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Lifeboat Foundation Nanoshield

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the protecting-us-from-ourselves dept.

Maria Williams writes "KurzweilAI.net says: Tomorrow's biggest danger may be nanoweapons (grey goo and other) created with molecular manufacturing. The Lifeboat Foundation proposes development of detection methods, such as infrared satellite surveillance for nanobot signatures, along with a three-layer defense system, with devices such as an orbiting mirror to focus concentrated sunlight on an ecophagic outbreak."

12 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Nanoweapons scare me by xianfa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have been long considering a society of very long lived people through the use of nano technology. I have envisioned nano bots injected into a person to be used for "maintenance" of organs that fail over time. I always thought these bots could be programmed to roam our body and kill off viruses, bad bacteria, and cancer cells as well as repairing failing organs and using our fat cells as an energy source, thereby keeping us thin.

    My wife has always said a weapon would be developed long before any life enrichment uses. We have seen a steady flow of nano technology in the last decade or so, I just hope global nano terrorism is not just around the corner.

    --
    The greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue - Socrates
    1. Re:Nanoweapons scare me by lawpoop · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "I always thought these bots could be programmed to roam our body and kill off viruses, bad bacteria, and cancer cells... "

      Do you think they could out-perform white blood cells?

      "as well as repairing failing organs..."Given that modern day robots millions of times larger have problems with simple tasks like picking up a glass, I think organ repair in the near future will be solved with genetic engineering over robots.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    2. Re:Nanoweapons scare me by MrSquirrel · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Nanobot terrorism would be extremely unlikely. The complex process of manufacturing nanobots is complex enough for corporations with billions in R&D funds, PhD scientists, and massive cleanrooms. There are also ways to stop nanobots (one such way would be pitting other nanobots against them and filming it -- providing hours of entertainment!). Much more effective means of applying terrorist resources (money, manpower, and facilities) would be to manufacture dirty bombs. Try not to fear the future too much, because everyone's gotta die sometime.

      --
      A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
    3. Re:Nanoweapons scare me by Jerf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you think they could out-perform white blood cells?

      Artificial nanobots don't need to "out-perform" white blood cells, because we'll still have white blood cells.

      What they can do is fill in holes in the immune system, which is far from perfect. Any cancer that kills a person was clearly not caught by the immune system. A nanobot might be specifically tasked with killing that cancer, and it will do a better job that the human immune system.

      However, I doubt "a robot" of any kind will be the nanotech solution to that problem. I expect an artificially-constructed wrapper will be keyed to some unique aspect of the cancer cells, causing the wrapper to unwrap only when near (or, if we're really good, in) the cancer cells, releasing perfectly normal poisons into or near the cancer cells, killing only the cancer cells with minimal collateral damage. In fact, I expect our children or grandchildren to consider the era where we pumped the body full of drugs and just sort of hope that some of the drugs affect, say, the liver without causing too many side effects elsewhere to be the dark ages of pharmacology, in much the same way we view the times before anti-biotics.

      The more I think about it, the more I disagree that we're all going to have a lot of little robots running around in our body, as I have yet to come up with a task where a general purpose robot is the best solution. And the robots are significantly more complex than special-purpose wrappers delivering custom-order drugs and chemicals; by the time we can build those robots, I'm going to want those robots to be my body, not fixing up my meat-bag. (Sorry, body.)

    4. Re:Nanoweapons scare me by daeley · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If we never died, we'd never evolve.

      While this might be true, it is also much more likely that we'd never evolve if we never reproduced. ;)

      --
      I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
    5. Re:Nanoweapons scare me by drinkypoo · · Score: 1, Insightful
      Yea, the real key to self-regenerating bodies is to figure out the chemical signals we need to send/block to tell the body to regenerate itself. Little machines could never do that good a job.

      yes, and the real key to propelling cargo down a street is to use really excellent horses, because internal combustion engines will never do that good a job. (This comment brought to you from the 1700s.)

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... by FooAtWFU · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The nanotechnologist types I've spoken with (as a component of a university seminar course) who are all quite dismissive of "grey goo" and such. In summary: It's not easy for those little guys to get energy to, say, systematically munch their way through concrete or solid steel or something - it will take more energy than it would consume. When you get down to it, we have little to fear from nano-sized robots that we don't have to fear from, say, bacteria - who already have billions of years' worth of experience in the just-above-the-nano-scale operations. Furthermore, even if we did have some miraculous way of getting those things the amounts of energy they would need, you're probably looking at them blowing apart from the amounts of heat involved. (Mind you, that's blowing apart on the molecluar scale, not blowing up like a bomb, so don't get ideas there either.)

    Most nanotechnology concerns at present are materials science affairs, and this is likely to remain the case for a while. Nanoscale robots just aren't very feasible under the currently known laws of physics, especially not the infamous "grey goo" variety.

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  3. Virusses,Bugs, ... by polar+red · · Score: 1, Insightful

    me too, It's hard enough making simple software just bug-free, and I don't think the perfect virus-shield is around the corner too.

    --
    Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
  4. More things than nanoparticles can do that. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While your points are valid, why concern yourself with nano particles so much, when there are lots of things that could turn your lungs to a pink pulp or fill them full of phelgm and drown you, without looking to nanotechnology?

    I think we're overly complacent about the killer weapons (biologicals, particularly) that are already scattered around the planet in significant quantities; before we go and spend a lot of effort worrying about the possible effects of technologies that don't exist yet, we could spend some of the same resources cleaning up problems that exist right now.

    Dying from antibiotic-resistant TB may not be as sexy as being consumed by nanobots-run-amok, but at least in the foreseeable future, it's a lot more likely.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  5. Grey goo? by Sterling+Christensen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you're imagining a grey blob, don't. Remember conservation of mass - it won't get bigger/heavier than what it eats. Instead image grey mold growing on all the plants outside. Spreading more like a disease than a blob.

    Even if it could convert biomatter to nanobots with the fantastically unlikely efficiency needed to build up an actual sea or even just a blob of them, I sure wouldn't be so stupid as to program them to clump together into an easy target if it were me.

    A sea/blob won't happen by accident either, or else some strain of mold or bacteria would have done it by now.

    Unless you mean to sterilize an entire area as a last resort, a mirror would be useless. It won't be a big localized thing you can just shoot at.

  6. forget the bots, just the particles.. by zogger · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...are a possible big threat. The fact of nanoparticles becoming a very common substance in our day to day environment could turn out to be a huge problem later on. I'm not saying it will, but I am not convinced on their "safe" claims either. These tiny particles are easily inhaled in some situations and so far they are shown to be easily absorbed, even into the brain. Look at the past track record of industry and small particles in general, all that stuff that was "perfectly" safe then later on they (industry academic shills with various letters next to their names "they") get to say "whoops, maybe we were wrong". Asbestos, silica, coal dust, fabric dust in mills, etc, a decent list.

    Basically I am a default skeptic, and I don't take as a given their tinfoil hat pronouncements of stuff being "safe" just because they say so. Fool me once and etc. One thing we have learned with industry over the years, if there's a buck to be made, and especially billions of bucks, anything and everything they do is "safe" from their POV and they have shown they have zero problems getting "learned" folks to back them up anytime they choose. I like tech, think it's great, but am no longer the young naieve guy who used to trust them implicitly.

  7. Gray Goo is NOT the only threat! by DoninIN · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, what I mean is that nano-bots that can almost magically eat everything from concrete, steel and dirt and reproduce may be impossible, or at least a really tall order. What about nanomachines that eat plants and use the material to reproduce? As we sit on the pristine concrete in two feet of plant eating nanogoo (Green Goo?) I'm sure we will all feel so much better knowing the concrete is safe.