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Nanotechnology: Lessig, Sherman and Drexler Speak
An anonymous reader writes "Reporting from The Foresight Institute's "Vision Weekend", Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit) discusses the future of nanotechnology and the politics behind it. Also featuring a video interview of Lessig, Sherman and nanotech pioneer Eric Drexler."
1. A list of nanotechnology companies in general
2. In Canada, alot is being spent on R&D for nanotechnology: Nanotechnology R&D Initiatives in Canada
3. And they are crazy about it in Asia (many PDF reports)
Since the topic of SPAM was recently at hand, I wonder long it will be before we start getting: "***enlarge your penis*** Rapid PENIS ENLARGEMENT through the use of amazing NANOTECHNOLOGY advances "***enlarge your penis*** "
You can't patent nanotechnology, as Robin Williams has prior art in the cult series "Mork and Mindy"! ;-)
"Nano, nano!"
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Nanotechnology -- Good or Evil?
Suicide Booth: You are now dead! Thank you for using Stop and Drop, America's favorite since 2008.
I attended the nanotechnology conference also, and I'll report on what I saw just as soon as I can wash off this gray goo...
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
More far-off-potential masturbating. Law makers and authors should take a basic class on engineering design. Like laws and things we pass now will have any bearing or relevance on the population that finally -barely- realizes some of these potentials of nanotech 500 years from now.
Nano bots will be part of Palladium, your PC will not respond unless you have the correct embedded bots. Any attempt to circumvent DRM or any EULA conditions will be punished by the bots relaxing you sphlincter muscles at the most inapropiate of times and most probably in a public place. God help any geek who has a girlfriend as violations may be additionally be punished by relaxation of other muscle groups.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
many scientists ... want to undermine fears of advanced nanotechnology by simply taking the subject off the table. You'd think, though, that at least some of these people would beware of Arthur C. Clarke's observation that when a distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right, but when he says that something is impossible, he is often wrong.
Unless the scientists are advancing agendas that have nothing to do with science... for example, when a "Creation Scientist" maintains that it is "possible" the Earth is only thousands of years old, or a scientist in the pay of industry maintains that it is "possible" that emissions have no effect on global warming.
Actually, Arthur C. Clarke's axiom still holds true, because none of the above examples are "distinguished" scientists.
However, I believe they may be putting the cart ahead of the donkey, considering the need of resources for the bots. That is, unless you don't mind nanobots eating your kids and reconstituting them into Nanobot Green. ;)
As I promised last week, I attended the Foresight Institute's "vision weekend" relating to nanotechnology, and I have a report. (If you don't know much about nanotechnology, read this for some general background.)
The good news is that interest in nanotechnology doesn't seem to have suffered as much as it might have in light of the economic woe that has swept Silicon Valley. Though I saw a lot of "space available" and "for lease" signs as I drove around Palo Alto, attendance at the conference was only slightly below last year's.
There was less Extropian-style enthusiasm about the long-term prospects that nanotechnology might lead to near-immortality, and more talk about near-term developments and venture capital. And I guess that's the biggest shift in the field. When talk about nanotechnology was new, the long-term prospects dominated. They're still important, and people are still talking about them (who doesn't want to live a long time - er, besides Leon Kass, that is?) but the big buzz was over startups that are promising to deliver interesting new nanodevices within the year. Venture capitalists were talking about nanotechnology-related products that they're backing, and there was more discussion of products that can be brought to market in the near term. (One fallout of the dotcom bubble's bursting is that the venture-capital community seems very interested these days in companies that will produce customer revenue sooner rather than later)
People were also interested in the politics of nanotechnology, politics that are taking place both within the scientific community and within the greater polity. Within the scientific community, the "nanotech isn't possible" argument, which seemed dead a couple of years ago, seems to have enjoyed a modest resurgence. This isn't because any new experimental evidence has appeared; but rather, most people seem to think, because many scientists - fearful of criticism by Luddites and technophobes - want to undermine fears of advanced nanotechnology by simply taking the subject off the table. This probably won't work, for reasons that I outlined in last week's column, but it's a natural instinct, I suppose. You'd think, though, that at least some of these people would beware of Arthur C. Clarke's observation that when a distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right, but when he says that something is impossible, he is often wrong.
The larger world is taking notice, too. That's both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that some - like Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School - want to help "inoculate" nanotechnology against excessive legal interference, something that was the subject of Lessig's talk at the conference.
And some policymakers like Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), who attended the conference in its entirety, are taking nanotechnology rather more seriously than, say, Prince Charles. Sherman has drafted legislation calling for the National Academy of Sciences to study the impact of nanotechnology and wants to see far more attention paid to issues of economic, social, and political impact.
One Sherman-offered amendment to the current nanotechnology bill, HR766, called for 5% of nanotechnology funding to be set aside for such studies. That one didn't get adopted. But another, which was unanimously adopted, calls for a National Academy of Sciences study on the possible regulation of self-replicating machines, the release of such machines in natural environments, the distribution of molecular manufacturing development, the development of defensive technologies, and the use of nanotechnology to extend the capabilities of the human brain. (Sherman solicits your advice, and says you can email him at Brad.Sherman@mail.house.gov - with the subject line "Science" - if you like.)
The military aspects of nanotechnology have gotten more attention: In a speech last week, President Bush emphasized the role of technology in American military success, and noted that we are seeing wea
Is it just me or did that article have very little information that I didn't know or that I didn't already suspect. Venture capitalist are looking for shorter turnaround on their investment? Wasn't that news like a year or two ago? Potential military application? Political and legislation problems? Appreciate if the other attendants could provide some more focused details about the topics and perhaps your own insights and conclusions you have drawn from the discussions and presentations.
I found the links from the replies more informative. Thanks fellas.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
For Instance, take any sort of nanomachine that affects a human body. Nanomachines are very small and very hard to make. Our body is made of many, many cells. To kill, or change, or even repair a signifigant number of those cells, you need an obscene number of nanomachines. Without self-replicating nanos, you're going to be using alot more resources to make the nanos than it will take to achieve the same ends through other means.
Most of the current Nanotech seems to be centered around production methods of non-nano devices, sensors of different sorts, computing, and biotechnology. (Biotech being it's own can of worms and a very different matter from nanotech, indeed.)
Nothing Dead Here.
mastery of nanotechnology could lead to the kind of military supremacy that mastery of steam power and repeating firearms gave the West in the 19th Century.
Good, soon we can conquer all those pesky third world countries in a few days instead of a few weeks.
"I only speak the truth"
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Engines of Creation is a good read about the possibilities we have with nanotech. It's also pretty cool that this was published in 1986 (several years before the internet really was available to most people) and he wrote about having online forums and large reositories of books/information like exists today. (and he even published the book online in hopes more authors would do the same.)
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Keep your expectations in check folks. A lot of the basic science still has to get nailed down and funding this research is going to be a sunk cost. The only agencies willing to forward a huge sunk cost will be giant corporate research labs, universities, and government labs.
we have run out of energy!!!
I sure hope some one comes up with a nice high effecency solar cell.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
He made some dipshit offtopic joke (I guess its a joke, just without the punchline?) involving Palladium and microsoft, and somehow put the completely unrelated buzzword from the topic into it. This type of creativity and genious MUST BE SEEN BY ALL!
UP UP UP UP UP!
Now mod this down:
Nano bots will be part of the linux kernel, your PC will not respond unless you have the correct embedded bots. Any attempt to circumvent the kernel or any GPL conditions will be punished by the bots relaxing you sphlincter muscles at the most inapropiate of times and most probably in a public place. God help any geek who has a girlfriend as violations may be additionally be punished by relaxation of other muscle groups.
If you can make pretty much anything at home, using nanodevices, then information becomes the key input. But how would the auto industry feel about a Napster for Ferraris?
::buries head in sand::
Not bloody likely. All a company would have to do is design their product to require registration via a serial number for activation purposes, a la Windows XP. Granted, there are cracks aplenty for something like that, so maybe it's not such a hot idea.
Perhaps the nanoassembler would need to receive permission from the company in order to manufacture a consumer device in the first place, like an RSA key or something of that sort. Of course, once the actual assemble commands are isolated by some third-party hardware, one could just copy them and distribute them freely.
Then there's the notion of including some manner of rare precious metal in the design of the product, but that can be acquired by other means, and while expensive, the money to buy it wouldn't go to the company in the first place.
Hmm. Well, there go those ideas. To be honest, I think that nanotech, when it reaches maturity, will unavoidably throw a wrench in our economic system. When people can assemble their own goods for free, it's the designers who have the primary work cut out for them. And that could even turn into an open-source style of system, since if food, clothing, and other essentials can be assembled from only basic raw materials like soil, then the need for money would diminish considerably, and people could design new goods and products as a hobby.
Of course, one person could begin distributing a super-virus that can kill us all. Then again... umm...
---
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"-TMBG
I was gobsmacked at this paragraph from the article:
"There was also a lot of discussion about the way that nanotechnology might affect property rights. If you can make pretty much anything at home, using nanodevices, then information becomes the key input. But how would the auto industry feel about a Napster for Ferraris? "
Hey dude, wake up! If we can make just about anything we need at home from dust, who needs money? If someone steals your Ferrari, make a new one from the dirt in your backyard!
Property...indeed.
The dangers are not real yet because the technology is not real yet. Will we wait until it is at our doorstep to discuss the risks and dangers? Moral and ethical questions about cloning didn't seem like more than paperback novel material a few years ago. We're now enacting laws concerning their use.
I would have to disagree that self-replicating nano is beyond our mortal grasp. We've already done it with robots of normal size (./article couple months back) as well as what IMHO is the more important development of evolutionary ones that can construct itself "mutations" or permutations of limbs and functional areas. Like any technology, what's to prevent us from replicating the method to a smaller scale?
You say "alot more resources". You have any idea how much resources it takes to construct nanos? If you do please share it. I can only give you an educated theory that if the nanos were self-replicating, then by definition that means they need only the raw materials and energy to do this. How much mass do you think a typical "installation" would be in a host? My guess is that in THEORY it would be negligible, no?
If there's anything that I can tell you with certainty is that if we've done something (self-replcation) in one place (robots) , we're are great at borrowing the methods and processes to apply it to something else (nanotech).
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
I can't but being masticated
"Masticated" means chewed. Try harder next time, mmm-kay?
The entire 'futuristic' view of nanotechnology is that nanotech will progress to the point of guided creation; e.g. input a design and they produce an item. With simple programming routines, the nanobots can be made to build more nanobots as needed. Once the processing capabilities of current processors have been utilized to allow 'fuzzy decision-making' by computers, e.g. provide an array of choices weighted against a set of inputs and allow the situation to dictate what the bot does, our ability to allow these bots to operate with less and less guidance will evolve. I cannot forsee that with the current understanding of nanotech, that this is where the world will end up. The concept promoted in Neal Stephenson's 'Diamond Age' may reflect a fairly accurate depiction; though possibly in a different manner, pure material will be supplied to the nanobots, and they will use it to construct items. I honestly can see this becoming reality within my lifetime, based on our current research progression in the fields of nanotechnology and quantum physics, the latter being necessary to develop a better understanding of the weak and strong atomic forces and how to break/establish bonds and channel the energy to good use. In this fashion, the laws of nature can be used to modify the positioning of subatomic particles which will make up the products produced.
Just some rambling thought for your consideration!
-cheezus_es_lard
I'm taking a course in nanomechanics this semester and the focus of most ongoing research is not really about nanobots or self replicating machines. In my opinion some of the most interesting outcomes of nanoscience are: -Materials with novel mechanical or electrical properties. -Cheap and small measurement instruments with more capabilities. (For exampe: A chemical or biochemical laboratory on a chip) The medical-nanobot stuff is just to get funding because people think is good to fund science if it will improve our health.
John Gilmore published an essay a while back that also tied together concerns about nanotech and DRM. Gilmore of course is a long-time champion of online freedom and free software. In his essay he writes about how nanotech could bring an era of plenty to all, but only if there are free designs that people can feed into their nanotech assemblers.
Gilmore argues that the problems we are facing now with information goods - music, movies, games, software - are just the beginning. In a few decades, all products will be in the same situation. Whatever solutions we find now will be the way we handle physical products in the future.
If we can build a world where information goods are plentiful and cheap, that is a good sign that nanotech will bring us a similar bounty of physical goods. On the other hand if we end up with an information market built on scarcity and high prices, nanotech won't bring the world the riches that it could potentially provide.
The ongoing content wars are even more important than they seem. They are putting us on the path that will determine the future economy of the 21st century.
My problem with the whole concept of reassembling matter is that we still don't have a definite understanding of what fundamentally ties things like ferrari and ice cream together on a quantum level, let alone the skills to observe these tiniest of structures without using some sort of particle acceleration technique. I'm not saying it's impossible to ever be able to manipulate matter to such a simple degree as described by many science popularizations, I'm simply saying that it might take a bit longer than some futurists like to admit. Saying it would be impossible would truly go against my love of science-fiction...and where would I be without that, however seeing that there are some problems yet to be solved goes with my engineering schooling view of the world. We are what we can do.
Here's where I see this technology heading:
Somewhere in the next 5-10 years the Military will fund a project to use Nanotechnology to protect us from Terrorism. In fact, some of the work raytheon is already doing is just that.
15-20 years out commercial entities will be given access to this technology so that they can make a buck off of it. At this point, the media will begin to rabidly suckle at anything with the prefix "nano" attached to it.
20-25 years from now the economy will surge because everyone and their brother thinks that "the world is really about to change"
25-30 years from now people will notice that their human condition has not, in fact, changed.
30-35 years from now all nanotechnology will be produced overseas, and those involved stateside will have a hard time finding work. At this time, the military will fund a project to utilize quantum strings to defend us against time travelers.
wash, rinse, repeat
I've done some video interviews with participants, including Lessig, Sherman, and nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler. I hope you find them interesting. This is sort of an experiment, but if it works well, we may repeat it. Hosting video for a slashdotting, sounds like they won't be repeating it...
You sound a bit like the politian in some low budget zombie movie...
For Instance, take any sort of nanomachine that affects a human body. Nanomachines are very small and very hard to make. Our body is made of many, many cells. To kill, or change, or even repair a signifigant number of those cells, you need an obscene number of nanomachines. Without self-replicating nanos, you're going to be using alot more resources to make the nanos than it will take to achieve the same ends through other means.
This is exactly how the human body heals itself already. When there is damage, cells self-produce to create scar tissue. When there is a foreign invader, cells create an immune response, which often includes replication of invader-specific units (antibodies). Human life starts from a one-celled organism, and grows from there. Someone who has taken biology more recently may correct me on the details, but we already have a model for small-scale self-replication. It may not be the "make an exact copy of myself" form, but we know it's possible, and extremely successful.
Nanobots for medicine may take a similar form to natural defenses, with targeted robots creating copies out of raw materials in the blood stream. You might have to have an initial injection, then take supplimental pills for the raw materials the bots need. Ideally, when the pills run out, the robots die off.
I think we're decades from nanoscale self-replication, but with the biological examples, I'm not willing to say it's impossible.
I should have pointed out that I'm not including biotechnology as part of nanotechnology. Biotech is everything that nanotech is not: Self-Replicating, (for the most part) Easy to produce, and Extremly Dangerous. Don't get me wrong, I think we can achieve great things with Biotech and I think we should proceed with Biotech research as much as we have, if not much more. However, while Biotechnology and Nanotechnology are both suffieciently advanced technologies that deal with things primarily on a tiny scale, thier differences are enough for me to classify them as seperate things. It's arbitrary, but so am I. As for resources neccesary to produce nanomachines, quite alot are needed to produce them without self-replication, which was my point. This may change sometime in the future due to scientific progress (and I sincerely hope so) but that is how it stands as of now. While yes, we need to deal with the dangers of nanotechnology before they become actual issues, we must make sure to do so without hampering the advancement of nanotechnology as a whole. Many of the dangers which have been ascribed to nanotechnology should instead be ascribed to biotech, as well as some of the applications. Both require gentle care in the form of money and light restriction.
Nothing Dead Here.
It's more than a couple of years later now. Next to nothing that he talked about back then has come to pass. Yes, there have been some technical advances. But where are the injectable nano-repair machines to scrape out my clogged arteries? Why is laser eye surgery cutting-edge technology? Why are smart weapons still bombs and not destructive targeted nano-killers?
Why are these people so right about technological possibilities and so wrong about human culture? Judging by Drexler, I suspect that their beliefs in Libertarianism, the Profit Motive, and their desire to Freeze-Your-Head-so-you-can-Live-Forever(tm) marks them as just another bunch of Utopians whose belief in What-Should-Be blinds them to What-Is.
Sometimes the way of thinking of those opponents is just incomprehencible for me. Take the following quote, taken from that article:
You mean there are people out there that actually want to live? and without pain and suffering, too? Creaps!
<sigh>
Enjoy your downer for the day.
"First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"
Who needs nano for that? Try reading "The Space Merchants" by Fredrick Pohl & Cyril Kornbluth. It's a world where advertising has run amok (written 1952 - and it sounds remarkably like today). In it the advertisers project ads onto people retinas, using a kind of video projector. I think the only reason we aren't experiencing that ourselves is that we live in a world where liability lawsuits have also run amok... (In this case a good thing).
I have a feeling that what is hindering advancement with nanotechnology is that same thing that hinders the advancement of stem-cell research and many other fields: politics... which goes hand-in-hand with money and religion and thus brings along paranoia, fear, misunderstanding, etc. ("We shouldn't play God with our genetic code...", "What about creating a gray-goo that will destroy everything on our planet...")
As for having absolutely only minor advancements in nanotech, that's just not true. I've read about stain proof fabrics and windows that can keep dirt particles from clinging, not to mention advancements in carbon nanotubes.
Yes, there are no nano-doctors floating around in our bodies yet, but complexity such as this requires a LOT more research. You can't possibly think that the time from an idea popping into his head to the time it gets created is going to only be 20 years, do you? Look how long it took for us just to get to the moon! And we haven't even been to any other planets yet! I doubt we will see any superbly complex nanomachines (such as the nano-doctors (cell-repairmen), or teeth cleaners, etc...) in our lifetime, but we are still continuing research in the field. Nobody has given up on it.
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