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The Dangers of Nanotech
Krees writes "Small Times talked with the Foresight Institute's Christine Peterson, Ralph Merkle of Zyvex, and Ray McLaughlin of Carbon Nanotechnologies about the potential of nanotechnology, which has benefited greatly from open source research methods, and nanotech weapons in particular falling into the wrong hands. Recent recognition of potential abuses will likely lead to incrased secrecy in nanotech research." This topic comes up every so often - what happens when nanotech falls into the wrong hands? I think that's a "when", not an "if", as that happens with almost everything.
It looks like everyone has already brought up the point that the danger in putting a "self-destruct" mechanism in a nanite. With millions or billions of nanites, even if the odds of one of them surviving that self-destruction are one in a million, those odds are too high. And if that nanite is designed to construct other nanites (or, worst case, copies of itself) then you have a problem on your hands.
If nanotechnology ever reaches the total control of matter, self-replicating machine, Diamond Age "Seed" level (I don't have enough information to argue either way, but it seems to me that it'd be easier to create macroscopic Von Neumann machines than microscopic ones, and we haven't even done that yet) we're going to need more protection than a self destruct mechanism.
What I'd like to see, in a world swarming with potential nanotech viruses, is an analogous nanotech immune system to take care of them, nanites which can be set to recognize and rip apart other nanites which meet certain parameters. Got a rogue oil-spill cleaning nanite ripping up asphalt in San Francisco? Get the standby security nanites in Oakland to kill it.
There was an interview with a somewhat apocalyptic tech giant (a veep at Sun? I forget) who believed that the ever increasing technological power available to humanity (nanotech, biotech, and AI being three examples I remember) would cause the world to be ripped apart by terrorism in the coming century. He likened it to an airplane in which every passenger had a "Crash" button in front of their seat, and only one psycho was necessary to bring everyone down with him.
I don't think it will be that way. With nanotechnology specifically, if our available defenses are kept up to the level that our potential offenses would require, then having a small set of nanites go rogue wouldn't be a concern; they would be overwhelmed by their surroundings. Going back to that analogy, if everybody had a "Crash" button in front of their airplane seat, but the plane was guaranteed to survive unless 50% of the passengers voted to crash, that would be the safest flight in history.
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Bill Joy, cofounder and chief technologiest of Sun Microsystems, wrote an article for Wired awhile back called "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us."
He said there were three looming dangers to humanity's future: genetics, robotics, and nanotechnologies, largely because they were so accessible to those with less money than it'd take to, say, develop a nuclear weapon.
The article is one of the most well-reasoned examinations of the issue of nanotech and the dangers in the future of technology I've ever read, and it's given extra weight simply by the position and history of the author himself. Check it out at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html. It's long, but it's certainly worth the read.
Telepathy will be possible soon with brain to computer interface, and this connected to some nanites could do EXACTLY what you are talking about.
Programming would be as simple as THINKING it, the whole art of programming would accellorate so fast that millions of programs would be written by one person in a day.
imagine if programs were created via the speed of thought and these programs could materialize via nanites.
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It's simple. Human kind is in race between the forces that make weapons of mass destruction easier to make and more accessible and the forces that bring international community and universal peace.
So far only a few people have access to nuclear weapons and those people have managed to act with reasonable, intelligent constraint. More people have access to anthrax and unfortunately not all of them are so enlightened. Similarly it is not hard to make a truck bomb and certainly some people with that skill still carry malice in their hearts.
The progress of technology seems to be such, that some day the knowledge and tools needed to make a weapon capable of killing millions will fall into the hands of common adults. The question is whether humanity can progress in the pursuit of sanity and mutual respect before we bring doomsday down on our heads.
I'm an optimist about human nature and a pessimist about nanotech and genetic weapon tech, so I'd like to hope we have a chance.