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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."
There has been talk after every revolution that we're going to destroy ourselves. For better or for worse, I sometimes doubt its possible. We're like cockroaches.. even our most fatal diseases end up having a few people immune to them. Every technology comes along and integrates itself into our society. These will too. I'm not really worried.
I've written in my journal about their proclaimed timeline. Excert here:
"The Space Shuttle took less than ten years to design and build, from 1972 to 1981. The atomic bomb took only three years, from 1942 to 1945. Both of these programs involved more new science research and more development of new technologies and techniques than an assembler program would likely require. As analyzed above, they probably cost more too. The main question in estimating a timeline for fabricator development, then, is when it will be technically and politically feasible. There are probably five or more nations, and perhaps several large companies, that could finance a molecular fabricator effort starting in this decade. The technical feasibility depends on the enabling technologies. Even a single present-day technology, dip-pen nanolithography, may be able to fabricate an entire proto-fabricator with sufficient effort. At this point, we have not seen anything to make us believe that a five-year $10 billion fabricator project, starting today, would be infeasible, though we don't yet know enough to estimate its chance of success. Five years from now, we expect that a five-year project will be obviously feasible, and its cost may be well under $5 billion."
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Journal
Go Gusties
It is my opinion that since the dawn of literacy, People have been predicting the impending doom caused by new technology. Anyone ever read about how ther were worried about setting the hydrogen in the air on fire when they did the Manhattan Project? Yes, as any boy scout will tell you, being prapared is usually a good thing, but please can the gloom-n-doom because the world isn't going to end just because we made really small machines. *grumble*
Lagito ergo expectabo
How exactly does one write code for the placement of billions of molecules? Is it algorithmic or a huge array?
peace,
-Grokent
Your wish about laws and treaties - or rather, effective laws and treaties - ain't gonna happen.
Anything man CAN do, man WILL do. Regardless of if rules are in the way.
Even if we had such a thing as global laws (which ain't gonna happen anytime soon, either), the difference is that nanotech engineering would just be performed by outlaws instead of official scientists. Anything that carries a reward will get done, by somebody, somewhere. The greater the potential reward, the more people will be attempting it.
Whether it is legal is secondary to many enough people that it won't really matter whether it is.
If you think its been bad with the RIAA and MPAA going after people, wait until you see GE, GM, Daimler-Chrysler, pharma companies, etc. start to take action when people are duplicating their products for a fraction of the cost without them getting a single cent for it.
I personally think this is great, as it would put many things within reach of people who would never have had a chance of ever being able to afford those things, but the ethical issues are the same as they are today, only perhaps escalated due to the increased value of the things you could duplicate.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
The article talks about how a suitcase of equipment could create a village-sized industrial revolution. But this technology is, at least potentially, post-industrial. That is to say, it can be used on the small scale, making advanced technology available in a way which is independent of big corporations and large-scale manufacturing facilities. This is a huge thing.
If it is allowed to develop along these lines, it will mean the restructuring of our entire society, in a way which I and many others have been waiting and hoping for for some time now. It will mean we can have our cake and eat it too: we get all the benefits of advanced technology, without all the horrible detriments of the hegemony of megacorps. Whohoo!
Unfortunately, I doubt this will be allowed to happen, at least not at first. Here's a prediction: as soon as this becomes imminant, we will see the massive implementation of extremely restrictive measures to control it. These will be adopted in the name of security, but incidentally they will also have the effect of making it virtually impossible to use this technology independently, without relying on megacorporate support. This will probably mean continued widespread poverty in the third world, but we will accept it out of fear.
But at least the potential will be there.
On a completely unrelated note: most human-scale products would consist almost entirely of empty space
Actually, to be precise, everything consists almost entirely of empty space. "The solid parts of this rock, the neutrons, quarks, protons and electrons, compose only one quadrillianth of its total volume... you could pulverize that mountain and sift through it like breadcrumbs for the rest of your natural life, and you would never, ever, find... this!" --Buccaroo Banzai.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Maybe the people that can afford it in the future will have scads of nanobots in their bodies, patrolling it.
The human body will turn into the next battleground, and nano-armies will be the ones fighting on it.
After all, if bio-terrorism is going in that direction, someone will develop counter-measures.
Whole armies fighting between the pores of your skin and in your tissues - weird!
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
back when I first heard about nano this was my first thought. I tried to get my friends into a discussion about what ethical and sociological questions might arise from such a tech and they were all like "no, no you are worrying too much!" Most other people I heard talk about, even some Nanotech Professors seemed to enjoy the topic as a thoughtexperiment but never really took the threads serious. It was more that they enjoyed it as a theoretical construct. But this stuff scares the shit out of me. I would love to see it arrive since it is really the only way construction should be done, but on the other hand THIS could be the reason for the "Where is anybody?" theory that asks why all intelligent alien civilisations might be silent. Not Nuclear Weapons...
why is it always a tradeoff between good and bad?
If the Diamond Age comes to fruition, I imagine that our expansion into space would take a whole new look.
Imagine, if you will, teams of people around the world contributing either CAD/CAM files that painstakingly reproduce technical drawings and assembly instructions for things like Saturn V rockets OR teams that design simplified heavy rockets that take advantage of nano reinforcement to make strong launchers with few moving parts.
Once the designs have been reviewed and tested, I imagine that either hobbyist or impromptu launch sites would start sprouting up and eventually people would start lobbing payloads into orbit. During this time, I'm sure there would be a frantic effort by the government to either outlaw or control the technology, but eventually it might reach a point where a committed individual might:
1. Design a modular living space
2. Go out to some island.
3. Pour a nano-construction farm out onto the beach
4. Sit back and wait for it to finish building a launch pad and Saturn-V or Energia class booster out of materials nano-mined from the ground.
5. Check the CRC on the structure or whatever it is a nano-inspection system would do.
6. Have it fueled by a system that breaks down the seawater into fuel and oxidizer.
7. Have it launch part 1 of his new home into orbit.
8. Rinse, repeat steps 4-8 until all components are in orbit (and docked, why not?)
9. Make one last man-rated launcher and put him/herself along with family up to dock with their new digs and take off.
If the main cost is the design time, there are certainly enough space-minded engineers and contributors out there to write up working specs and enough people to validate the designs. As the technology advances, the simulation of the constructs will become more accurate. If the construction cost is minimal, then the sky is quite literally the limit.
> There may come a time when geek outlaws will
> sell black-market perfect copies of everything
I prefer to imagine a time when geeks (and others) will share perfect copies of everything. This could be done via breaking the law, or by sharing perfect copies of our own replacements for the Things that people want/need: Free Things.
This Thing comes with permission to use, study & adapt to your needs, share with others, and distributed modified copies.
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