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The Law of Disassembly
An anonymous reader writes "Smalltimes has a story by Douglas Mulhall, author of Our Molecular Future, which discusses molecular nanotechnology (MNT) disassembly, and argues for what he calls the 'Law of Disassembly,' that 'every MNT product must be disassemblable by at least one [of several possible methods].' The article ends with some good suggestions for raising awareness of this important issue. Gratuitous quote: This is disturbingly reminiscent of "nuclear power will give us clean limitless energy, and don't worry, we'll deal with the byproducts later because we'll have the tools by then.""
A show (I think it was on the History Channel) about nano-technology. It had a pretty funny interview with the guy who created a single molecule motor. He admitted it was a pointless endeaver because there's really no way to use a single molecule motor, but he did it "mostly because it's cool." That's how I define a geek.
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All those isotopes came from somewhere down there anyhow, right?
Nuclear power seems pretty damn clean to me, and I live about 15 miles from a nuc plant that produces my power, far cheaper (per Kwh) than anything else with no polution that I can see.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Much as I like learning about cutting edge research - and can appreciate some of the supercomputer applications that would only be economical with nanotechnology I wondered what the other practical applications of this field were?
Apart from making computers smaller and making tasks that previously required either parallel processing or supercomputers - eg modelling nuclear explosions, weather prediction, orbital calculations, areas of mathematical research - what are the future applications of this research that will benefit the average person?
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An interesting goal, and an innovative approach to the gray goo problem... but I take issue with his statement that *every* nanotech item should be easy to disassemble.
Some nanotech shouldn't be disassembled, and we should know how to make it that way.
There are some nanotech applications where this "Law Of Disassembly" would be a generally bad plan, because there are some things that we want to stay made.
Space elevators and other similar tech come to mind... leaving easy dissassembly possibilities in megastructures is a pretty horrendous risk from a security perspective.
Or... to toss his own ideas back at him, the possibility of long-term nuclear waste storage in virtually-indestructible nanotech containers.
We don't want them breakable, and we don't want them to have flaws that can be exploited by unscrupulous individuals or groups.
An analogous situation would be the single-molecule spacecraft hull postulated by Larry Niven-- completely invulnerable to nearly any conceivable force until it encountered enough antimatter to destabilize the structure and reduce the entire hull to powder. In interstellar space, unfortunately...
I still agree that easy disassembly is a good idea for most purposes, but there are few laws that should always be applied without exception.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Right now we have teen-age kids writing viruses, spyware, and worms--and releasing them into the Internet. Right now I need to run a spam filter on my email, because I get about 20 real emails and 150 spams every day.
Imagine, in the future, teen-age kids creating badly-designed nano-assemblers and turning them loose into the wild. I'm a bit worried about this.
One of the first things we will try to do with assemblers is make medical nanites that make us all live longer. It may turn out that resistance to natural diseases isn't as important as resistance to brand-new designed diseases.
The flawed but interesting novel The Diamond Age pictured cities in the future as pockets of safety, ringed with clouds of defensive nanites that were constantly repulsing attacks by destructive nanites. Poor kids would try to make a little bit of money by running out into the clouds with capture devices, trying to bring back interesting/useful samples of nanites, to sell to researchers. (Breath masks recommended, if you didn't want to die young with nano-scale junk in your lungs.)
That may never happen, but we can already make artificial diamonds for use on tools. Imagine diamond-tipped chisels. Imagine tiny flakes of diamond dust in the air... tiny, sharp flakes of diamond. Could this be a problem in the near future? (Not a rhetorical question; I don't know enough about artificial diamonds, or the properties of diamond dust, to answer it.)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
If by 'deal with' you mean dump in a hole in the ground and hope no one goes near it for a few millenia, then yes.
And we have said hole in the ground selected, and already have the security tech and plans to make sure nobody goes near it for a few millenia.
What's interesting about the protests about the project is that the political types that represent the area where the hole is are fine with the project... it brings plenty of jobs to their area, and they're convinced of the safety. Therefore, the FUD-spreaders are trying to construct "What if..." situations arround the movement of the nuclear mater to the hole, but we've got secure ways to move nuclear stuff. So really, what's the problem with the plan?
So why can't the solution to nuclear waste disposal be as easy as this: Simply reverse the uranium mining and refining process, to where you're decomposing the material into less and less refined material, until you get to the point where you are mixing it with 1000's of tons of dirt and putting it back into hugh open pits ... Shouldn't cost any more than getting it in the first place ...
The concept of grey goo is a nanite that can eat anything and build copies of itself. I'm not too worried about that.
But it would be bad enough if someone designed a nanite that was very efficient at eating, say, grass and making copies of itself. Call it Nanite.MyDoom.A. Next is Nanite.MyDoom.B, that eats trees. Next...
You know, I'm much more worried about humans designing bad nanites, than about nanites evolving in scary ways. If we design a nanite to make solid-diamond rocket motors by swimming around in a vat full of special chemicals, what are the odds it will suddenly evolve to be able to live outside the vat? Not too scary. (What was K. Eric Drexler's comment? It would be like our cars suddenly evolving to drive themselves and run off of tree sap instead of gasoline.)
But nanites actually designed to live on their own in the wild could be just a mutation or two away from a "cancer" form that runs wild.
I'm actually hoping that some large, responsible organization will release defensive nanites before the ability to make nanites becomes generally available.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
We don't even really know how to build nanobots and already we're talking about failsafes. I agree that adding a failsafe is a good idea, even in a nanobot that can't replicate, but unless you know how you're going to build something you can't know the best way to throw a wrench in the works. It may not even be possible to add a particular failsafe to a nanobot because of engineering constraints. First build a few, THEN figure out where to stick the self-destruct.
Just a few thoughts. Basically, if you keep the nanites dependent on an unusual environment or disrupted by an easily-achieved environment, you'll be going a long ways toward preventing a grey goo disaster.
If we can get a nanobot that can make a basic computing element, a basic structural element, and a basic actuator element, as well as reproduce itself, from water and air (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, the same stuff you and diamonds are made of) it would make the industrial revolution pale by comparison.
Imagine having a factory unit that fits in your hand and with a supply of air and water it could make more of itself or make any structure or electronics gizmo you have a program for. Connect yourself to the internet and get free programs to build housing, greenhouses, furniture, computers, wireless nodes for the new internet, cars, solar cells, all without significant human intervention and costing nothing more than water, air, and power, or for the extra cheap using only your own solar cells.
This is the extremely conservative vision, assuming that we will only be able to produce a few basic things with nanomachines (but assuming we can build a nanofactory that reproduces itself), not assuming we will be able to make foodstuffs, cybernetic enhancements, or any of the obvious things that would be handy to have as microscopic machines (blood cleaning & oxygenating machines, cancer finding & eating machines, machines to be the roto-rooter to your clogged arteries, etc).
Oh yeah, and once the technology is mature enough that a self-reproducing version escapes the lab, imagine getting all of this for next to nothing, and giving them away to your friends just because it costs you basically nothing to do so. Oh yeah, and don't forget to save the third world while you're at it.
And don't forget, that's the conservative vision. I cannot imagine that within the next 50 years we won't have nanomachines that do that. If we can avoid everyone killing everyone else in the power struggle that ensues, we will be trading in virtually all of the old problems that aren't social for new ones.
Do the amount of damage that all the nuclear accidents over the years (chernobyl, 3 mile island, etc) even come close to the amount of damage the fossil fuel industry has done?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
From the article:
We will know how to decomission them. This is not to say that it will be easy, or that the results between then and now will be pleasant, which if anything is the argument for this "law". (I think a "law" should be something that cannot be sidestepped. This is more of a rule that we wish would be a law. If anything, call it an edict. If you can get anyone to call it anything.
Backing up a bit,
Another problem which should be easily solved by sufficient advances in nanotechnology :) You can take the stuff apart bit by bit and do whatever must be done to make it entirely safe. Also, it should let you build sufficiently advanced machines not necessarily small ones) to stop and contain a meltdown, should something that unnecessary occur. I think that the advances in materials technology would allow that, especially given a reasonable design to start with. I might be wrong here, but in general it does seem like something you could do. I know this is a broad dodge sideways but the real issue with nanotechnology is that someone somewhere who really should not have their hands on nanotechnology will one day get it. Arguably, the military or government of any current world power would be a bad force to have in control, but I guess it's inevitable and it will be better than some. Nothing could possibly be better or worse, however, than a lone genius who believes that it's their right to decide for everyone what path to take, with that kind of power.
Given that it's bound to happen eventually, what can we do about it? The author is talking about a convention that he's expecting people to follow. Well, they won't. At the very least some military and paramilitary organizations, who will have nanotechnology, will use it without any controls like this whatsoever. Therefore, at the very least, organizations like this are going to be interested in the proper disassembly of these items. In short, the stuff of a large number of science fiction novels, and very peripherally, one or two episodes of a certain television show that had way too many episodes and changes of neckline.
Aristoi, a book by Walter Jon Williams contains a lot of material on this topic. I haven't read any of the "official" literature on this topic but it sounded, at the very least thoughtful, and it was pretty entertaining. The question of how to make maximally efficient nanomachines while still keeping them under control, which is to say physically contained, at least during testing, is definitely of great interest.
Regardless, we will have to know how to decommission them. Therefore we will know, or die trying to find out. I know it sounds overly dramatic, but it is certainly a real issue.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I once read an article that claimed that if you calculate the amount of trace uranium in the coal we burn each year, it adds up to far more than all our nuclear waste combined...and of course it ends up in the air we breathe. Not sure if it's really true, but an interesting thought.
I guess it comes down to which is better: A 100% chance your health is being harmed slowly, or small chance your health could be harmed drastically.
Dave
hmmmmm.... I thought most lung-related diseases of miners were solved with technology? How recent are these data?
We have ling since developed the capacity to reprocess and dispose of nuclear waste. And by dispose it of I don't just mean bury it in the ground. Breeder reactors and processing facilities that can turn high level radioactive waste into fissionable material and useful radioisotopes have been around for more than a decade. The DOE site at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratories alone could reprocess all the nuclear waste generated in the US, and well as by our NAVY. It is only the mindless fear of nuclear proliferation that prevents us from using it to do so.
A crucial distinction that is not being made in this discussion is the one between nanomaterials in general and nanorobots particularly. It is possible that one day we will be able to build functional nanobots that can live freely and replicate. We can cross that bridge when we come to it.
What is more relevant and has been less well-discussed by /. is nanomaterial remediation. Carbon nanotubes are very tough and have been demonstrated to be very toxic in mice . Thought has not been given about how to dispose of materials such as these without creating a public health hazard. It is clear that nanomaterials will be used in greater and greater quantities due to their exceptional properties. Therefore, we can work to solve the inevitable disposal problem now or later. It will cost less to address disposal now.
Now President Carter has had his share of critics, but his worry about reprocessing is opening up more avenues for diversion of atomic materials and making the Bomb available to more people. Yeah, yeah, the plutonium that is cooked in a LWR is the wrong isotope for the Bomb compared to the plutonium cooked for shorter times under different conditions up at the old Hanford reactor. I guess there is some controversy as to whether with enough technical smarts you could make a bomb from LWR plutonium.
I say we forget about Yucca Mountain and just store the spent fuel rods "on site" and build more storage, whether it is more "swimming pools" or perhaps "dry cask storage."
OK wait, would everyone here agree that compact fluorescent lamps (CFL's) are a Good Thing -- saving on coal and nuclear power and saving the Earth and everything? Is there any Amory Lovins disciple out there with anything bad to say about CFL's? Guess what, they have mercury in them, and no, they don't last forever -- I have had enough of them long enough to see them burn out. For years, the City of Madison wouldn't take them in the garbage, telling us to pile them up in our basements. Oh, and I have dropped more than one of those things, so I suppose I am brain damaged from the mercury by now.
The City of Madison now collects CFL's and fluorescent tubes if you wrap them and separate them from other garbage -- have no idea what happens to them. I say lets just stockpile spent fuel rods until some future markets develop for what is in them.
There is already "nanotechnology" (and "picotechnology") that resists disassembly: compounds that take a long time to break down in the environment, compounds that cause harm to the environment when they break down, etc. You know, things like DDT, plastics, etc. If we can't even manage to get reliable biodegradability into shopping bags or computers, how does anybody expect to get it into nanotechnology?
Fortunately, this particular worry is a marketing gimmick: we are about as likely to be overwhelmed by non-degradable nanomachines as we are to fall into a black hole. We don't need a "center for responsible nanotechnology" because there isn't any nanotechnology and there likely won't be, ever. Unless, of course, you are referring to paint manufacturers and biotechnology companies.
Needs to apply to genetic engineering too.
Any autonomous/self-replicating device, organism or other material that is to be released into the environment, must be reversible, i.e. it must be at least possible to disable it within a reasonable period, and ideally possible to remove all significant traces of it from the environment.
It is not enough to simply say "Well, we've done tests and it doesn't seem to harm anything as far as we can tell so far".
If anything people need to learn how many times such statements have proved to be false from the software industry, e.g. "Well, we've done tests and the software seems to work fine - no bugs left as far as we can tell" - yeah... unleash it baby!
This law should also apply to the Internet, i.e. release of autonomous/self-replicating software.
Every potential poison we create must have an antidote.
If anything we need to develop skills/technology at disabling these things just as much as the skills to create them in the first place.
No doubt there will be those quite happy to unleash grey-goo...
Googling a bit gives us the statistics of West Virginia Coal association (around 164 million tons in 2003), and trace info on west virginian trace amounts of uranium in coal (1.59ppm mean value). This might be a small fraction, but it's probably accurate.
So we have 1.59 mol uranium per million mol coal. I'll also assume that a ton is a metric ton and that coal exists entirely of carbon.
164M tons at 12.0107 g/mol gives us 13654491411824 mol. At 1.59ppm, we have 21710641 mol of uranium. At 238.0289 g/mol, we get 5167132640g = 5167133kg = 5167 tons.
Looks about right. Now let's do a rougher world estimates. This site says coal accounts for 93 Quadrillion BTUs. The number of BTUs per ton of coal varies, but according to Wikipedia's Coal entry, it's around 20M BTU/ton, so 4650M tons of coal. We'll still assume 1.59ppm U. Doing the same as above gives us 146515653621g=146515 ton. Since we used estimates and estimates of estimates, we'll just say "over 100,000 tons".
The usage of uranium? 42,500 tonnes. I suppose that's different fron tons, but screw that, I'm tired.
So yes, if my calculations hold, it's true. There is a lot more uranium in the coal than what we mine.