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A Review of Nanotech's Future
captainsaavik writes "A Washington Post article today reviews nanotechnology - 'Nanotechnology, the hot young science of making invisibly tiny machines and materials, is stirring public anxiety and nascent opposition inspired by best-selling thrillers that have demonized the science -- and new studies suggesting that not everything in those novels is fantasy.'"
We will research, improve, innovate and ultimately implement nanotech solutions for one simple reason: we can. It's been the same right throughout human history.
The views of the objectors, no matter how well founded and how well intentioned, will not lead to r&d into nanotech (or any other new technology, including human cloning) being stopped. At best it might be delayed, but even then the money to be made by Big Business makes this unlikely IMO.
Can anybody think of any kind of new technology that has been abandoned, or even significantly delayed, through alleged (or real) risks ? I suspect new technologies are only abandoned because they are not feasible either technically or commercially (cost too much, too late to market etc) rather than for some ethical or environment consideration.
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
Nanotechnology may yet become the AI of the 21st century. As the nightmare stories about the risks of runaway tech will undoubtedly appeal to the enviro folk out there, I anticipate heavy resistance to widespread adoption of the results.
--- Bill
I can just see it now,
Some salesguy holding up an empty glass.
"No, No, they are really in there, you just can't see them."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
With so much good fiction out there why did they have to take a book that got the science unbelieveably wrong. If they wanted something closer to the mark they could have at least taken Diamond Age. Some of the predictions in that book have allready come to pass.
...the truth of nanotech's future probably lies at neither extreme: I doubt that the disastrous runaway growth grey goo scenarios will be true, nor will they be the be-all and end-all of any kind of physical and biological technology. They'll probably have many useful applications though, possibly concentrated all in one field.
FloodMT: crapflood Movab
Michael Crichton's Prey is an excellent science fiction novel about nanotechnology and the possible problems with it. Its an awesome technology, but I would be very concerned about possible abuse or mistakes.
... and I'm a friggin atheist. :)
Man, I can't wait. Of course, the greatest innovations of the coming Diamond Age haven't even been imagined yet, if history is any guide.......
(just wish they'd hurry up)
...is not enough for a trillion trillion trillion trillion........ of nano bots.
I found the fortune surprisingly appropriate for this discussion: "Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do." -- R. A. Heinlein
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
First, its going to be really hard, IMO, to get these things to autoreplicate as suggested. Shit, we cant even get large robots to replicate; how will they get nano-sized ones to do so?
Personally, I only see nanotech being used in manufacturing, but eventaully branching into other things after a century or so (similiar to the way computer tech has spread).
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Come on, make one for nanotech already. It only has to be one pixel!!
Does anyone recall the hostility encountered with GM crops in Europe and Africa? I do believe that corporations are going to have to take a good long hard look at how they are going to handle the public with regards to nanotech.
This site has a lot of good information on nanotechnology.
Among other things they address the 'grey goo' or uncontrolled replicator issue.
Basically it would require a deliberate effort to create such a thing.
The spread, while exponential, would be slow due to a nanite's size.
Nanotech is clearly being oversold. The one area that really appears to have some future potential is in construction materials for very tiny roller coasters at gnat theme parks.
"A Review of Nanotech's Future"
Biology's doing rather well.
Because unlike Wesley Crusher, we're real human beings. I've seen plenty of examples of this - for example, the game Alpha Centauri predicted that we wouldn't finish the Human Genome Project until far into the future (when in fact it was completed within years of the game's release).
--- Bwah?
Great..soon I will get spam touting how little nanotech machines can provide a better and longer lasting erection? Hey, it could happen. Happy Trails, Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
I think one of the more realistic fears is not the new toys of spying and things that might creep into our personal freedoms, but rather environmental issues. And here, I don't mean the nasty chemicals needed to produce these things, but rather nanotube detritus finding it's way into our ecosystem and food sources. Certainly there is now and there has always been nano dirt in our air and finding it's way into our bodies, but these new engineered shapes may have unforeseen health issues, much like asbestos in the last 30 years.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Close to 100% of France's electrical power is nuclear, and they export power to much of western Europe.
Japan is big on nukes, also.
Actually, just about every industrialized country other than the USA sees the risks as much less of a barrier to development than they are here... blame the idiot wing of the environmental lobby and the pathetic PR efforts of utilities here for shutting down nuclear in the US, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths from coal-fired power plant emissions over the last several decades.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
and you just can't see it?
Browse at -1, because trolls are often the most creative part of
--
Power to the Peaceful
One of the things that I appreciated about this article was how it only spent a small bit on the grey goo hypothesis. The folks who propose any kind of a goo should step back from the science fiction, and read some biochemestry and microbial ecology. Energy is probably the primary limited resource for replication and there just is not that much out there available to nano-scale machines or organisms.
The medical concerns should be taken seriously however. The Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology has a nice page that promises to be a clearinghouse for information on these issues.
so this publicity is probably a good thing, even though they never tell the truth.
I can still remember the days when these books hit the shelves:
"Evil steam-monster", around 1803, told a horrifying tale about a big steel monster that spewed steam, ran over everyone and made everyone cough very heavily.
"Lightning horror!", around 1877, very good thriller about artificially created light that made zombies of everyone so they couldn't stop working for the whole 24 hours.
"Tube of death", around 1926, which was mostly about a tube that transmitted moving light-beams and brainwashed everyone with stories about fictious people through their everyday lifes.
See, nothing to worry about...
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A salient quote from a nanodot.org article on this subject:
--
Power to the Peaceful
All of us on /. like to cheerlead the coming wave of nanotech, but it's looking more all the time that while we may be on the cusp of a new industrial revolution, like the first IR, it will bring horrors to match its benefits. Probably the most significant point made by the article is that while this tech could be very beneficial, due to our lack of understanding of surface chemistry of most living organisms, some of the byproducts could be toxic to levels previously unknown to exist.
Significant is this bit from the article:
On average the reactions [to nanotube inhalation] were worse than those in mice given equal amounts of quartz particles, which toxicologists use as their "serious damage" standard.
And this is from one dose, and they further state that even without continued exposure, the existing particles continued to produce damage, presumably beyond what a single exposure to quartz dust might produce.
I fear that we'll rush headlong into this without thorough research, and do significant damage to ourselves and the rest of the world. Yah, that sounds all "tree huggy," but when they talk about accidentally killing all soil microorganisms over a large area, frankly, that kind of scares me.
I'm starting to tilt towards a rant, so I'll keep this short, but given our recent history (asbestos, PCBs, tetraethyl lead), we're probably going to find ourselves chasing waste streams yet again, only much worse this time around.
I'm not even going to try to refute anything on junkscience.com. The guy just picks whatever studies seem to back up his agenda, and. Like when he claimed that abestos insulation would have prevented the fall of the WTC towers. And when somebody points out the flaws in his claims (abestos is not that superior to other kinds of insulation), he just insists that he never said what you think he said. That makes any link to his site a non-argument. And plenty of reputable scientists do consider DDT a health hazard. Hey, by the time it was banned, it was reaching toxic levels in human milk.
Sure, but I don't think that means that digital recording technology as a whole has been held back, it's just one single instance of it. The average Joe Consumer can still use Windows Sound Recorder on their laptop or whatever. Also, personally I find that minidiscs are much better than DAT for the sorts of purposes which DAT is supposed to be for anyway, and it's not as if ATRAC's lossiness is even noticeable anyway (it just subtly loses frequencies, unlike mp3 which adds in new frequencies as it degrades). Considering that the microphone itself is already losing a lot of the frequencies, I don't see this as a problem.
There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
a replacement for viagra,
a replacement for sex toys
a breath-a-lyzer in your thumb! just suck your thumb and you'll find out how drunk you are!
Slashdot Pager, your thumb vibrates when there's a new slashdot post so you can race to be the first person to post on that article
a replacement for SCO
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replacement for microsoft
----
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I Like Cheese.
The fears about nanotech existed far earlier than 2000. I don't know the origin of the term "grey goo" but I know it existed in the early '90s, as it is referenced by Ben Bova in his Moonbase series of novels, which deal with issues surrounding nanotech (unfortunately, from a purely scientific viewpoint, it seems..)
Is there any field of study of "biological nanotechnology" ? I have always found a big relationship in the way many biological features work with nanotechnology, but in a more comlicated and refines way
For example a seed, could be considered as a nanotechnology machine which develops an extraordinary system (tree) by arranging the molecules in it sourrounding.
__
Sig: Marine Stock Photos
It is looking very very small, microscopic even!
What if the question is "Want a new son?"
Indiscriminately spraying tons of DDT over every domestic crop in the world is a Bad Idea - DDT is a pretty nasty substance to have in the food chain in massive quantities; I'm sure I don't need to review the effects. But, if it were used correctly, the way its inventor intended, it would be the Magic Bullet against malaria, without wreaking massive environmental havoc. (Source: New Yorker article about two years ago, reference it yourself. Interesting tangent - the New Yorker was the mag that serialized Silent Spring, exposing millions to the book and launching the environmental movement.)
Basically, DDT gets lighttly sprayed on the walls and ceilings of sleeping quarters in malarial areas of the world. The mosquitos feed, then immedately land on the wall to sleep it off, where the trace residue of DDT kills them. IIRC, three bimonthly sprayings throughout the tropics would eliminate malaria while posing negligible environmental risk. But we thought since a little was good, a lot must be better - and we ruined it for everybody.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
As a side note, those guidelines, almost word for word, ended up in the US Congresses' recent bill on Molecular manufacturing / nanontechnology studies.
The article sounds a bit alarmist. Nanotech is an extremely broad and interdisciplinary field. Most of it poses no more threat to health and the environment than any other technology. The main danger I see is a lack of government regulations to ensure workplace safety when working with nanotubes.
I've worked as a graduate student at a major nanotech research institute in the United States. Until recently, students were routinely exposed to SWCNT's and SWCNT derivatives without being informed of the suspected dangers to respiratory health. Researchers still carry out nanotube related work with no real guidelines for workplace safety. I've "scooped" nanotubes out of containers in the open air when weighing them for solution preparation, etc. There are no procedures for the proper handling of nanotube spills.
If SWCNT's really are as dangerous as some studies suggest, there should be an immediate halt to research until proper Federal guidelines are established.
Kurzweil is a madman and he is full of shit. This is no troll.
The guy says people have historically underestimated the future. This is painfully not true. Think about it: HAL, Flying cars, personal helicopters, nuclear reactors in your house, big settlements on mars.
People ALWAYS take a current trend and "overestimate" what that tech can do. Kurzweil is one of them.
Why?
Because that is what gets peoples attention. This year we have already seen Intel researchers write scientific papers about why Moore's law will end soon. Now these are the people that have everything to gain from Moore's law continuing.
Kurzweil is just a crazy optimist, and his articles are sensationalist, higlhly speculative and more often than not: factually incorrect.
Will code a sig generator for food
After having read the article, Yep I RTFA.
Good article overall. Points out that the extent of nanotechnology is likely to be less than some hope and fear.
The gray goo ideal is hampered by design, energy and speed/movement constraints which means that it's only going to be a problem if we haven't the technology to combat isolated outbreaks.
We can't put the genie back in the bottle, someone is going to study this technology and use it for unfriendly ends. The only question is will we have the knowledge and skills necessary to counter that.
I believe that restrictive regulation would make it more likely that we wouldn't have the resources to fight such threats. I also believe that there is a limited period of vulnerability until all citizens have defenses as part of their normal biotechnological compliment. The less restriction on research in the bio/nano technology arena the faster I believe we can get through this threatening period.
As an aside on "Prey", I've noticed over the years that Mr. Crichton has made it a point to use his status and writing talents against Bio and Nano technologies. I understand that he has every right to do so, but I also believe I've a right to point out such.
*chuckle* it's going to be a VERY interesting couple of decades...
*now* back to my regularly scheduled Thorazine dose...
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
And, as any fool knows, there isn't any possible environmental harm in the rampant killing of insects! If God didn't want us stomping bugs, why did He make them so funny looking? Really, the only life forms humans need are cows, corn, wheat, potatoes, and marijuana.
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
Welcome to the ranks of VR, worms and cyberspace.
We barely survived the invention of nukes
"Barely survived" means a few thousand people holed up in military bunkers are the last people left on earth, with nuclear winter starting to snow overhead.
As it was we used a few, built a lot more, and we're all doing quite fine. I would say "We survived the creation of nukes by an incredibly comfortable margin".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The question, of course, is whether we should value beluga more than the millions of humans who die from malaria.
Although Freitas' paper is oriented towards showing ways to detect and fight gray goo, a careful reading shows that it answers most of the superficial objections to the concept. There is plenty of energy to create diamondoid (rock-like) nanobots starting with energy-rich organic matter.
Hoo boy, time to put the brain back online and exercise some critical thinking.
Thankfully, it starts off by rejecting the most implausible forms of the grey goo by focusing just on the biosphere. But here is an alternative example for you.
If I were to say that we should be on our guard against the creation of a voratious biological life form that can devour the entire biosphere in a mere 20 days, would anyone buy the claim?
I don't think so. And yet, for some reason we are expected to believe that nanobots as machines that devour life in order to create more nanobots are more of a threat than microrganisms as machines that devour life in order to create more microrganisms.
So, a huge number of assumptions in that article. One, we can ignore the problem of trace elements because what is not availble in the body is available in the crust. Freitas just brushes off this problem.
There are also lots of assumptions about the efficiency of replication that are left hanging.
But the biggest problem is the deus et machina which is the nanobot its self. We are talking about something can perform hundreds of different chemical reactions, on radically different substrates with a wide variation of mechanical properties. In spite of Drexler's recent admission that nano-manipulation of chemical reactions will require controlled conditions.
All organic matter, any form, everwhere in the biosphere.
This would be an evolutionary slam dunk for any thing that could achieve such a feat. Imagine the superbug that could eat humans, humus and hostas!
Again, the devil is in the details. Glucose is not collagen, is not cellulose, is not chitin, is not triglyceride. The gut is not the skin, is not topsoil, is not tree bark, is not the bloodstream.
Certainly, there is no reason, expressed in the terms of energy averaged over the entire planet, why a super-nanobot could not devour the biosphere. There is no reason why a biological life form could not as well.
Except for the fact that we are not dealing with averages. We are dealing with hundreds of microscopic environments, and more than a dozen different classes of molecules to digest.
Yes, there is a huge backlash against GM crops in Europe and Africa (and other places too). It's NOT, however, due to the technology itself, but rather it's a backlash against the companies concerned making the modded seeds sterile, thus forcing farmers into subsistence and reliance on a single source of seeds forever (the ultimate genetic customer lock-in), or worse yet, having those seeds spread to normal crops, rendering THEM sterile. That's why countries refused shipments of American excess grain unless they were milled down - they didn't want their citizens planting the sterile seeds and condemning themselves to a barren wasteland when those seeds don't germinate.
Visceral Psyche Films
but we dont need to use electron tunnelling microscopes to fix a Buick.
It isnt that small things start first: its that simple things start first. And a single celled organism is far simpler than an intelligent, multi-celled organism.
When you build things to run reliably, you need to be simple. Simple means less things which can go wrong. Complexity can do more, but more can go wrong, and its harder to fix if it does.
But, you can put in redundancies or self-diagnostics, but the irony is that you have just made it more complex; you need to first make sure you can trust the system which is giving you the diagnostic info, then you can accept its data.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I started to retort about how easy it would be to build self replicating lego robots, then I got a clue and used google.
It's been done, as a college project.
The materials certainly are not just details when you're comparing
1) premade legos
2) smelting materials yourself from ore
3) molecules with valences, electric fields, and thermal motion
But I agree with you: if we can do it with one set of materials, it is very likely we can do it with the others. Smalley, however, holds fast that we can't build "real molecular nanotechnology", although as far as I can tell he keeps moving the line of his definition of real molecular nanotechnology, since even he can't refute that cells do it.