainter. "Take those away and there would be a reduction in the Earth's population that is too gruesome to think about."

If industrialised civilisation does fall, the urban masses -- half the world's population -- will be most vulnerable. Much of our hard-won knowledge could be lost, too.

On the other hand, we now know a great deal more about the mechanics and dynamics of collapse than have any people before us. We know much more about sustainability and resilience. It is also possible then, if not likely, that we can avoid collapse by making just enough of the right kinds of changes just in the nick of time.

But if our civilization is to change as much as some people say is necessary, how will that affect current institutions, such as the corporation, the nation-state, or even democracy itself?

George Dvorsky, who writes the excellent Sentient Developments blog and who serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), has some serious thoughts on the subject in a piece titled "Future Risks and the Challenge to Democracy."

It is becoming increasingly clear that 21st Century politics will be focused around managing the impacts of disruptive technologies, addressing the threats posed by apocalyptic weapons and environmental degradation, and attending to global-scale catastrophes and crises as they occur. [his emphasis]

This restructuring is already underway. We live in the post 9/11 world—a world in which we have legitimate cause to be fearful of superterrorism and hyperterrorism. We will also have to reap what we sowed in regards to our environmental neglect. Consequently, our political leaders and institutions will be increasingly called-upon to address the compounding problems of unchecked WMD proliferation, terrorism, civil unrest, pandemics, the environmental impacts of climate change (like super-storms, flooding, etc.), fleets of refugees, devastating food shortages, and so on. It will become very necessary for the world’s militaries to anticipate these crises and adapt so that they can meet these demands.

More challenging, however, will be avoiding outright human extinction . . .

Catastrophic and existential risks will put democratic institutions in danger given an unprecedented need for social control, surveillance and compliance. Liberal democracies will likely regress to de facto authoritarianism under the intense strain; tools that will allow democratic governments to do so include invoking emergency measures, eliminating dissent and protest, censorship, suspending elections and constitutions, and trampling on civil liberties (illegal arrests, surveillance, limiting mobility, etc).

Looking further ahead, extreme threats may even rekindle the totalitarian urge; this option will appeal to those leaders looking to exert absolute control over their citizens. What’s particularly frightening is that future technologies will allow for a more intensive and invasive totalitarianism than was ever thought possible in the 20th Century – including ubiquitous surveillance (and the monitoring of so-called ‘thought crimes’), absolute control over information, and the redesign of humanity itself, namely using genetics and cybernetics to create a more traceable and controllable citizenry. Consequently, as a political mode that utterly undermines humanistic values and the preservation of the autonomous individual, totalitarianism represents an existential risk unto itself.

George has eloquently restated some of the concerns that CRN has written about for years, many of them made possible or exacerbated by advanced nanotechnology. I urge you to read his whole article.

Clearly, then, the question to ask is not only whether our civilization can survive the challenges of this century, but if it can, what kind of civilization will it be?

That is what we must actively plan for and work toward if we hope to live in a better tomorrow.

Mike Treder

Latest Issue of H+ Magazine

Is the future cancelled?

That's the provocative question headlining the latest issue of h+ magazine, available now at your virtual newsstand. If you'll turn to page 55, you'll find an article by yours truly, titled "Nanotechnology, for Better or for Worse."

Here is a description of what you can expect in future issues:

h+ covers technological, scientific, and cultural trends that are changing — and will change — human beings in fundamental ways. We will be following developments in areas like NBIC (nano-bio-info-cog), longevity, performance enhancement and self-modification, Virtual Reality, "The Singularity," and other areas that both promise and threaten to radically alter our lives and our view of the world and ourselves.

More than that, h+ aims to reflect this newest edge culture by featuring creative expressions of humanity on a razor's edge where daily life and science fiction seem to be merging.

Good reading!

Mike Treder

The Ethics of Killer Robots

What if they gave a war and nobody came?

That was a popular slogan for peace demonstrators of the Vietnam era (including me).

It might be repeated, with a slight revision, at some point during this century:

What if they gave a robot war and nobody came?

Military robots already have been deployed by the United States in the occupation of Iraq, and in growing numbers, as this recent article in The New Atlantis makes clear:

When U.S. forces went into Iraq, the original invasion had no robotic systems on the ground. By the end of 2004, there were 150 robots on the ground in Iraq; a year later there were 2,400; by the end of 2008, there were about 12,000 robots of nearly two dozen varieties operating on the ground in Iraq. As one retired Army officer put it, the “Army of the Grand Robotic” is taking shape.

Not only are the quantities of robots increasing, but the varieties of their usage and capabilities are also expanding. Again, from The New Atlantis:

It isn’t just on the ground: military robots have been taking to the skies—and the seas and space, too. And the field is rapidly advancing. The robotic systems now rolling out in prototype stage are far more capable, intelligent, and autonomous than ones already in service in Iraq and Afghanistan. But even they are just the start.

As one robotics executive put it at a demonstration of new military prototypes a couple of years ago, “The robots you are seeing here today I like to think of as the Model T. These are not what you are going to see when they are actually deployed in the field. We are seeing the very first stages of this technology.”

And just as the Model T exploded on the scene—selling only 239 cars in its first year and over one million a decade later—the demand for robotic warriors is growing very rapidly.

Most of the military robots currently in use are limited to surveillance purposes. A few are equipped for killing and have been used that way, but those are still in the minority.

This article (subscription required to read online), from "The Annals of Technology" in The New Yorker, describes rapid progress in the development of weaponized military robots.

The author observes demonstrations of robotic automated fighting machines on treads that can climb stairs, use on-board video to ascertain targets, and accurately fire five shotgun rounds per second with almost no recoil; similar robot warriors are mounted on small remote-control helicopters capable of flying even in strong winds, and aiming at and striking targets with deadly accuracy. Jerry Baber, a private designer of machine weapons profiled in the article, says he is also working on a ground robot that could fight its way into an enemy-held building and then deploy six smaller robots for individual combat operations.

So far, few of these advanced systems have been deployed, partly due to ethical questions, partly due to cost, but mostly, I suspect, because there are still fears to overcome about what happens if something goes badly wrong.

When asked about such worries, U.S. military spokespersons are quick to point out their policy of maintaining "Man in the loop." In theory, a human decision is required before robot warriors take human lives. In practice, it may not always work that way -- and it's not hard to project a time when so many robots are in the field that the number and pace of decisions to be made are beyond human ability to keep up.

P. W. Singer, the author of Wired for War, says:

We've already redefined what 'in the loop' means. It's moving from making the decision to fire to mere veto power. The lines are already fuzzy, and they're disappearing.

Meanwhile, according to the Times Online:

[A] report, compiled by the Ethics and Emerging Technology department of California State Polytechnic University and obtained by The Times, strongly warns the US military against complacency or shortcuts as military robot designers engage in the “rush to market” and the pace of advances in artificial intelligence is increased.

A rich variety of scenarios outlining the ethical, legal, social and political issues posed as robot technology improves are covered in the report. How do we protect our robot armies against terrorist hackers or software malfunction? Who is to blame if a robot goes berserk in a crowd of civilians – the robot, its programmer, or the U.S. President? Should the robots have a “suicide switch” and should they be programmed to preserve their lives?

Any sense of haste among designers may have been heightened by a US congressional mandate that by 2010 a third of all operational “deep-strike” aircraft must be unmanned, and that by 2015 one third of all ground combat vehicles must be unmanned.

We're proud to note that the lead author of this report, provided for the U.S. Office of Naval Research, is Dr. Patrick Lin, a member of CRN's Global Task Force on Implications and Policy.

Online reaction to Pat's important report, described by The Times as "the first serious work of its kind on military robot ethics," has been interesting to follow, especially as it takes thinkers beyond the usual questions and into deeper territory.

Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, comments about the report on his blog:

The good news, according to the authors, is that emotionless machines have certain built-in ethical advantages over human warriors.

"Robots," they write, "would be unaffected by the emotions, adrenaline, and stress that cause soldiers to overreact or deliberately overstep the Rules of Engagement and commit atrocities, that is to say, war crimes. We would no longer read (as many) news reports about our own soldiers brutalizing enemy combatants or foreign civilians to avenge the deaths of their brothers in arms—unlawful actions that carry a significant political cost."

Of course, this raises deeper issues, which the authors don't address: Can ethics be cleanly disassociated from emotion? Would the programming of morality into robots eventually lead, through bottom-up learning, to the emergence of a capacity for emotion as well? And would, at that point, the robots have a capacity not just for moral action but for moral choice - with all the messiness that goes with it?

Excellent points to consider. And taking matters even further, Paul Raven on the Futurismic blog says:

I’d go further still, and ask whether that capacity for emotion and moral action actually obviates the entire point of using robots to fight wars - in other words, if robots are supposed to take the positions of humans in situations we consider too dangerous to expend real people on, how close does a robot’s emotions and morality have to be to their human equivalents before it becomes immoral to use them in the same way?

These are hard questions, the kind many of us would prefer never to have to ask. But the time is near, if not now, when they will need to be answered. It is especially worrying when you consider the massive numbers and powerful destructive possibilities introduced by molecular manufacturing.

In typical dystopian scenarios, perhaps most vividly presented by the Terminator movies, these smart killing machines have turned against their human makers in all-out war.

But what if, instead, the recursively improving computer brains of robot warriors allow them to become enlightened and to see the horror of warfare for what it is -- to recognize the ridiculousness of building more and better (and more costly) machines only to command them to destroy each other?

What if they gave a robot war and nobody came?

Mike Treder

Keeping Up With Drexler

As regular readers of this blog will no doubt be aware, Eric Drexler, a visionary pioneer in the field of nanotechnology, recently started a blog of his own called Metamodern. He's been posting a series of entries there that discuss paths forward from today’s atomically precise fabrication methods to advanced molecular manufacturing.

The posts so far in the series include:

Modular Molecular Composite Nanosystems
Toward Advanced Nanosystems: Materials (1)
Toward Advanced Nanosystems: Materials (2)
Self-Assembly for Nanotechnology
Toward Advanced Nanosystems: Materials (3)

Articles like these are a welcome contribution to a field that badly needs dispassionate, expert writing on the projected transition from early-generation nanotechnologies to later-generation molecular manufacturing.

In addition to his blog, Eric also has another, earlier site called e-drexler.com that serves as a reference or resource for many of his writings. It's a great place to begin learning about the vast potential of nanotechnology, especially for those interested in understanding the technical aspects of what could be possible in years to come.

We suggest starting with "An overview of nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing," and going on from there.

Happy reading!

Mike Treder

Russia's Emphasis on Nano Weaponry

Take this with at least a grain of salt, probably more, and recognize that you're reading an English translation from Spanish of news items taken from Russian media and translated from Russian into Spanish.

Still, after all those caveats, and remembering the penchant of Russian leaders for hyperbole, this report has an ominous ring to it:

The Russian Military Complex (RMC) successfully applies nanotechnology in the production of weapons and war materials, informed the government vice president, Serguei Ivanov.

Ivanov added that this field of science can radically change the character of war and added that the works of RMC will be completely financed.

Recently the director of the Nanotechnology Center of the Energy Institute of Moscow Andrei Alexeyenko affirmed that the specialty can "intelligently" destroy mobile targets, including combat tanks.

Alexeyenko explained that devices less than one millimeter can be used to form a cloud of any size and power of destruction.

Moscow is investing over 1.1 billion dollars on the rapid development of nanotechnology to achieve leadership in the world market, added Russia television channel.

Over the years, we have written extensively on this blog and elsewhere about the realistic expectation that Russia will invest heavily in nanotech, putting much of that effort into military aims, and quite possibly starting a serious program to develop molecular manufacturing.

The same could be said for the United States, China, India, and perhaps several other countries. What does all this mean for the future of warfare and for the cause of peace and tranquility? Only time will tell, but the early indicators do not look promising.

[Hat tip: Nanotechnology Now]

Mike Treder

All the Wrong Reasons

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.

— Buckminster Fuller

Essential Reading for the 21st Century

Looking for an interesting, serious, essential book to read for the new year?

You can't go wrong with Global Catastrophic Risks, edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan Cirkovic. It features a foreword from Martin Rees and includes a chapter on nanotechnology co-authored Chris Phoenix and yours truly.

Last July, Chris and I attended and spoke at a conference in Oxford, England, to kick off the book's promotion and to meet and discuss our concerns with many experts from various fields. Next week I'll write about the projected human death toll in the 21st century from catastrophic risks, as estimated informally by conference participants.

In October, 2008, CRN co-sponsored a one-day seminar on the same topic held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. One of the most interesting -- and probably the most disturbing -- presentation that day was from J. Storrs (Josh) Hall, who described what he calls "the weather machine."

Very powerful ideas for controlling weather and potentially controlling the world -- you can watch a video of Josh's talk here, read a transcript here, and read my comments on the concept here.

Both of these events, the first in England and the second in the US, were worth attending and full of fascinating and important information. I'm sorry to say, however, that although there was plenty of talk about risks, there was no real movement toward any next steps for evaluating and potentially averting them.

Maybe what's needed is for you to read the book, tell your friends about it, and create a groundswell for action!

Mike Treder

Big Changes Around the Corner

It's another new year, and that means it is time once again for the Edge Annual Question. This year's question is:

WHAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING?

What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?

My initial reaction to their question, I'm sorry to say, is annoyance. As we've stated before:

In thinking, writing, and talking about the impact of transformative future technologies, there is a strong temptation to sum it up as, "This changes everything."

You'll frequently hear that statement, but the problem is that it is not very descriptive and it's also very likely not true. 

Rather than falling back on the standard "everything changes" line, we recommend systematic studies, and in particular we suggest an inquiry into the effects of future technologies in three areas of human endeavor and interaction: energy, conflict, and health.

But with that caveat aside, the wide range of responses to the Edge Annual Question does make for some interesting reading. 

Right away, on Page 1, we get Ed Regis suggesting that the game-changing development to watch for is Molecular Manufacturing:

Nothing has a greater potential for changing everything than the successful implementation of good old-fashioned nanotechnology.

I specify the old-fashioned version because nanotechnology is decidedly no longer what it used to be. Back in the mid-1980s when Eric Drexler first popularized the concept in his book Engines of Creation, the term referred to a radical and grandiose molecular manufacturing scheme. The idea was that scientists and engineers would construct vast fleets of "assemblers," molecular-scale, programmable devices that would build objects of practically any arbitrary size and complexity, from the molecules up. Program the assemblers to put together an SUV, a sailboat, or a spacecraft, and they'd do it—automatically, and without human aid or intervention. Further, they'd do it using cheap, readily-available feedstock molecules as raw materials. . .

[W]hat if nanotechnology in the radical and grandiose sense actually became possible? What if, indeed, it became an operational reality? That would be a fundamentally transformative development, changing forever how manufacturing is done and how the world works. Imagine all of our material needs being produced at trivial cost, without human labor, and with no waste. No more sweat shops, no more smoke-belching factories, no more grinding workdays or long commutes.

Moving ahead to Page 5 of the answers, we have Aubrey de Grey offering the fascinating proposal that within our (extended) lifetimes, we could see The Unmasking of True Human Nature. He lists three main developments that, combined, may lead to this outcome: artificial intelligence, molecular manufacturing, and regenerative medicine.

The transformative technologies I have mentioned will, in my view, probably all arrive within the next few decades—a timeframe that I personally expect to see. And we will use them, directly or indirectly, to address all the other slings and arrows that humanity is heir to: biotechnology to combat aging will also combat infections, molecular manufacturing to build unprecedentedly powerful machines will also be able to perform geoengineering and prevent hurricanes and earthquakes and global warming, and superintelligent computers will orchestrate these and other technologies to protect us even from cosmic threats such as asteroids—even, in relatively short order, nearby supernovae. (Seriously.) Moreover, we will use these technologies to address any irritations of which we are not yet even aware, but which grow on us as today's burdens are lifted from our shoulders. . .

Humanity will at that point be in a state of complete satisfaction with its condition: complete identity with its deepest goals. Human nature will at last be revealed.

Finally, on Page 7, Eric Drexler says the answer is Knowledge Spreading:

I see great change flowing from the spread of knowledge of two scientific facts -- one simple and obvious, the other complex and tangled in myth. Both are crucial to understanding the climate change problem and what we can do about it.

First, the simple scientific fact: Carbon stays in the atmosphere for a long time.

To many readers, this is nothing new, yet most who know this make a simple mistake. They think of carbon as if it were sulfur, with pollution levels that rise and fall with the rate of emission: Cap sulfur emissions, and pollution levels stabilize; cut emissions in half, cut the problem in half. But carbon is different. It stays aloft for about a century, practically forever. It accumulates. Cap the rate of emissions, and the levels keep rising; cut emissions in half, and levels will still keep rising. Even deep cuts won't reduce the problem, but only the rate of growth of the problem.

In the bland words of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "only in the case of essentially complete elimination of emissions can the atmospheric concentration of CO2 ultimately be stabilised at a constant [far higher!] level." This heroic feat would require new technologies and the replacement of today's installed infrastructure for power generation, transportation, and manufacturing. This seems impossible. In the real world, Asia is industrializing, most new power plants burn coal, and emissions are accelerating, increasing the rate of increase of the problem.

The second fact (complex and tangled in myth) is that this seemingly impossible problem has a correctable cause: The human race is bad at making things, but physics tells us that we can do much better.

This will require new methods for manufacturing, methods that work with the molecular building blocks of the stuff that makes up our world. In outline (says physics-based analysis) nanoscale factory machinery operating on well-understood principles could be used to convert simple chemical compounds into beyond-state-of-the-art products, and do this quickly, cleanly, inexpensively, and with a modest energy cost. If we were better at making things, we could make those machines, and with them we could make the products that would replace the infrastructure that is causing the accelerating and seemingly irreversible problem of climate change.

What sorts of products? Returning to power generation, transportation, and manufacturing, picture roads resurfaced with solar cells (a tough, black film), cars that run on recyclable fuel (sleek, light, and efficient), and car-factories that fit in a garage. We could make these easily, in quantity, if we were good at making things.

Developing the required molecular manufacturing capabilities will require hard but rewarding work on a global scale, converting scientific knowledge into engineering practice to make tools that we can use to make better tools. The aim that physics suggests is a factory technology with machines that assemble large products from parts made of smaller parts (made of smaller parts, and so on) with molecules as the smallest parts, and the smallest machines only a hundred times their size.

I encourage you to read (or at least skim) all of the answers, especially the three above from which I've posted some excerpts. And while you're at it, feel free to chime in here with your responses to the question: What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?

Mike Treder