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Responsible Nanotechnology Interview

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the afraid-of-skynet dept.

cynical writes "WorldChanging has a lengthy interview with Chris Phoenix and Mike Treder of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, a non-profit group helping to make sure molecular manufacturing is developed as safely as possible. In the article they talk about their policy task force (which includes folks like Ray Kurzweil, David Brin, and Jaron Lanier), the risks and benefits of nanofactories, and why open source is so important to the responsible development of nanotechnology."

11 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Coral cache of article and other links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't know how durable WorldChanging's servers are, but just in case, here's a coral cache of the article:

    http://www.worldchanging.com.nyud.net:8090/archive s/004078.html

    Additionally, here's the web site for the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology: http://www.crnano.org/

    Other links:
    * Wikipedia article
    * Responsible Nanotechnology blog
    * Wise-Nano: their collaborate website (i.e. wiki) for "studying the facts and implications of advanced nanotechnology"

    (I tried to post this anonymously, but Slashdot gave me a "There was an unknown error in the submission" error. I guess I'll have to risk being modded down for karma-whoring.)

  2. Intellectual property by quokkapox · · Score: 3, Interesting
    IP must be protected at all costs; we cannot have people manufacturing patented and copyrighted molecules on their desktops like we have people irresponsibly trading copyrighted intellectual property (books, movies, and music) today.

    Discuss. :)

    --
    it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
    1. Re:Intellectual property by GroeFaZ · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It is very possible that desktop manufacturing will - in the beginning at least - cause the same problems as P2P downloading does today, including so-called "pirating" of designs, because all atomically precise blueprints can be shared just like an .mp3 file today. The only difference will be the dimensions: While P2P "only" affected the music, software and movie industry, desktop manufacturing will affect almost every branch of industry that produces physical products. I think the results of this cannot be underestimated. It will bring the equivalent of free/open source to the physical world and thus to everyone who can download it, and there will be editors to modify them at one's discretion. Just like today, there will be broad attempts to vilify the free alternatives, but just like in software today, people will not be willing to pay for a spoon design if there's a perfectly working spoon design available (and with less bugs at that :) any more than they would pay money to get a calculator program.

      Add to that the possibility of desktop feedstock refining: just throw in the old stuff to break it down and get something new out of its atoms, and you get a veritable revolution at your hands.

      The alternatives are clear: Designs are restricted at the manufacturer's will, programing the nanofactory is illegal under the DMCA, and feedstock is sold by the hp principle: give away the factory, earn money through the proprietary feedstock cartridges. Pay for every time you assemble a product, even if you paid for its design already. DRM galore.

      Which is it going to be?

      --
      The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
  3. Oh joy open source grey goo! by MarkTina · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just what I want, some 14 year old nerd turning the world into grey goo because he was playing with open source nanotechnology and thought he could make a great PacMan clone ...

    1. Re:Oh joy open source grey goo! by GroeFaZ · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I know you were kidding, but let me just point out that the "grey goo by accident" concept is outdated and not very probable. In fact, its "inventor", Eric Drexler, wrote a paper why his earlier warnings in Engines of Creation will not apply. Basically, the argument is that in nanofactories, the assemblers are not floating freely, but are tied up in rigid and designed patterns to make assembly most efficient. Because such a fixed design is more efficient then self-organising floating assemblers, there is no economic incentive to do floating assemblers and thus no danger of grea goo by accident. Intent might be another story of course.

      --
      The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
  4. nano-beard update by plierhead · · Score: 2, Funny
    From TFA:

    WorldChanging: So, to start -- what is the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology hoping to make happen?

    Center for Responsible Nanotechnology: We want to help create a world in which advanced beard technology -- nano-beards -- is widely used for beneficial purposes, and in which the risks are responsibly managed. The ability to manufacture highly advanced nano-beard products, such as those adorning our own faces right now at an exponentially accelerating pace will have profound and perilous implications for all of society, and our goal is to lay a foundation for handling them wisely.

    --

    [x] auto-moderate all posts by this user as insightful

  5. For goodness' sake! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Molecular manufacturing" is absolutely pure 100% unadulterated science fiction right now. There's a possibility that some of the concepts discussed might be utilized in some sense in 20-50-100 years, but quite honestly, do we really need a "Center for Responsible Nanotechnology" right now? They would be more useful campaigning for more research into how exposure to radiation can give people superhero powers.

    1. Re:For goodness' sake! by AndersOSU · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I agree, I started to read TFA, but I soon realized that it read like someone in 1960 promising flying cars by 2000.

      Their whole concept of nano tech is based on the premise that we can build factories that can build anything they want - with no constraint on power or materials.

      Yeah yeah, "one of the first projects couild be a massive solar array..." to which I answer, even if we had cheeply available power, something I consider much more likely than their verson of nanotech, you would still need nano miners mining nano iron and shipping it on nano trains to the nano factory so they can make my rocket car. In short it's not going to happen because nano is limited by scale to something small, a nano infrastructure is no longer nano.

      IMO what the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology should be doing is funding groups that are trying to see if nanotubes can actually be absorbed by the body, and if so do they actually interfere with biological processes. Oh but wait, that work is already being done by orginizations with out the rocket-car blueprints.

  6. Foresight by Suicyco · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hasn't the Foresight Institute been doing this for many years?

    http://www.foresight.org/

    Interesting article though. I dig reading about nanotech, its the coolest sci-fi-ish tech thats just around teh corner somewhere.

  7. What the hell is it with /. and Michael Crichton? by meringuoid · · Score: 4, Funny
    I'd suggest reading Prey by Michael Crichton to comprehend the true extent and ease with which certain people could develop serious threats using nanotech.

    Bloody hell. Every time there's a global warming story, some goon who's mistaken a thriller novel for a scientific paper cites Crichton as evidence that it's all a lefty environmentalist conspiracy. Now Crichton gets raised as an authority on nanotech.

    That does it. Next time there's a story on genetics or cloning, I'm going to say it's a bad idea because look what happened in Jurassic Park.

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  8. Richard Smally V. Eric Drexler by MaxiumMahem · · Score: 2, Interesting
    As a chemist, it sometimes gets to me when Engineers and Computer Scientists take extrapolations from our macro-scale world, and then translate them down to the nano-scale, without recognising how terribly diffrent the two are. Mechanosythisis and machinephase matter are simply silly concepts on the nano-scale. Atoms and molecules are not nice stable things which will sit still and alow you to pluck them from one position to another. No, they are constantly moving and bouncing into one another at high speeds, changing their shape, and undergoing small reaction constantly.

    Richard Smally, who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his co-discovery of the Buckyball once tried to point this out to Eric Drexler in a published series of articles., but the nano-enthusiast will not be disauded, no matter how well versed in the subjet matter their opponents.

    As for "responsible nanotechnology." Nature has already crated her own version of "grey goo" which we would be hard pressed to copy. That is the simple bacteria. While the cover the Earth, we are in no more danger of them starting to grow out of control and devowering all our resources then we are the nano-technologists every getting machine-phase matter working.