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Lifeboat Foundation Nanoshield
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."
'Cos it looks like we will all be blinded soon since we could be considered a ecophagic outbreak.
liqbase
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.
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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.
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I mean, have they assembled a team of 10-year-old boys as "consultants"? Maybe next they'll recommend a really big magnifying glass (especially for use against the ant-shaped nanites) or maybe a really really (REALLY) big satellite shaped like a shoe...
Either way, somebody hasn't been keeping up with their classic sci-fi studies!
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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."
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.
Unless I see concrete reasoning/evidence otherwise, this worry about goo stuff is way overblown.
:). I call a goo with no such defenses "naive" - because it was just born yesterday - unlike bacteria etc which have been battling each other for billions of years.
Where will the grey goo get _energy_ from to be such a big threat? Solar energy isn't that great a source of energy.
Bacteria have been around for billions of years, there are all sorts of bacteria "eating" all sorts of stuff. If it was so easy to turn the entire environment to goo, the bacteria would have done it already - it's practically what all of them try to do all the time (just look up fermentation).
It takes a pretty sophisticated grey goo to do what bacteria do, and if the grey goo is made of stuff which bacteria or fungi can use, then I think it's the grey goo that has to watch out...
Viruses, bacteria etc can be a problem to us, because they can get energy and resources by parasiting _us_ and other creatures we depend on, in often harmful or deadly ways. They are made from the same stuff as us and thus they can build themselves from us (or subvert our machinery to build themselves).
So if you have a "naive" organic-based goo, good luck stopping fungus and bacteria etc from eating it the moment it gets wet
In theory if you have a normal naive (no defense against other micro/nano organisms) organic-based goo our immune system (phages) would probably be able to eat it too. Now if you design a goo that subverts our immune and other systems, then we could have a problem, however I suspect it will be easier to modify an existing virus than to build a "goo" one from scratch.
Alternatively if you have a metal based goo, these would only be a problem if you could create a grey goo that can somehow float around, land and burn/catalyze oil and air and use the energy to shape metal in a way so it can reproduce and repeat the process... The big issue is the burn/catalyze part. Catalysts used by common living creatures (enzymes) are mainly made of commonly available materials - only very trace amounts of other elements are required (if at all). If you prefer to burn instead, then you need to store a fair bit more energy, be able to release it at a high enough power and at the right time to start the burning process.
I recall there was a fungus in South America that was eating CDs - polycarbonate and metal.
So IMO, the most likely great danger to humans from micro/nano stuff would be biological viruses whether modified/bred/engineered or "natural".
I'm not a biotech person but I believe one can feasibly breed viruses to be more dangerous - just get tons of cultures of human cells, then expose the viruses to them, and repeat the process with viruses that produce the effect closest to what you want. No need for much engineering - could probably be very automated. Or do it in conjunction with a carrier organism and human cells - basically breed the virus to survive and spread sublethally in the target carrier organism - rat/roach/flies etc, but be really bad to human cells. The danger is some person/organization actually doing this for USD100k or something.
For macro dangers it'll be one of those meteorites/comets, or humans (we are probably one of the best things at killing ourselves).
...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.
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.