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Dyson On Grey Goo, Bioterrorism, and Censorship
Phronesis writes "In "The Future Needs Us," Freeman Dyson reviews Michael Crichton's Prey. After disposing of the bad science (The Reynolds number of nanobots 'the size of red blood cells' would limit their top speed to 2 mm/sec, which would make it hard for them to swarm or chase people; Solar power would provide no more than 20 nanowatts, which would not be sufficient for the activities the book describes; etc.) he turns to the more general theme of fearmongering about nanotechnology and biotechnology, comparing Prey to Nevil Shute's On the Beach ('Prey is not as good as On the Beach, but it is bringing us an equally important message')." Read on for a few more notes from the story, which makes an interesting followup to reader cybrpnk2's positive review of Prey .
"Dyson notes Joy's oddly prescient comment in April 2000 that
I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.but objects to Joy's recommendation that we should 'relinquish pursuit of that knowledge...so dangerous that we judge it better that [it] never be available.' After a discussion of the actual history of biological warfare and bioterrorism, Dyson quotes Milton's Areopagitica in defense of intellectual and scientific freedom, concluding that 'Perhaps, after all, as we struggle to deal with the enduring problems of reconciling individual freedom with public safety, the wisdom of a great poet who died more than three hundred years ago may still be helpful.'"
Dyson & Bill Joy both relate to the Unabomber Manifesto,
which has some stunning sections on technology:
Industrial-Technological Society Cannot Be Reformed
Restriction Of Freedom Is unavoidable In Industrial Society
The 'Bad' Parts Of Technology Cannot Be Seperated From The 'Good' Parts
Technology Is A More Powerful Social Force Than The Aspiration Freedom
The complete manifesto is here
BEFORE YOU REPLY, please read a bit.
He has some ideas that are VERY similar
to ideas that get posted here on slashdot.
One excerpt here...
While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long-distance communications . . . how could one argue against any of these things, or against any other of the innumerable technical advances that have made modern society? It would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no disadvantages. Yet as we explained in paragraphs 59-76, all these technical advances taken together have created world in which the average man's fate is no longer in his own hands or in the hands of his neighbors and friends, but in those of politicians, corporation executives and remote, anonymous technicians and bureaucrats whom he as an individual has no power to influence.
Micheal Crichton in this book, describes HOW these nanites are moving. Yes, they have fibres to move and by themselves could only go 2 mm/sec (not enough to chase people) but he goes on to say how through these emergant behaviours that they were working as groups. They were developing propulsion that was designed around multiple units working at once. Increasing the totally speed of the swarm. There was a lot of very detailed explanation on exactly how these units moved, how when wind came up they had to fall to the surface to escape the velocities.
With the exemption of the ending which I wont spoil here it was a very plausible book.
You have to understand that with solar power in nanite groups, you're not just generating electricity, but also heat which causes convection etc and nanites could control this force among others naturally present in the environment.
Its exactly this kind of emergent behaviour that crichton was talking about and this guy has seemed to miss the point.
$.02
One of the most intereting conversations I've ever had was with a fellow who was pursuing a career in particle accelerator work.
According to him there used to be similar "Grey Goo" arguments surrounding some earlier particle accelerator work. There was some worry that an experiment, by chance, might create a form of matter that was more stable at lower energies, causing a chain reaction that would convert normal matter into this more "stable" matter, plus energy.
I really don't know enough about the field to flesh this out better. However, rather than being frightening, the conversation really captured how exciting fields on the edge can be.
A-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Now then, Dmitri. You know how we've always talked about the possibility... of something going wrong with the dust. The dust, Dmitri. The nano dust! Well, now, what happened, is... ah, one of our scientists, he had a sort of... well, he went a little funny in the head. You know, just a little... funny. And, ah, he went and did a silly thing. Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his dust... to attack your country. Ah, well let me finish Dmitri - let me finish Dmitri... Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?! Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dmitri? Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?
Of course I like to speak to you! Of course I like to say hello! Not now, but anytime, Dmitri. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened. It's a friendly call, of course it's a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn't friendly... you probably wouldn't have even gotten it.
They will not reach their targets for at least another hour. I am... I am positive, Dmitri. Listen, I've been all over this with your ambassador, it is not a trick.
Well, I'll tell you. We'd like to give your HVAC staff a complete run-down on the targets, the flight characteristics, and the defensive systems of the dust. Yes! I mean, i-i-i-if we're unable to denature the dust, then... I'd say that, ah... well, we're just gonna have to help you destroy it, Dmitri. All right, well listen now. Who should we call? Who should we call, Dmitri? The, wha-whe, the People... you, sorry, you faded away there. The People's Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Headquarters. Where is that, Dmitri? In Omsk, right? Yes? Oh, you'll call them first, will you? Uh-huh. Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dmitri? Whe-ah, what? I see, just ask for Omsk Information.
Ah-ah-eh-um-hmmmmm.
I'm sorry, too, Dmitri. I'm very sorry. Alright, you're sorrier than I am! But I am as sorry as well. I am as sorry as you are, Dmitri. Don't say that you're more sorry than I am, because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are. So we're both sorry, alright?
Alright.
No, I think you have completely manages to miss the point of Dyson's article. It is not an article geared to impress the masses on his command of science, rather, it is one meant to point out the serious, very serious, flaws that people like Bill Joy and Crichton have with their outlook on nanotechnology. When you read into their arguments and "forecasts" about nano, it becomes clear that Joy and Crichton really don't have an inkling on what they are talking about. The result of their writings, based more on emotion than hard logic, is the disillusionment of the masses against a science that is not properly understood. I find it of great annoyance that a popular author, such as Crichton, is willing to put himself in the position of being one to predict how the future of nano will unfold. The reality is that by applying fundamental rules of physics and chemistry, one can quickly dismiss the dream-land nanotechnology scenarious proposed by people such as Drexler, Joy, and Crichton, as the stuff that fairytales are made of. Kudos to Freeman Dyson!
Crichton seems to be a reasonable writer. I say this in the sense that his style is readable and engaging. The topics are rarely boring. The characters seem to be plausible.
The problem is that he gets details in science often wildly wrong. Almost all the geneticists I spoke to flinch at _Jurassic Park_. The supercomputer people I work with smirk about his treatment of our field. The situation is not unlike how the military people and defense contractor engineers read Clancy: it's a good read, but don't expect anything like reality from it. (re my own experiences having worked @ one of the laser test ranges in NM and comparing it to _Cardinal of the Kremlin_ or the reactions from engineers to people that cite Clancy on sci.military.naval or rec.aviation.military).
The good question is...is this a service he's doing for us, the scientists and engineers? Or is it a massive disservice? The weighing that needs to be done is whether or not the service of bringing up the fact that people need to pay attention to new technologies and their implications vs the really bad extrapolations and wrong impressions the guy gives people about what we are able to do or even how the stuff works at all...
People will react with "This is only fiction..." but then most people don't often read about the real science and get caught up, do they? They find it dull and, thus, get their impressions from these works...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
We have the means to stop this onslaught, a lovely piece of legislation called the DMCA and an army of lawyers to back it up.
Any badass nanite that tries to replicate itself will be doing so without paying the appropriate copyright fees to the original creator and will summarily get slapped with a nice lawsuit and some jailtime to cool it's heels (erm... cillia? flagella?).
Just in case that does not work, we have Senator Disney who will make sure that these abominations have DRM technology built into them from the get-go, so self-replicating nanites will come pre-spayed and neutered for our protection.
We need not even go that far. The very fact that such a beast is being created is a violation itself, since it's its own circumvention device.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Not true, if it's indistinguishable from magic it becomes science fastasy. There are certain liberties that can be taken, especially when the setting is the far far future, but that does not absolve a science fiction author of all responsibility for keeping the science aspect plausible. The science itself IS NOT just the dressing for science fiction, it is the vector by which the complex issues are brought about. Don't confuse science fantasy/space opera with science fiction.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I don't know if anyone else had come up with a similar law before I thought of it a number of years ago (thanks mostly to the brilliant work of none other than Ivan Stang), so I'll put a flag in it right now and call it Wee's Law of Tinfoil Hats.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
The very fact that such a beast is being created is a violation itself, since it's its own circumvention device.
Not only did the slashdot poster use both "its" and "it's" correctly, but (s)he did so adjacently!
I do believe that this is a slashdot first, folks. Any other poster would have confused possessive pronouns with contractions. The only possible explanation is that rworne is not a real slashdot poster, but rather a sentient nanite himself!
"Some science fiction writers have wrongly given me the credit for inventing the idea of an artificial biosphere. In fact, I took the idea from Olaf Stapledon, one of their own colleagues:
"This passage I found in a tattered copy of Stapledon's Star Maker which I picked up in Paddington Station in London in 1945."