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We're already seeing signs of problems to come: buckyballs appear to cause Alzheimer's-like damage when they get into the brains of fish.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/mech-tech/nano technology/dn4825

I have been eagerly awaiting the first self replicating nanomachines ever since reading Engines of Creation (http://www.foresight.org/EOC/) but the tech probably has a long convoluted road ahead to acceptance and safe use. If we are seeing problems already with buckyballs - perhaps the simplest example of nanotech - the implications will be far greater for something like airborne nanobots that clean the air, or your bloodstream.

I think what you're referring to is utility fog.

Even if you wanted to be a Terminator, establishing a direct enough interface to directly read and write to your brain is going to be difficult enough that mind-raping people casually is going to be damn difficult. Especially when neural firewalls hit the market.

That said, I'd absolutely love such a nanotech body when my clone craps out. :)

The story links to other sites' top reasons for going into space and Space.com's list inevitably includes mining.

In the same paragraph the article states "water is the most precious substance you can find in space" and "everywhere we look there is water." Well which is it? Is it rare or ubiquitous? It can't be both.

I remain unconvinced that space mining will ever make much sense. It's all but certain that molecular nanotechnology will revolutionize materials science in the first half of this century, obviating any conceivable need for space mining and eventually, perhaps, even some earth mining.

Full Disclosure: I'm a Senior Associate with the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing http://imm.org/.

I have to say that this article seriously misses the mark.

Recombinant DNA research self-regulation has been in place for 30 years now, and it has worked very well to prevent "Andromeda Strain" style accidents. The most recent full overhaul was in 1994:

http://www4.od.nih.gov/oba/rac/guidelines/guidelin es.html

There are people who are holding debates about similar regulation for molecular nanotechnology already: The National Nanotechnology Initiative http://www.nano.gov/, The Foresight Institute http://foresight.org/, The International Council on Nanotechnology http://icon.rice.edu/, and many others, including the IMM. The intent of these organizations is to establish guidelines for developement of nanotechnology, and to explore applications.

Here is the first set of guidelines which have been established:

http://imm.org/guidelines/current.html

I fully expect that this will be updated, as the technologies involved become more capable.

A good analysis of the actual societal implications is available from NNI here:

http://www.nano.gov/html/facts/society.html

Don't blow things out of proportion until they are actually implemented; the amount of regulation of any technology has historically always been as much or even much more than was necessary at the time.

-- Terry

I can recommend two websites that have useful, factual information on safety and regulation issues for nanotech (molecular manufacturing): Foresight Institute click here and Center for Responsible Nanotechnology click here

While in California, Raymond also managed to squeeze in a visit to VA Research, a Santa Clara-based company selling workstations with the GNU/Linux operating system preinstalled. Convened by Raymond, the meeting was small. The invite list included VA founder Larry Augustin, a few VA employees, and Christine Peterson [my emphasis], president of the Foresight Institute, a Silicon Valley think tank specializing in nanotechnology.

"The meeting's agenda boiled down to one item: how to take advantage of Netscape's decision so that other companies might follow suit?" Raymond doesn't recall the conversation that took place, but he does remember the first complaint addressed. Despite the best efforts of Stallman and other hackers to remind people that the word "free" in free software stood for freedom and not price, the message still wasn't getting through. Most business executives, upon hearing the term for the first time, interpreted the word as synonymous with "zero cost," tuning out any follow up messages in short order. Until hackers found a way to get past this cognitive dissonance, the free software movement faced an uphill climb, even after Netscape.

Peterson, whose organization had taken an active interest in advancing the free software cause, offered an alternative: open source. [my emphasis]

Looking back, Peterson says she came up with the open source term while discussing Netscape's decision with a friend in the public relations industry. She doesn't remember where she came upon the term or if she borrowed it from another field, but she does remember her friend disliking the term.

While in California, Raymond also managed to squeeze in a visit to VA Research, a Santa Clara-based company selling workstations with the GNU/Linux operating system preinstalled. Convened by Raymond, the meeting was small. The invite list included VA founder Larry Augustin, a few VA employees, and Christine Peterson [my emphasis], president of the Foresight Institute, a Silicon Valley think tank specializing in nanotechnology.

"The meeting's agenda boiled down to one item: how to take advantage of Netscape's decision so that other companies might follow suit?" Raymond doesn't recall the conversation that took place, but he does remember the first complaint addressed. Despite the best efforts of Stallman and other hackers to remind people that the word "free" in free software stood for freedom and not price, the message still wasn't getting through. Most business executives, upon hearing the term for the first time, interpreted the word as synonymous with "zero cost," tuning out any follow up messages in short order. Until hackers found a way to get past this cognitive dissonance, the free software movement faced an uphill climb, even after Netscape.

Peterson, whose organization had taken an active interest in advancing the free software cause, offered an alternative: open source. [my emphasis]

Looking back, Peterson says she came up with the open source term while discussing Netscape's decision with a friend in the public relations industry. She doesn't remember where she came upon the term or if she borrowed it from another field, but she does remember her friend disliking the term.

Here is his bio. His books are interesting reading, to say the least.

And yes, it is like a cell... kind of. More like based on a cell.

Nah, Crichton got the idea from others who thought up the concept of Utility Fog. You are thinking along the same lines as people who have written about the concept of utility fog, except that the fog is used to *create* the actual object, not just a holographic image. Read a bit more here.

Gold Pressed Latinum?

Another major difference is that desktop nanotech will be within our grasp within a few decades at most, but not Star-Trek-style Replication.

I can't wait for the hilarity to ensue when the uber-capitalists start complaining about the first wave of people "copying" McDonalds burgers and Gilette blades, rather than vastly down-sizing their old-business models to adjust to a new world of abundance and cheap luxury. Just the death of Wal-Mart, and the actual elmination of world hunger is enough to make me giddy.

Anyway, here's to hoping we even survive a future of matter like data (followed closely by Singularity) with our primitive brains not synched to the increasing power of our tech...

--

"Heh," indeed. Actually, I think Freeman Dyson was speaking about nanoassemblers in the 50s... Drexler was the first to assemble a full theoretical defense of the idea. (Though some still think it's fantasy regardless)

I can't imagine how it feels to publicly embarass yourself by posting a 'new idea' that is 60 years old.

PS. The entire text of ENGINES OF CREATION can be read at foresight.org!

No thread about the emergence of molecular manufacturing would be complete without a link to Drexler's Engines of Creation. The web-based version is rife with hyperlinked references and gives even the science-light neophyte a decent understanding of the basics of nanotechnology and the implications thereof.

Engines of Creation: http://www.foresight.org/EOC/

Not everyone thinks this is only a dream. Of course, many people think these people are crazy.
But one must reach a bit beyond the accepted if one is to achieve something greater than the norm.

For ideas, check out the second chapter of Drexler's Nanosystems, google for Reynolds Number, and look around...

--MarkusQ

Full-blown nanotech will be here in less than 20 years. It is not going to creep up on you: it'll be here all of a sudden. Once one assembler is created, it'll be less than a year that an organization takes it upon themselves to provide a "replicator" to every human on the planet. (I don't particularly like Star Trek myself, but everyone knows what a "replicator" is; it's become like kleenex or xerox.)

There goes the food problem.

How is history any possible indicator of what's going to happen as we approach and pass through the singularity? How many singularities have we gone through in recorded history? (My guess is none but feel free to surprise me.)

OSS itself features highly in Christine Peterson's talks and works; the Foresight Institute is aptly named. As we start designing nanocritters, we're going to want the ability to share them. Putting them under the GPL or similar open-source license would ensure that others can benefit from them, add to them, and share them with others.

Anyone can build an STL (scanning tunnelling microscope) for about $300. Although this moves atoms around slowly, you just need to move enough to make an "arm" to help you move more, and then the arm builds a couple more arms, exponentially, until you have a box that looks like Rincewind's sapient pearwood luggage turned inside out.

Yes, it's currently a pipe dream. So were space flight and huge explosions at one point.

The sooner molecular manufacturing is advanced, the sooner global poverty, and most economic inequality can actually be eliminated. You can donate a fish today, or donate towards the tech that can assemble a fish using free solar and recycled molecules in the middle of the desert...

(Anyway, I just had to add you to my friends-list for being in the position you're in without also having the exessively-greedy me-me-me mentality.)

--

And that day isn't as far away as you might think. Ultra-efficient molecular manufacturing "replicators" are a few decades away at most, and will be the end of many old powerful companies.

The difference is that this time the digital AND material abundance go hand-in-hand so nobody can complain about not getting paid enough to put "food on the table" because with MNT, you can manufacture YOUR OWN food from recycled compost material, and live almost entirely self-sufficiently in many other respects too.

Energy (stored solar) + Material (recycled molecules) + Molecular Blueprint ("illegal 3D scan files") + Bottom-up nanotechnology == FREEDOM.

--

Today, given the choice, most people would rather be a god among peasants than a king among equal kings. It's the relative advantage that matters to their genes.

--

What if almost nothing was worth *buying* from someone else because you could "replicate" it yourself locally? The end of (most) material scarcity is just one of the economic implications of molecular manufacturing; it will remove a lot of the incentive behind being an asshole trying to get ahead by any means necessary. Which reminds me of a quote:

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. -- John Maynard Keynes

--

So all we need are open-source blueprints, which The Foresight Institute is working towards developing.

So I agree that those in power can, in the short term, end up violating more than my rights by sending me to Guantanamo; however, in the medium and long terms, they are irrelevant.

Since you mentioned it, pretty soon it'll be quite easy to live self-sufficiently off your own property (if you've bought the additional mineral rights below it) given the molecular nanotech necessary to recycle everything (using FREE solar energy) on the molecular level. There's very little need for an influx of 'space resources' that aren't scarce & useful to begin with (excepting helium, helium3, and a few others). It's not like everyone on Earth is going to be self-assembling a skyscraper-castle on their property made out of solid gold that they leeched from the ocean.

So... there's better arguments for being pro-offplanet than some old-tech need to stripmine the solar system for elements we don't need. #1 being getting some of our eggs out of the cradle so we survive as a species, and #2 being able absorb a much larger slice of the solar energy pie so we can do more, faster.

--

Despite all the eco-crying, we'll be stuck with nasty top-down bulk-tech for a couple more years simply because it's cheaper for corps to externalize the environmental costs (esp. in 3rd world countries). With molecular nanotech, it's cheaper to be clean.

--

I personally wouldn't have a problem with someone coming into my house and copying everything in it.

Let me guess... You are either a kid, or a wage slave. You *might* be in college. You've never produced your own intellectual property, and you've certainly never tried to make a living at it.

Let me guess... you didn't think the parent posters analogy through.

Do realize that when you have a device that can make atom-for-atom copies of ANYTHING -- including food, clothing, diamond, cars, etc -- that "making a living" suddenly gets a LOT easier and cheaper? No need for artificial scarcity. Open source applies to real-world objects too.

If this kind of world of abundance (digital AND material), the only reason you could have to care if somebody copies your product design, is if you're a greedy control-freak bastard who's still in love with the structure of the old socio-economic hierarchy.

--

Hardware, too, will be "open sourced" when molecular manufacturing "replicators" are as common as the computer-on-every-desktop (in less than 20 years). And this nano-revolution will be just sliiiiiightly more disruptive than the info-revolution.

e.g. Nobody'll need Gillette's expensive razors when you can make your own carbon-blades at home using recycled molecules + solar energy + nano-bootstrap-assembly-process + GNU-carbon-blades-v1.1-blueprint.tgz, just as nobody'll need ADM, Monsanto, or CocaCola when they can recycle their old garbage matter into fresh food (that was previously scanned with atomic precision or designed virtually from scratch).

Unless Microsoft and the rest of the megacorps succeed in cementing their monopoly power with the help of fascist government, we'll be waving goodbye to them soon enough; in their place will be thousands of self-sufficient open source hackers.

--

Well, it wouldn't solve all problems, but it would be the biggest and most disruptive equalizer we've ever seen.

Besides just making possible the cheap reconfiguration of a pile of molecules in your garbage into any desired object (including food & shelter & diamond), democratized molecular manufacturing "printers" would mean the end of conflict based on trade of once-scarce resources. "Resources" could now be recycled at the molecular level given (stored solar) energy.

--

You can read Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation on the matter. Quite interesting read.

Then you'll just have to wait for open molecular manufacturing like the rest of us.

--

The Foresight institute has spent alot of time with this one. They have proposed some safety guidelines and Robert A. Freitas Jr. wrote a paper on the physics which limit the threat. "Some Limits to Global Ecophagy by Biovorous Nanoreplicators, with Public Policy Recommendations"

Drexler *never* said that "grey goo" would consume the biosphere. What he actually said was "Dangerous replicators could easily be too tough, small, and rapidly spreading to stop - at least if we made no preparation." (emphasis mine, see Engines of Creation Chapter 11). It has been known for more than a decade that there are easy solutions to the problem of designing "safe" replicators that do not grow exponentially using strategies such as the "broadcast architecture" (in computer science terms -- you never give a replicator a copy of its own source code). [See Merkle, R. C., "Self Replicating Systems and Molecular Manufacturing", JBIS 45:407-413 (1992)].

Nor is the idea that assembly lines produce better manufacturing systems than self-replicating systems new. [See Hall, J. S., "Architectural considerations for self-replicating manufacturing systems", Nanotechnology 10(3):323-330 (September, 1999).] It is obvious that the ability to self-replicate is extra overhead when compared with assembly systems optimized for specific assembly tasks.

Finally, it was shown several years ago that we have the technology to detect out-of-control self-replicating systems (nanorobots generate heat which can be detected by existing satellite systems). [For a discussion of various scenarios read: Freitas, R. A., "Some Limits to Global Ecophagy by Biovorous Nanoreplicators with Public Policy Recommendations" (May, 2000).]

Drexler alludes to the fact that we are already in the midst of a "green goo" ("We have trouble enough controlling viruses and fruit flies.") Most people are unaware of the fact that they have more copies of foreign genomes (in the form of self-replicating bacteria) on or in their body than they have copies of their own genome. Some of these bacteria actually produce vitamins that humans use. So "goo" scenarios should not be viewed as completely negative. It is worth noting that the same methods that can be used to stop the "green goo" (e.g. heat or radiation) can be used to stop the "gray goo" if we are prepared to detect and eliminate it. One sees examples of this today as government agents circulate through the crowd waiting to view President Regan's body in Washington with biological and chemical weapons detectors. It simply comes down to understanding the hazards and being prepared to deal with them.

It is also worth noting that the design of fully self-replicating nanorobots is *not* a simple or inexpensive task. (Look at how long it took Nature to get it started...) So it is highly improbable that such abilities could be developed by rogue groups before civilized nations developed robust detection and elimination methods.

For people who want to read more details, the IOP press release is here and points to the actual paper (registration probably required).

Also, I would respectfully request before you post any responses to this note that you "go do your homework" (that will put you one up on the reporters reporting on this and allow for an informed discussion).

Drexler *never* said that "grey goo" would consume the biosphere. What he actually said was "Dangerous replicators could easily be too tough, small, and rapidly spreading to stop - at least if we made no preparation." (emphasis mine, see Engines of Creation Chapter 11). It has been known for more than a decade that there are easy solutions to the problem of designing "safe" replicators that do not grow exponentially using strategies such as the "broadcast architecture" (in computer science terms -- you never give a replicator a copy of its own source code). [See Merkle, R. C., "Self Replicating Systems and Molecular Manufacturing", JBIS 45:407-413 (1992)].

Nor is the idea that assembly lines produce better manufacturing systems than self-replicating systems new. [See Hall, J. S., "Architectural considerations for self-replicating manufacturing systems", Nanotechnology 10(3):323-330 (September, 1999).] It is obvious that the ability to self-replicate is extra overhead when compared with assembly systems optimized for specific assembly tasks.

Finally, it was shown several years ago that we have the technology to detect out-of-control self-replicating systems (nanorobots generate heat which can be detected by existing satellite systems). [For a discussion of various scenarios read: Freitas, R. A., "Some Limits to Global Ecophagy by Biovorous Nanoreplicators with Public Policy Recommendations" (May, 2000).]

Drexler alludes to the fact that we are already in the midst of a "green goo" ("We have trouble enough controlling viruses and fruit flies.") Most people are unaware of the fact that they have more copies of foreign genomes (in the form of self-replicating bacteria) on or in their body than they have copies of their own genome. Some of these bacteria actually produce vitamins that humans use. So "goo" scenarios should not be viewed as completely negative. It is worth noting that the same methods that can be used to stop the "green goo" (e.g. heat or radiation) can be used to stop the "gray goo" if we are prepared to detect and eliminate it. One sees examples of this today as government agents circulate through the crowd waiting to view President Regan's body in Washington with biological and chemical weapons detectors. It simply comes down to understanding the hazards and being prepared to deal with them.

It is also worth noting that the design of fully self-replicating nanorobots is *not* a simple or inexpensive task. (Look at how long it took Nature to get it started...) So it is highly improbable that such abilities could be developed by rogue groups before civilized nations developed robust detection and elimination methods.

For people who want to read more details, the IOP press release is here and points to the actual paper (registration probably required).

Also, I would respectfully request before you post any responses to this note that you "go do your homework" (that will put you one up on the reporters reporting on this and allow for an informed discussion).

Drexler *never* said that "grey goo" would consume the biosphere. What he actually said was "Dangerous replicators could easily be too tough, small, and rapidly spreading to stop - at least if we made no preparation." (emphasis mine, see Engines of Creation Chapter 11). It has been known for more than a decade that there are easy solutions to the problem of designing "safe" replicators that do not grow exponentially using strategies such as the "broadcast architecture" (in computer science terms -- you never give a replicator a copy of its own source code). [See Merkle, R. C., "Self Replicating Systems and Molecular Manufacturing", JBIS 45:407-413 (1992)].

Nor is the idea that assembly lines produce better manufacturing systems than self-replicating systems new. [See Hall, J. S., "Architectural considerations for self-replicating manufacturing systems", Nanotechnology 10(3):323-330 (September, 1999).] It is obvious that the ability to self-replicate is extra overhead when compared with assembly systems optimized for specific assembly tasks.

Finally, it was shown several years ago that we have the technology to detect out-of-control self-replicating systems (nanorobots generate heat which can be detected by existing satellite systems). [For a discussion of various scenarios read: Freitas, R. A., "Some Limits to Global Ecophagy by Biovorous Nanoreplicators with Public Policy Recommendations" (May, 2000).]

Drexler alludes to the fact that we are already in the midst of a "green goo" ("We have trouble enough controlling viruses and fruit flies.") Most people are unaware of the fact that they have more copies of foreign genomes (in the form of self-replicating bacteria) on or in their body than they have copies of their own genome. Some of these bacteria actually produce vitamins that humans use. So "goo" scenarios should not be viewed as completely negative. It is worth noting that the same methods that can be used to stop the "green goo" (e.g. heat or radiation) can be used to stop the "gray goo" if we are prepared to detect and eliminate it. One sees examples of this today as government agents circulate through the crowd waiting to view President Regan's body in Washington with biological and chemical weapons detectors. It simply comes down to understanding the hazards and being prepared to deal with them.

It is also worth noting that the design of fully self-replicating nanorobots is *not* a simple or inexpensive task. (Look at how long it took Nature to get it started...) So it is highly improbable that such abilities could be developed by rogue groups before civilized nations developed robust detection and elimination methods.

For people who want to read more details, the IOP press release is here and points to the actual paper (registration probably required).

Also, I would respectfully request before you post any responses to this note that you "go do your homework" (that will put you one up on the reporters reporting on this and allow for an informed discussion).

Each new tech advance is more powerful and more accessible than the last, but the minds that wield it are relatively stagnant and still saddled with millions of years of selfish evolutionary baggage which we won't be able to fix for quite a while yet.

Humankind is within ~30 years of reaching the vingean Singularity, and the only question is the odds on making it without sabotaging ourselves first. IMO, the odds are very low, but unlike Bill Joy, I don't think there's any point in attempting to STOP or even slow this progress -- all we can do is try to safely guide the tech and hope for the best.

--

Molecular manufacturing is "just around the corner" so don't be so quick to write off free hardware (as in speech & near-zero-cost beer) because we're really not so many decades away from being able to do a "print 72_inch_OLED_display.gnu.object; print La-Z-Boy_5000.object; print 1980s_junkfood_collection-by_Fatass.object" to your 3d printer with recycled feedstock matter and cheap solar energy being piped in (you did bootstrap your own solar panels and fuelcell storage system right?)

Of course, the type of "free hardware" that's being talking about by Sun and MS is the kind that has more to do with enticing you into a locked down system payed for by proprietary software subscriptions.

--

Rod logic is (to the best of my recollection) basically a mechanical implementation of numerical AND, OR etc. Once you have that working you're not too far from an assembly language (for assemblers, ha ha). See chapter 12 of Drexler's Nanosystems, which Stephenson presumably got the idea from.

In the long run one would like to be able to get such simulations from the 10,000 atom level up to the billion-to-trillion (or more) atom level so you could simulate significant fractions of the volume of cells. Between now and then molecular biologists, geneticists, bioinformaticians, etc. would be happy if we could just get to the level of accurate folding (Folding@Home is working on this from a distributed standpoint) and eventually to be able to model protein-protein interactions so we can figure out how things like DNA repair -- which involves 130+ proteins cooperating in very complex ways -- operate so we can better understand the causes of cancer and aging.

Where's Scientific American when you need it?

(But I agree with you regarding Businessweek. I'm not competent to discuss their covering of economics, but when they write about something I understand well -- it seems to be sensationalistic garbage.)

Back in 1999 the Foresight Institute released the first version of the Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology. . These guidelines, interestingly enough, ended up in the US Congresses' recent (2003) bill on Molecular manufacturing / nanontechnology studies.

One point that the F.I. makes that often gets missed in discussion of nano: molecular nanotechnology != self-replicating machines. As Eric Drexler writes: "Much has been made of a concern I raised in 1986, under the name "gray goo" -- a hypothetical scenario involving runaway replicators. Building fully self-replicating machines would be difficult, however, and building machines that could replicate without external help would be more difficult still. Current work in the field shows that it will be easier and more efficient to develop molecular manufacturing without building any self-replicating machines at all."

One measure of the existence or success of a field is the jobs available in it: jobs certainly exist in 2004. By 2014 it should be really interesting. Another measure is "does the field have its equivalent of Slashdot?" Yup, Nanodot.

The F.I.'s website has much good material: FAQs, Reviews of nano for the technical or non-technical reader, reviews of policy issues and more. In their policy section they discuss how to avoid high-tech terrorism: it involves more nano, not less. Another of their essays talks about 6 lessons from 9/11 that should be applied to molecular nanotechnology:

1. Foresight's concern for the long-term potential abuse of nanotechnology has been confirmed and strengthened. Those who abuse technology -- from airliners to anthrax -- for destructive ends do exist and are unlikely to stop before full nanotech arrives, with all its power for both good and ill.
2. Foresight's position favoring speedy development of advanced nanotech has also been strengthened. The longer we wait, the better the infrastructure worldwide, the smaller the budget and project needed -- and the easier to hide the work. Let's do it fast, while it's more difficult, expensive, and harder to conceal.
3. Our advocacy of openness as the safest strategy has been validated. In under two hours, the problem of airliners hitting buildings was solved -- by passengers in the fourth plane to be highjacked. They did it "open source style": shared information on the need, collaborative design, and unpaid group implementation. (With earlier information, they might have been able to save their own lives, as well as those in the building their plane was meant to hit.) Their example can inspire us as we work to find a "bottom-up," distributed, networked, immune-system-style defense against the abuse of nanotechnology.
4. There are no good excuses for lack of foresight. We've got to be pro-active, not just reactive. Environmentalist-architect William McDonough wrote the following about environmental disasters, but it applies just as well to Sept. 11 or a future abuse of nanotech: "You can't say it's not part of your plan that these things happened, because it's part of your de facto plan. It's the thing that's happening because you have no plan...We own these tragedies. We might as well have intended for them to occur."
5. It would

Back in 1999 the Foresight Institute released the first version of the Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology. . These guidelines, interestingly enough, ended up in the US Congresses' recent (2003) bill on Molecular manufacturing / nanontechnology studies.

One point that the F.I. makes that often gets missed in discussion of nano: molecular nanotechnology != self-replicating machines. As Eric Drexler writes: "Much has been made of a concern I raised in 1986, under the name "gray goo" -- a hypothetical scenario involving runaway replicators. Building fully self-replicating machines would be difficult, however, and building machines that could replicate without external help would be more difficult still. Current work in the field shows that it will be easier and more efficient to develop molecular manufacturing without building any self-replicating machines at all."

One measure of the existence or success of a field is the jobs available in it: jobs certainly exist in 2004. By 2014 it should be really interesting. Another measure is "does the field have its equivalent of Slashdot?" Yup, Nanodot.

The F.I.'s website has much good material: FAQs, Reviews of nano for the technical or non-technical reader, reviews of policy issues and more. In their policy section they discuss how to avoid high-tech terrorism: it involves more nano, not less. Another of their essays talks about 6 lessons from 9/11 that should be applied to molecular nanotechnology:

1. Foresight's concern for the long-term potential abuse of nanotechnology has been confirmed and strengthened. Those who abuse technology -- from airliners to anthrax -- for destructive ends do exist and are unlikely to stop before full nanotech arrives, with all its power for both good and ill.
2. Foresight's position favoring speedy development of advanced nanotech has also been strengthened. The longer we wait, the better the infrastructure worldwide, the smaller the budget and project needed -- and the easier to hide the work. Let's do it fast, while it's more difficult, expensive, and harder to conceal.
3. Our advocacy of openness as the safest strategy has been validated. In under two hours, the problem of airliners hitting buildings was solved -- by passengers in the fourth plane to be highjacked. They did it "open source style": shared information on the need, collaborative design, and unpaid group implementation. (With earlier information, they might have been able to save their own lives, as well as those in the building their plane was meant to hit.) Their example can inspire us as we work to find a "bottom-up," distributed, networked, immune-system-style defense against the abuse of nanotechnology.
4. There are no good excuses for lack of foresight. We've got to be pro-active, not just reactive. Environmentalist-architect William McDonough wrote the following about environmental disasters, but it applies just as well to Sept. 11 or a future abuse of nanotech: "You can't say it's not part of your plan that these things happened, because it's part of your de facto plan. It's the thing that's happening because you have no plan...We own these tragedies. We might as well have intended for them to occur."
5. It would

Back in 1999 the Foresight Institute released the first version of the Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology. . These guidelines, interestingly enough, ended up in the US Congresses' recent (2003) bill on Molecular manufacturing / nanontechnology studies.

One point that the F.I. makes that often gets missed in discussion of nano: molecular nanotechnology != self-replicating machines. As Eric Drexler writes: "Much has been made of a concern I raised in 1986, under the name "gray goo" -- a hypothetical scenario involving runaway replicators. Building fully self-replicating machines would be difficult, however, and building machines that could replicate without external help would be more difficult still. Current work in the field shows that it will be easier and more efficient to develop molecular manufacturing without building any self-replicating machines at all."

One measure of the existence or success of a field is the jobs available in it: jobs certainly exist in 2004. By 2014 it should be really interesting. Another measure is "does the field have its equivalent of Slashdot?" Yup, Nanodot.

The F.I.'s website has much good material: FAQs, Reviews of nano for the technical or non-technical reader, reviews of policy issues and more. In their policy section they discuss how to avoid high-tech terrorism: it involves more nano, not less. Another of their essays talks about 6 lessons from 9/11 that should be applied to molecular nanotechnology:

1. Foresight's concern for the long-term potential abuse of nanotechnology has been confirmed and strengthened. Those who abuse technology -- from airliners to anthrax -- for destructive ends do exist and are unlikely to stop before full nanotech arrives, with all its power for both good and ill.
2. Foresight's position favoring speedy development of advanced nanotech has also been strengthened. The longer we wait, the better the infrastructure worldwide, the smaller the budget and project needed -- and the easier to hide the work. Let's do it fast, while it's more difficult, expensive, and harder to conceal.
3. Our advocacy of openness as the safest strategy has been validated. In under two hours, the problem of airliners hitting buildings was solved -- by passengers in the fourth plane to be highjacked. They did it "open source style": shared information on the need, collaborative design, and unpaid group implementation. (With earlier information, they might have been able to save their own lives, as well as those in the building their plane was meant to hit.) Their example can inspire us as we work to find a "bottom-up," distributed, networked, immune-system-style defense against the abuse of nanotechnology.
4. There are no good excuses for lack of foresight. We've got to be pro-active, not just reactive. Environmentalist-architect William McDonough wrote the following about environmental disasters, but it applies just as well to Sept. 11 or a future abuse of nanotech: "You can't say it's not part of your plan that these things happened, because it's part of your de facto plan. It's the thing that's happening because you have no plan...We own these tragedies. We might as well have intended for them to occur."
5. It would

Back in 1999 the Foresight Institute released the first version of the Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology. . These guidelines, interestingly enough, ended up in the US Congresses' recent (2003) bill on Molecular manufacturing / nanontechnology studies.

One point that the F.I. makes that often gets missed in discussion of nano: molecular nanotechnology != self-replicating machines. As Eric Drexler writes: "Much has been made of a concern I raised in 1986, under the name "gray goo" -- a hypothetical scenario involving runaway replicators. Building fully self-replicating machines would be difficult, however, and building machines that could replicate without external help would be more difficult still. Current work in the field shows that it will be easier and more efficient to develop molecular manufacturing without building any self-replicating machines at all."

One measure of the existence or success of a field is the jobs available in it: jobs certainly exist in 2004. By 2014 it should be really interesting. Another measure is "does the field have its equivalent of Slashdot?" Yup, Nanodot.

The F.I.'s website has much good material: FAQs, Reviews of nano for the technical or non-technical reader, reviews of policy issues and more. In their policy section they discuss how to avoid high-tech terrorism: it involves more nano, not less. Another of their essays talks about 6 lessons from 9/11 that should be applied to molecular nanotechnology:

1. Foresight's concern for the long-term potential abuse of nanotechnology has been confirmed and strengthened. Those who abuse technology -- from airliners to anthrax -- for destructive ends do exist and are unlikely to stop before full nanotech arrives, with all its power for both good and ill.
2. Foresight's position favoring speedy development of advanced nanotech has also been strengthened. The longer we wait, the better the infrastructure worldwide, the smaller the budget and project needed -- and the easier to hide the work. Let's do it fast, while it's more difficult, expensive, and harder to conceal.
3. Our advocacy of openness as the safest strategy has been validated. In under two hours, the problem of airliners hitting buildings was solved -- by passengers in the fourth plane to be highjacked. They did it "open source style": shared information on the need, collaborative design, and unpaid group implementation. (With earlier information, they might have been able to save their own lives, as well as those in the building their plane was meant to hit.) Their example can inspire us as we work to find a "bottom-up," distributed, networked, immune-system-style defense against the abuse of nanotechnology.
4. There are no good excuses for lack of foresight. We've got to be pro-active, not just reactive. Environmentalist-architect William McDonough wrote the following about environmental disasters, but it applies just as well to Sept. 11 or a future abuse of nanotech: "You can't say it's not part of your plan that these things happened, because it's part of your de facto plan. It's the thing that's happening because you have no plan...We own these tragedies. We might as well have intended for them to occur."
5. It would

Back in 1999 the Foresight Institute released the first version of the Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology. . These guidelines, interestingly enough, ended up in the US Congresses' recent (2003) bill on Molecular manufacturing / nanontechnology studies.

One point that the F.I. makes that often gets missed in discussion of nano: molecular nanotechnology != self-replicating machines. As Eric Drexler writes: "Much has been made of a concern I raised in 1986, under the name "gray goo" -- a hypothetical scenario involving runaway replicators. Building fully self-replicating machines would be difficult, however, and building machines that could replicate without external help would be more difficult still. Current work in the field shows that it will be easier and more efficient to develop molecular manufacturing without building any self-replicating machines at all."

One measure of the existence or success of a field is the jobs available in it: jobs certainly exist in 2004. By 2014 it should be really interesting. Another measure is "does the field have its equivalent of Slashdot?" Yup, Nanodot.

The F.I.'s website has much good material: FAQs, Reviews of nano for the technical or non-technical reader, reviews of policy issues and more. In their policy section they discuss how to avoid high-tech terrorism: it involves more nano, not less. Another of their essays talks about 6 lessons from 9/11 that should be applied to molecular nanotechnology:

1. Foresight's concern for the long-term potential abuse of nanotechnology has been confirmed and strengthened. Those who abuse technology -- from airliners to anthrax -- for destructive ends do exist and are unlikely to stop before full nanotech arrives, with all its power for both good and ill.
2. Foresight's position favoring speedy development of advanced nanotech has also been strengthened. The longer we wait, the better the infrastructure worldwide, the smaller the budget and project needed -- and the easier to hide the work. Let's do it fast, while it's more difficult, expensive, and harder to conceal.
3. Our advocacy of openness as the safest strategy has been validated. In under two hours, the problem of airliners hitting buildings was solved -- by passengers in the fourth plane to be highjacked. They did it "open source style": shared information on the need, collaborative design, and unpaid group implementation. (With earlier information, they might have been able to save their own lives, as well as those in the building their plane was meant to hit.) Their example can inspire us as we work to find a "bottom-up," distributed, networked, immune-system-style defense against the abuse of nanotechnology.
4. There are no good excuses for lack of foresight. We've got to be pro-active, not just reactive. Environmentalist-architect William McDonough wrote the following about environmental disasters, but it applies just as well to Sept. 11 or a future abuse of nanotech: "You can't say it's not part of your plan that these things happened, because it's part of your de facto plan. It's the thing that's happening because you have no plan...We own these tragedies. We might as well have intended for them to occur."
5. It would

Back in 1999 the Foresight Institute released the first version of the Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology. . These guidelines, interestingly enough, ended up in the US Congresses' recent (2003) bill on Molecular manufacturing / nanontechnology studies.

One point that the F.I. makes that often gets missed in discussion of nano: molecular nanotechnology != self-replicating machines. As Eric Drexler writes: "Much has been made of a concern I raised in 1986, under the name "gray goo" -- a hypothetical scenario involving runaway replicators. Building fully self-replicating machines would be difficult, however, and building machines that could replicate without external help would be more difficult still. Current work in the field shows that it will be easier and more efficient to develop molecular manufacturing without building any self-replicating machines at all."

One measure of the existence or success of a field is the jobs available in it: jobs certainly exist in 2004. By 2014 it should be really interesting. Another measure is "does the field have its equivalent of Slashdot?" Yup, Nanodot.

The F.I.'s website has much good material: FAQs, Reviews of nano for the technical or non-technical reader, reviews of policy issues and more. In their policy section they discuss how to avoid high-tech terrorism: it involves more nano, not less. Another of their essays talks about 6 lessons from 9/11 that should be applied to molecular nanotechnology:

1. Foresight's concern for the long-term potential abuse of nanotechnology has been confirmed and strengthened. Those who abuse technology -- from airliners to anthrax -- for destructive ends do exist and are unlikely to stop before full nanotech arrives, with all its power for both good and ill.
2. Foresight's position favoring speedy development of advanced nanotech has also been strengthened. The longer we wait, the better the infrastructure worldwide, the smaller the budget and project needed -- and the easier to hide the work. Let's do it fast, while it's more difficult, expensive, and harder to conceal.
3. Our advocacy of openness as the safest strategy has been validated. In under two hours, the problem of airliners hitting buildings was solved -- by passengers in the fourth plane to be highjacked. They did it "open source style": shared information on the need, collaborative design, and unpaid group implementation. (With earlier information, they might have been able to save their own lives, as well as those in the building their plane was meant to hit.) Their example can inspire us as we work to find a "bottom-up," distributed, networked, immune-system-style defense against the abuse of nanotechnology.
4. There are no good excuses for lack of foresight. We've got to be pro-active, not just reactive. Environmentalist-architect William McDonough wrote the following about environmental disasters, but it applies just as well to Sept. 11 or a future abuse of nanotech: "You can't say it's not part of your plan that these things happened, because it's part of your de facto plan. It's the thing that's happening because you have no plan...We own these tragedies. We might as well have intended for them to occur."
5. It would

Back in 1999 the Foresight Institute released the first version of the Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology. . These guidelines, interestingly enough, ended up in the US Congresses' recent (2003) bill on Molecular manufacturing / nanontechnology studies.

One point that the F.I. makes that often gets missed in discussion of nano: molecular nanotechnology != self-replicating machines. As Eric Drexler writes: "Much has been made of a concern I raised in 1986, under the name "gray goo" -- a hypothetical scenario involving runaway replicators. Building fully self-replicating machines would be difficult, however, and building machines that could replicate without external help would be more difficult still. Current work in the field shows that it will be easier and more efficient to develop molecular manufacturing without building any self-replicating machines at all."

One measure of the existence or success of a field is the jobs available in it: jobs certainly exist in 2004. By 2014 it should be really interesting. Another measure is "does the field have its equivalent of Slashdot?" Yup, Nanodot.

The F.I.'s website has much good material: FAQs, Reviews of nano for the technical or non-technical reader, reviews of policy issues and more. In their policy section they discuss how to avoid high-tech terrorism: it involves more nano, not less. Another of their essays talks about 6 lessons from 9/11 that should be applied to molecular nanotechnology:

1. Foresight's concern for the long-term potential abuse of nanotechnology has been confirmed and strengthened. Those who abuse technology -- from airliners to anthrax -- for destructive ends do exist and are unlikely to stop before full nanotech arrives, with all its power for both good and ill.
2. Foresight's position favoring speedy development of advanced nanotech has also been strengthened. The longer we wait, the better the infrastructure worldwide, the smaller the budget and project needed -- and the easier to hide the work. Let's do it fast, while it's more difficult, expensive, and harder to conceal.
3. Our advocacy of openness as the safest strategy has been validated. In under two hours, the problem of airliners hitting buildings was solved -- by passengers in the fourth plane to be highjacked. They did it "open source style": shared information on the need, collaborative design, and unpaid group implementation. (With earlier information, they might have been able to save their own lives, as well as those in the building their plane was meant to hit.) Their example can inspire us as we work to find a "bottom-up," distributed, networked, immune-system-style defense against the abuse of nanotechnology.
4. There are no good excuses for lack of foresight. We've got to be pro-active, not just reactive. Environmentalist-architect William McDonough wrote the following about environmental disasters, but it applies just as well to Sept. 11 or a future abuse of nanotech: "You can't say it's not part of your plan that these things happened, because it's part of your de facto plan. It's the thing that's happening because you have no plan...We own these tragedies. We might as well have intended for them to occur."
5. It would

Back in 1999 the Foresight Institute released the first version of the Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology. . These guidelines, interestingly enough, ended up in the US Congresses' recent (2003) bill on Molecular manufacturing / nanontechnology studies.

One point that the F.I. makes that often gets missed in discussion of nano: molecular nanotechnology != self-replicating machines. As Eric Drexler writes: "Much has been made of a concern I raised in 1986, under the name "gray goo" -- a hypothetical scenario involving runaway replicators. Building fully self-replicating machines would be difficult, however, and building machines that could replicate without external help would be more difficult still. Current work in the field shows that it will be easier and more efficient to develop molecular manufacturing without building any self-replicating machines at all."

One measure of the existence or success of a field is the jobs available in it: jobs certainly exist in 2004. By 2014 it should be really interesting. Another measure is "does the field have its equivalent of Slashdot?" Yup, Nanodot.

The F.I.'s website has much good material: FAQs, Reviews of nano for the technical or non-technical reader, reviews of policy issues and more. In their policy section they discuss how to avoid high-tech terrorism: it involves more nano, not less. Another of their essays talks about 6 lessons from 9/11 that should be applied to molecular nanotechnology:

1. Foresight's concern for the long-term potential abuse of nanotechnology has been confirmed and strengthened. Those who abuse technology -- from airliners to anthrax -- for destructive ends do exist and are unlikely to stop before full nanotech arrives, with all its power for both good and ill.
2. Foresight's position favoring speedy development of advanced nanotech has also been strengthened. The longer we wait, the better the infrastructure worldwide, the smaller the budget and project needed -- and the easier to hide the work. Let's do it fast, while it's more difficult, expensive, and harder to conceal.
3. Our advocacy of openness as the safest strategy has been validated. In under two hours, the problem of airliners hitting buildings was solved -- by passengers in the fourth plane to be highjacked. They did it "open source style": shared information on the need, collaborative design, and unpaid group implementation. (With earlier information, they might have been able to save their own lives, as well as those in the building their plane was meant to hit.) Their example can inspire us as we work to find a "bottom-up," distributed, networked, immune-system-style defense against the abuse of nanotechnology.
4. There are no good excuses for lack of foresight. We've got to be pro-active, not just reactive. Environmentalist-architect William McDonough wrote the following about environmental disasters, but it applies just as well to Sept. 11 or a future abuse of nanotech: "You can't say it's not part of your plan that these things happened, because it's part of your de facto plan. It's the thing that's happening because you have no plan...We own these tragedies. We might as well have intended for them to occur."
5. It would

The The first advanced nanotech conference is about to occur and Eric Drexler is going to be steward ushering it in. I wish I could afford to go, you are welcome to donate, heh I'm allowed to panhandle as I live in a place called hippyland amongst dirty hippies that do it to me (that makes this right, heh). I will be reading Drexler's book Engines of Creation as soon as I am home long enough to get the damn fedex in this 2 fedex truck town.

The The first advanced nanotech conference is about to occur and Eric Drexler is going to be steward ushering it in. I wish I could afford to go, you are welcome to donate, heh I'm allowed to panhandle as I live in a place called hippyland amongst dirty hippies that do it to me (that makes this right, heh). I will be reading Drexler's book Engines of Creation as soon as I am home long enough to get the damn fedex in this 2 fedex truck town.

Anyways, if you're a geek who likes new blinking things [and BTempleton is obviously a geek who likes Akihabara and new technologies] you might want those technologies to be widely used without interference from, say, Ashcroft. Note that he isn't saying "lets create great new laws to apply to these new technologies." He is asking "what happens when old laws get applied to great new technologies, and are there ways to get around any obvious upcoming problems?" ECPA already exists, and ASP style email storage could run into ECPA's limitations. Don't we want to think about this now, not later?

Remember that one of the EFF's first cases happened when the US government thought it could seize an entire BBS in order to investigate one user's email? Or that the US government wanted everyone to use weakened encryption with backdoors built in? Or that unchallenged yet idiotic patents hurt technological development?

Its the job of technologists / groups like the EFF to watch for potential crashes at the intersections of rights-reducing governments (or technology-ignorant governments) with great new technologies. And then, as in this case, suggest ways to prevent the intersection from ever happening (built in encryption could be valuable for that). Because otherwise, court cases are very expensive, and the technologists don't always win.

It's gotten so bad that true nanotech had to rename itself "molecular manufacturing" in order to avoid confusion with the nifty materials science stuff.

As progress has produced increased control of the structure of matter at the nanometer scale, scientists working in these areas, wanting their work to appear "sexy," labeled any technology involving devices less than 100 nm in size as "nanotechnology." Some of this work was relevant to Drexler's original goal; some was not, prompting Drexler to rename the original goal "molecular manufacturing". - Foresight Update 52 Page 4

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Drexler wrote Engines of Creation back in 1986. This is where a lot of the ideas of world destruction by a mass of self assembling nanobots - aka "grey goo" - came from. It is a rather scary thought, but its rather unlikely, IMHO. Btw, we are already using nanotechnology in PC's, according to Scientific American.