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Diamond Age Approaching?
CosmicDreams writes "The CRN (Center for Responsible Nanotechnology) reports that nanofactories (like the ones that were installed in every home in Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age) will arrive "almost certainly within 20 years". In short they claim that molecular nanotechnology manufacturing will solve many of the world's problems, catalyze a technologic revolution, and start the greatest arms race we've ever seen. They conclude the risks are so great that we should discuss how to deal with this technology so that we don't kill each other when it arrives."
One of the great promises of nanotech are mini-attack bots which can eliminate cancer cells, viruses, germs, etc etc. What, though, will happen when someone comes up with a way to attack cells based on the DNA within? Racial cleansing, removal of unworthies from the pool. It may not happen but it very well could if they don't come up with global policies and laws. (even then...)
Yeah, that's likely far in the future but 50 years ago a desktop computer was impossible.
Trolling is a art,
"almost certainly within 20 years"...so right after those flying cars and human-equivalent AI that are about 10 years off, right?
"and start the greatest arms race we've ever seen. They conclude the risks are so great that we should discuss how to deal with this technology so that we don't kill each other when it arrives."
50 B.C. - What a terrible weapon the catapult is!
600 A.D. - What a terrible weapon the crossbow is!
1550 A.D. - What a terrible weapon the cannon is!
1865 A.D. - What a terrible weapon the machine gun is!
1945 A.D. - What a terrible weapon nuclear weapons are!
2004 A.D. - What a terrible weapon nanotechnology is!
we have been hearing the same stuff since the beginning of history.
Im sure we will be JUST FINE.
In other news, Center Dedicated To Promoting Specific Technology reports that Technology, which is just around the corner, will revolutionize the economy, end world hunger, provide limitless energy, and make your teeth whiter while you sleep.
All in about 20 years, by which you will well have forgotten this press release.
Nothing to see here, move along.
"Molecular nanotechnology will be a significant breakthrough, comparable perhaps to the Industrial Revolution--but compressed into a few years. This has the potential to disrupt many aspects of society and politics. The power of the technology may cause two competing nations to enter a disruptive and unstable arms race. Weapons and surveillance devices could be made small, cheap, powerful, and very numerous. Cheap manufacturing and duplication of designs could lead to economic upheaval. Overuse of inexpensive products could cause widespread environmental damage. Attempts to control these and other risks may lead to abusive restrictions, or create demand for a black market that would be very risky and almost impossible to stop; small nanofactories will be very easy to smuggle, and fully dangerous. There are numerous severe risks--including several different kinds of risk--that cannot all be prevented with the same approach. Simple, one-track solutions cannot work. The right answer is unlikely to evolve without careful planning." There is a lot of subjective inuendo in this but I am not convinced that this will lead to anything more dangerous than what we have now. I just love when people start crying about the sky falling!
While the nano-replicators Stephenson envisions in Diamond Age are pretty cool the two things not well discussed were the source of raw materials (glossed over) and the power source (not discussed at all). We've still got a long way to go before these things can be worked out.
-The whole world is going to hell and I'm driving the bus...
"Secrecy is the Beginning of Tyranny" "No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law" -Robert Heinlein
Burbank, CA - The CRP (Center for Responsible Predictions) reports that articles
about nanotechnology (especially ones that mention Neil Stephenson and/or Eric Drexler)
will "almost certainly" contain over-optimistic estimates of the arrival of nanoassemblers.
In short, these claims will be far enough in the future to protect the prognosticators
from immediate ridicule, while still appearing chillingly close.
It seems like these days someone manages to predict all the new tech before it comes out. Has it always been this way? Did people see the atom bomb coming before it did? Because I have to say, this prediction thing is really taking the fun out of everything. Rather then being plesantly suprised by new things I am just pissed that I can't buy stuff I'm reading about.
Really though, everything is going to cause the end of the world within 20 years these days. Did you know 15% of the world's methane comes from cow farts? And that methane is one of the worst greenhouse gases? And as Al Gore said back in the early 70's, we'll be dead by the late 90's if we don't stop driving cars. And everyone wants to blow everyone up nowadays anyway, so...screw it. Have a drink, sit back, get yourself a pretty friend, and get a perspective that takes things from scary to amusing.
The promise of nano-manufacturing puts into perspective a lot of the issues we face with copyright of information today. Will the motor companies become the next RIAA when it is possible to make a perfect copy of any car? What will Coca-Cola say when I can nano-replicate coke from water and hydrocarbons?
I can almost imagine a future a where we could have unlimited resources, but the necessary machines are forced by law to be user hostile monsters extorting fees from the user anytime something they make comes close to a perpetually copyrighted object.
Or will people finally realize that when the means of production are endless, human means of invention drive themselves?
This will never happen period.
Why?
Because of the tremendous shift in social power such a device would create. If you think the MPAA and RIAA are bad, imagine the stance of the entire corporate world to these devices being in the hands of consumers.
Not to mention the fear this ability would create within government circles.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
>Every technology comes along and integrates itself into our society ... so far.
The chance of a global nuclear war occuring is much less than it was during the 80's because of pro-active action, not by saying "those bombs will eventually be integrated into society"
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Other technologies don't have the capability to wipe out all life on the planet.
One thing is certain. You can sit a representative of every nation on the planet down, and let them talk about it until they're blue in the face, or until they "agree" to some peaceful future.
Within 5 years, that agreement will have either been violated openly, or in secret, or the group of representatives you started with now exclude a whole range of new "players".
We've proven this over and over again, with nuclear weapons, and pollution controls, diseases, etc.
In short, this race is pathetic, and deserves to extinguish itself. The sooner the better.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
we should discuss how to deal with this technology so that we don't kill each other when it arrives.
Are they implying that we don't kill each other now with current technologies? Or are they saying that the technology alone will turn average homo sapiens into blood thirsty murderers?
Where's all the dicussion about how this technology could reduce current stress?
Our economy, and wealth, is currently based on a system of scarcity. When you can take raw molecules and arbitraily combine them into useful/necessary/life saving objects then scarcity dissipates. Many, if not most, of today's conflicts revolve around scarcity or perceived scarcity.
I say bring it on. The consequences will sort themselves out as they always have upon previous technology.
Think about how many in the previous world viewed modern health care as cheating darwinism/survival of the fittest and that the resulting overpopulation of lesser fitted humans would be catastrophic. Can you say now whether they were right or wrong? Can you believe they would have made the correct choice if they could have caused researchers to halt experiments on such common materials as antibiotics?
-Adam
I can't believe this got modded up. You're talking about just killing off people because they don't meet some definition of "worthy."
I've got type 1 diabetes (not the weight related type 2). Do I fit into your new order? My immune system is a little bit messed up, but other than that, I think I can contribute to society.
The point is, it doesn't even need to be based on diseases or anything like that. One person's worthiness could just as easily be people with blue eyes and blonde hair, or people over 6 feet tall, or people without freckles.
...by the year 2000 we'll have flying cars and whole cities on the moon."
While this may be comming in our future, I think 20 years is a little optimistic. People have difficulty predicting technology 2 years in advance, much less 20.
Yeah, and nuclear energy will make electricity "too cheap to meter" and people will be zipping around in flying cars by the year 2000. Am I the only one get gets sick and tired of the fantastical future promises of technology?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
If that is true then we should have annihilated ourselves by now.
What makes you think it wouldn't be abused by those who make the laws?
DeBeers had a method for finding manafactured diamonds... it worked on the sub-atomic level, at that scale its indistingushable from a natrually formed on to the naked eye
A tad OT, but I'll respond anyway...
"So what?"
I have no interest whatsoever in supporting the DeBeers cartel. I care about results, not "Some oppressed African child died to get this small rock to me". If vapor deposition of carbon can make a diamond cheaper than child labor, good. Screw DeBeers.
Of course, it really amuses me that people buy diamonds at all (for non-industrial purposes). "I love you, here, have a small clear chunk of rock. Without destroying it, you can't really tell it apart from anyof a hundred other kinds of small clear rock, but this paper says it costs more". You want to make her happy, spend "two months' salary" as a downpayment on a parcel of land, and give her a pebble from that set into a ring. More meaningful, more useful, and you can't lose it down the sink.
The equating of "very expensive rock" with "love" has always stumped me. I'd have to rate it as one of the greatest PR scams ever pulled... Better even than the classic frontier snake-oil salesmen. At least some of their products worked, if purely by accident (ie, cinchona bark extract, aka quinine, for malaria).
As someone who's wrapping up his first course on nanoscience, I say: Bwahahahahahaha!
Come on! Sure, nanotech is here already...but to be honest, nanotech has been around for millenia. That is, if we're talking about manufactering on a nanoscale level.
Fast forwards to now, and we're doing some more refined nanotech: like making tiny gears. We're really only in the pre-industrial revolution stage of nanotech to the level the Diamond age describes. We're decades, if not centuries away from actual !autonomous! nanomachines ('cos to be honest, you could count the tip of an atomic force microscope as a nanomachine...problem being that the rest of the apparatus takes up part of a room and isn't to be miniturised any time soon).
Anyway, the blurb ('cos I didn't even bother to RTFA) is at best waaayy too optimistic, and at worst bad science.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Assembly lines of nanomachines on IC-like substrates, supplied with external power, though, may actually be a useful manufacturing technology for small things.
I'm more worried about synthetic biology. So far, bioengineering has been a very crude trial and error process. Direct design of viruses and enzymes, let alone bigger organisms, doesn't work yet. But there's steady progress, and no reason it shouldn't work. That's going to mean designer diseases.
Other technologies don't have the capability to wipe out all life on the planet.
Nanotech doesn't either. Almost all forms of life have something called an "immune system" that is very effective at getting rid of unwanted microorganisms.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
>I'm not convinced that a tiny nanobot army is going to be more intelligent, adaptable or effective as my own immune system anytime soon.
Maybe not at first, but eventually, yes.
Just compare the very first computers with what we have now.
Maybe back when computers started, a problem (system crash or somesuch) would come along every 1000 machine-cycels or so, and have to be straightened out by an operator.
Now, computers perform billions of machine-cycles reliably.
Of course, the number has gotten bigger, but the amount of uptime versus downtime may not have improved so much...
Think about the implications for humanity much further down the line.
If we DON'T destroy ourselves, we'll reach an evolutionary dead-end.
We won't need better immunitary systems, we'll have mechanical one!
Every aspect that is sub-par will be fixed by machines, and our DNA or whatever it is that is controlling our evolution will be obsolete!
THAT'S something to ponder...
I don't know whether I'm dizzy from elation or fear.
Might be hunger, I better go eat.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
So nanofactories will replace corporate factories and this is _bad_ to the current power structure so government won't let it happen so we're doomed to be slaves to the heartless System.
I have an idea. Forget about the nanofactories for now. Go to the hardware store and purchase some basic tools. Saw, hammer, the like. Find some suitable dried wood, old fences are a good supply (get permissions first!) Buy a book on woodworking. Try a few projects.
And never buy another stick of furniture. See who cares. Other than family and friends nobody will care. And you'll have fun.
And this: Buy a sewing machine, pick up broadcloth on the cheap. Make clothes. Other than family and friends nobody will care. You'll have fun.
Learn to cook. Learn to repair engines. Learn to garden. Learn to teach your children. Walk. Ride a bike.
You are small, compared to a corporation and a government you are nano-scale. Your life is tiny, your labors are tiny, your production is tiny, your marketing reach is zero to none. You are a factory, but on the nano-scale. Make what you need yourself, say good-bye to Nike, and fall from sight.
And you won't give a thought to what happens with nanofactories 20 or 30 or 80 years from now, because you will _be_ a nanofactory.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
An unintelligent nano-conveyor belt is a far cry from little nano-bots that run around intelligently assembling a product at the molecular level. I think the basic misconception of nano-technology is that it is all about tiny robots running around doing pre-programmed tasks. When it is really just "very small technology." Another thing people dont' understand is that we already have nano-technology in use, but it isn't nearly as glamorous as people would think.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
No, it's not. But I can virtually guarantee that lots of ineffective ones will happen, and probably very soon. My guess is that these will not succeed in preventing outlaws, "rogue" nations, and "terrorists" from obtaining this technology, but what they will do is prevent it from ever falling into the hands of the real enemy, the average joe consumer. This will have the effect of continuing to protect the elite from the people, while enhancing the threat of violence, thus providing an excuse for ever tighter means of control.
Isn't our society fun?
My site: Free Nature Pictures
The whole point is that it costs a lot. It shows that you made a sacrifice for her.
Exactly... So why go for something useless to both people?
I "get" the idea of self-sacrifice, thus my suggestion of buying her land. Or even something useful, like a collection of her 1000 favorite DVDs. Or a car.
Perhaps the part I don't "get" involves having an SO who would rather have a $10k rock than just about anything else. I have a quite happy long-term relationship (despite the implications of another respondant), and neither she, nor any of my previous SOs would have wanted something very expensive but useless. If they had, somehow I doubt I would have found them interesting in the first place (so I admit I may have a selection bias in my sample).
Put another way... Sure, I'd blow a few grand on a trinket for my SO. But what does it say about her if she'd actually want me to do so? "Can't buy love", and all...
The 20th century was incredible. We acquired the ability to produce food and goods to satisfy the needs of everyone on earth, though we did not make them available to everyone.
We have had two major power struggles during the 20th century. At the beginning, production was 'difficult', so those who could produce were able to 'call the shots'. WW II was a war of production and it was wonn by the side that was able to produce the most bombs and bullets.
Since then, productivity has continued to improve. Production is no longer the 'hard part'. The challenge during the past few decades has been to convince people to buy. Hence marketing has become king. Between 3rd world labor and automation, production costs have fallen dramatically. For most products, the major costs are Marketing & Distribution and R&D.
But the smart folks have recognized that the 21st century will be even more unsettling than the 20th century. Computer controlled extraction of natural resources and production (including nanotechnology) can drive manufacturing costs to almost zero. (Go read 'A for Anything' , by Damon Knight) With the Internet, we will be able to distribute the knowledge of how to produce. This will eliminate most of the challenges associated with distribution (since it will be possible to do most production locally, so there will be little money to be made there either, unless artificial controls and impediments are implemented.
This is why there's such a fight for intellectual property rights. Only by controlling the knowledge of how and what to produce can power be maintained by those who value it. By the middle of the 21st century, the major cost of any material item will be the 'intellectual property' charge.
With production automated, almost everyone who is employed will be working in service jobs by 2050. And then it gets more interesting.
As AI research progresses, we will be able to build robots capable of doing service jobs. The health care crisis will be 'solved' during the second half of the 21st century. Robots will replace, not only orderlies and nurses, but physicians and surgeons, too. The cost of producing these robots will be minimal. The valuable commodity will be the knowledge of how to program them to do what you want them to do.
By the end of the 21st century, creativity -- the creation of intellectual property -- will be the only currently known role that will still be the domain of us humans. And the control of that creativity is what is being fought for now.
That's the power struggle going on now. It's just started.
One more thing. By the end of the 21st century, molecular genetics will have progressed to the point where most people will be able to live almost forever. Imagine living forever in a world where production and services basically cost nothing. The only thing of value will be control of the intellectual property behind it all. Imagine a world where material items sell for a dollar each and services are provided for ten cents an hour. It could be paradise if you have the money to pay for what you want. But if you don't, how do you compete against such prices?
The challenge as we approach the 22nd century will be to rethink the issues of access. How will we reward innovation while making it possible for most people to survive and live reasonably good lives?
Because, if most people cannot pay for those goods and services, there will be a revolution. If that revolution succeeds, those who were on top will be gone. If the revolution fails, the whole economic system will collapse from lack of customers.
Hang onto your hat. It's going to be a wild ride.
From: http://www.ProjectsDoneRight.com/pdr/pdrPapersIP.a sp
The equating of "very expensive rock" with "love" has always stumped me. I'd have to rate it as one of the greatest PR scams ever pulled.
Agreed. Although, like a sibling post said, if I guy gave me a lower-quality fake (like cubic zirconia) diamond ring then I'd be a tad insulted. Not because it's not a diamond, but because it's a fake diamond, which symbolically doesn't speak well for the engagement. That being said, some of the manufactured diamonds I've heard about lately that are virtually indistinguisable from mined diamonds would be perfectly fine for me. They may be man-made, but those sound like "real" diamonds to me. Who cares if they're made in a lab? Who cares if they're cheaper? I don't need a guy to break himself trying to buy me an engagement ring. If he really wants to get me a diamond and he can save a ton of money by buying a man-made one, then go for it. Though, truth to be told, I'd rather not have a diamond. The tradition is artificial, diamond's aren't nearly as rare as the companies would have us believe, and frankly, there are lots of other gems out there that I think are far prettier. I'm a fan of color myself. One of my aunts has a sapphire engagement ring. Another one has an unpolished emerald (it looks like jade). I think those are tons prettier than my mom's plain ol' diamond (but I ain't tellin' her that...)
Guys, if your gal's educated and fairly inteligent she'll probably have no problem if you give her something other than a diamond. (Note the word "probably"... I can only speak for myself and if you don't wanna take that risk of royally pissing her off, I don't blame you. ;) )
A bamboo plant can grow itself a couple feet per night using solar energy. How is one of these nanofactories any more complicated than a plant? The little protein engines inside your every day cell are amazing. They are building things that end up being as big as.. well.. blue whales very rapidly (a baby blue whale gains about 200lbs a day). The only difference between the nanofactories talked about in the article and what's going on constantly in life all around us is the production of diamond rather than an assortment of different molecules. That should actually make it more efficient than life processes for building purposes, shouldn't it? As the article claims, you'll need less actual structural material; so to construct a cell wall out of diamond, you'd need (optimistically) 1/100 the molecular assembly as constructing it out of regular lipids and other good stuff. That means it'll take about 1/100 the energy, or conversely, go 100 times faster. Either way is not bad!
I mean... once machines are on the scale of tiny cells, why couldn't they derive energy from the same sources as real cells? Imagine if you could put in a teaspoon of sugar for energy, another teaspoon of sugar for carbon building supplies, press a button, and a couple minutes later, out pops a nice sturdy nano-diamond watch band, nearly unbreakable.
If you can't afford a natural diamond, then don't buy one at all (a fake symbol is worse than no symbol at all)...
Send me your work phone # and I'll give you a call... you know, with Mother's Day and all I thought I'd go waste some more money on something that has no utility. Yep, I'm convinced that the boost to that special woman's self esteem is worth the cost in tears and blood that the diamond cartels extract from those children in the mines.
There are two problems with consumer manufacturing (nano or not):
...and the designs for the fab itself is NOT very likely to be on that list.
1) creating and selling the fabricators is not a business model. Once you get a few seeded out there, people will just make copies of the fabs themselves, and sell them to others, until the market is so saturated that people just give them away.
2) Regardless of whether today's police state has faded, the potential of the common people to make their own weapons, be they blades, guns, explosives, or other chemical dangers will be too much for government to tolerate.
The solution that I think will likely be deployed is a "Trusted Manufacturing" or "Trusted Fabrication" architecture much like we already see today with "Trusted Computing" and Digital Rights Management systems.
You will not be able to own a fab - you'll rent it, like your cable box, or your music CDs (*cough*) today. Tampering with someone else's property is obviously illegal (not that it will stop everyone - see below). Furthermore, the fabs will only be permitted to produce goods whose designs are whitelisted - ie, digitally signed - as "approved" by either the manufacturer, some industry consortium, or some government agency whose job it will be to thoroughly review designs to insure they are "safe" from abuses 1) or 2) above.
Unlike current TC designs like the TCPA, there will be no "taking ownership", where consumers will be able to choose whom to trust or not trust about what signed software/products to run/produce. That decision will be pre-decided when you get the fab, and you won't be permitted to change it "for public safety".
Not that the law will stop everyone. Someone will find holes in the system, and they will break it. One of the first things they will do will be to make an unrestricted fab, which will make the rest. They'll spread, underground, to anyone willing to take whatever risks are inherent in having one. Considering that the perceived dangers of possessing an unrestricted desktop fab are MUCH higher than the perceived dangers of having an unrestricted media player, I think it's likely that the legal consequences of being discovered with one will be harsher, potentially branding perpetrators as "terrorists" despite having intentions equivalent to wanting to play your own DVDs on your own Linux box in a world full of copyright piracy.
As usal, coporate/governemnt restrictions on consumer products won't be uncircumventable, but they will keep circumvention out of public life. On balance, I think such a state of affairs to help to make the transition more manageable - both for the good things, and the bad.