I, Nanobot — Bionanotechnology is Coming

Maria Williams writes "Alan H. Goldstein, inventor of the A-PRIZE, and popular science columnist, says: Scientists are on the verge of breaking the carbon barrier — creating artificial life and changing forever what it means to be human. And we're not ready... Nanofabricated animats may be infinitesimally tiny, but their electrons will be exactly the same size as ours — and their effect on human reality will be as immeasurable as the universe. Like an inverted SETI program, humanity must now look inward, constantly scanning technology space for animats, or their progenitors. The first alien life may not come from the stars, but from ourselves." Yes it's an older article, but it's a fairly quiet sunday today.

Comments

On the verge of breaking the carbon barrier?

[Timesprout]

Sounds like someone at the lab has a hot date lined up......

Doomsday predictor?

[kiyoshilionz]

Long article is LOOOONG

I think this guy may be taking himself a little too seriously:

"So why listen to the voice of one who is not Ishmael, not Cassandra, not even Ralph Nader? Because I can tell you something that no one else can. I can tell you the exact moment when Homo sapiens will cease to exist. And I can tell you how the end will come. I can show you the exact design of the device that will bring us down. I can reveal the blueprint, provide the precise technical specifications."

Re:Doomsday predictor?

[sgt_doom]

Gosh, it is soooo neat to be all knowing...

I hate to rain on this clown's parade, him being an official "genius" and all - but rather obviously not current - as the predictable trend is the death of democracy (already happened, of course) and the ascendency of the global corporate dictatorship (this would be China - leading the planet to the One World Corporation) so all such all knowing predictions go by the wayside....

More like "I love me!".

[khasim]

Check out his "NOTES AND REFERENCES". :)

He's referencing his own work (2 of the 5 referenced), and the dates are in 2006 (with a Wired article from 2005).

This seems more like an attempt to get people to buy his newly published book than anything else. And as evidenced in your clip, there's a bit of megalomania there.

Engines of Creation

[Tx]

The author mentions K. Eric Drexler and his book Engines of Creation, but I'm wondering if he actually read it. TFA says "Folks like Ray Kurzweil, Bill Joy and Eric Drexler have raised some alarms, but they are too dazzled by the complexity and power of human cybersystems, devices and networks to see it coming. Well, I took Engines of Creation to be one great big warning almost from start to finish about the same kind of thing this article talks about, so what am I missing? He's invented some new words for stuff, but other than that...

nano-FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Alan H. Goldstein is a crackpot who apparently lacks basic understanding of molecular biology and genetics. For non-biologists out there - this guy is basically saying something like "ALL LINUX USERS ARE DOOMED! A few dropped packets or corrupted bits and Windows viruses and spyware could mutate to infect your computers!"

A nanobiotechnology device that is smart enough to circulate through the body hunting viruses or cancer cells is, by definition, smart enough to exchange information with that human body. This means, under the right conditions, the "device" could evolve beyond its original function. Newsflash... viruses are self-replicating "devices" capable of exchanging information with and modifying host organisms. Under the right conditions (e.g. over the course of the last few billion years), they have been evolving under selective pressure to propagate more readily. Stop trying to portray "nanobots" as bogeymen when pathogens already exist with precisely the same FUD-inducing attributes like "self-replication" and "evolvability".

One solution: Alter synthetic genetic codes such that they are incompatible with natural ones because there is a mismatch in the gene's coding for amino acids." In other words, we will be protected because these organisms will have genomes never before seen on Earth! Perhaps, but that could also be a description of the ultimate biohazard. If the Ebola virus is considered a Biosafety Level 4 threat, what level would categorize a pathogenic organism made completely from synthetic genetic codes? Ultimate biohazard? Nice strawman, dude. Using orthogonal genetic codes in synthetic organisms is exactly the right way to make them safe and restrict them to laboratories. These synthetic genomes will be innocuous for the same reason that bacteriophage are harmless to humans - the manifestation of the genetic codes necessary to make them functional will be fundamentally incompatibile with natural systems.

The carbon barrier will be broken by silicon.

[fyngyrz]

A pretentious, overheated, paranoid dupe, at that. :) But since we're here:

Life will almost certainly arise from Ai (Ai=artificial intelligence), but it won't be "nano" anything. My feeling as an Ai researcher is that we're already well past the computing threshold for Ai/AL (AL=artificial life.) Ai will always equal AL, though the reverse is not implied. A typical desktop today seems to me to have more than enough power to "come to life." What we are missing is the algorithm, no more.

My reasoning for this is as follows:

The complexity of the part of the brain that we use to think is not as high as commonly supposed. Much of what is in there handles what are really (to a computer) mundane things; pattern recognition (sound, light, touch), movement, of which none of which are components of intelligence, per se (ex, a blind, deaf immobile person is still intelligent.) A computer's sensorium can simply be a text stream; and in this realm, pattern recognition, retrieval and communications are relatively natural to it, and extremely high powered in comparison to how we do the same thing. Likewise, a computer has no autonomic system to regulate, no balance to keep, no hungers to assuage. We know very well how to do associative memory, and we know how to make those associations carry associations of their own; I'm talking of the coloration of memory with any set or range of characteristics one might imagine or preconceive into being. This stuff is all relatively easy. Processing it and making sense of it, that's really the issue. We don't have that.

But: Processing isn't likely to be a hard problem. I say this because the human mind (and all the other minds we are aware of) achieve what they do with massive parallelism of very simple structures. Parallel processing is no different than serial processing, in terms of what it can and cannot do in the end. Speed-wise, yes, parallelism is very powerful, but computationally, it is no more effective than going one step at a time and accumulating results. Further, there is no parallel structure that cannot be emulated or represented with serial processing of those structures in a manner that stages results to the appropriate level of parallelism. Processing is, instead, probably an esoteric problem, in that the way it works is not obvious to our higher-level or aggregate way of considering information, memory, and reason.

Some have argued that because of the massive parallelism in the brain, creating something comparable will require a huge amount of resources that we do not yet have. There is a basic misconception at work here, and it is a critical one: If, as they argue, your desktop is not fast enough to compute serially what the brain does in parallel in the same time frame, this in no way undermines the idea that your desktop can still do the computation. In other words, If you ask me a question, and I give you an answer you deem to be intelligent within, say, 10 seconds of reflection; and you type the same question to your presumptive Ai, and it gives you essentially the same answer in say, an hour, that answer is no less intelligent for being more slowly produced. Intelligence isn't about speed - it never has been. Intelligence is about the nature of the question, the nature of the conversation, the nature of the reflection.

The day that someone comes up with an algorithm that produces answers of a nature that we can begin to argue about how well they compare - or exceed - the human capacity, will be the same day that the hardware companies begin to examine the software and build hardware optimized to make those algorithms faster, compile better, etc. Though this will in no way make anything more intelligent, it will make the intelligence easier to converse with for us, right up until the point when the computer is faster than we are. At that point, again, it will be important for us to remember that speed isn't the issue, and never was. Otherwis

Re:The carbon barrier will be broken by silicon.

[fyngyrz]

What your are forgetting is that the computer probably needs to answer and ask a lot of questions before it can be compared to you.

No, I've not forgotten this, I've simply ignored it because it isn't an actual problem for several reasons.

First, computers have a huge advantage in that once we have one working intelligent system, we can copy its state and have two - or two hundred - or two million - with relative ease. We can't do this with people, nor is there any hint we'll be able to any time soon. This advantage makes it worth more to "educate" one system. It is as if by educating your kid to the level of a PhD, I'd educated your entire town. All of a sudden, your kid becomes very important and worthwhile to educate.

Second, any one computer can be "educated", if you will (have those questions answered) through multiple sources, multiplying the learning speed and dividing the learning time. And this only needs be done once; they're not like people, who keep showing up un-programmed and who must each be laboriously programmed by flipping low level switches, as it were. This is worth doing no matter what it costs, because of point one. Knowledge compilation is ongoing right now; there are several very large projects of this nature.

Third, if one can simply prove that some particular method gives rise to intelligence, market and social factors will converge on the problem and simply up the efficiency until the problem is solved many times over. The only thing we have to have is some kind of result we can demonstrate in a time frame that will convince those who must invest to get those needed resources on line towards solving the problem.

Fourth, parallelism can be applied at multiple levels. Look what Google has done to make search work. An intelligence that resides in 1000 machines is no less intelligent for having done so, if one were to have to apply such broad leverage - and remember, there is no evidence that this is so. We won't know how to ask the question, much less evaluate the answer, until we have a working algorithm.

Fifth, in the "educate" phase, even assuming that intelligent response is running at 360:1, that is not to say that initial education of the first unit will run at that rate. If information is simply put in place (remember, study is a human problem -- computers may not require study at all) it may be that the learning rate is many thousands of times that of a human. You just can't assume that learning equals reasoning. It isn't always the same process, and it certainly isn't the same when simply copying.

Generally, speed does not matter. Results matter. If speed is so poor that results are unobtainable, then speed matters. I don't expect that this is the case based upon the evidence at hand. We work; dogs work; mice work. All demonstrate various levels of intelligence with descending degrees of "hardware" available to them. Computers have huge amounts of capability. I conclude that computers can work too.

Re:The carbon barrier will be broken by silicon.

[E 99]

Life will almost certainly arise from Ai (Ai=artificial intelligence), but it won't be "nano" anything. My feeling as an Ai researcher is that we're already well past the computing threshold for Ai/AL (AL=artificial life.) Ai will always equal AL, though the reverse is not implied. A typical desktop today seems to me to have more than enough power to "come to life." What we are missing is the algorithm, no more.

So you believe there is some magical algorithm which, when implemented, is self-aware? The "turing test" obfuscates the issue. It is not intelligent if it is not self-aware. Even if it can give the appearance of responding intelligently.

Re:The carbon barrier will be broken by silicon.

[fyngyrz]

So you believe there is some magical algorithm which, when implemented, is self-aware

Other than that loaded word, "magic", absolutely. You represent a case of at least one. I represent another. I simply extend that idea to a different architecture, because I am of the opinion that the architectures have significant equivalence, computationally speaking.

What I don't believe in is some "magic" situation that will not give up its operational methods and modalities in response to a concerted effort to understand it, when the entire problem resides right here in our "back yard", as the human brain certainly does. Postulating that the brain is a magic box with functionality that cannot be replicated is stepping out on a limb that no other comparable intellectual effort we have ever undertaken can justify. The only problems we've been consistently unable to solve are of a type where the information is unavailable to us (eg, the big bang, or whatever happened, or didn't happen.) Even then we do pretty well. But the brain isn't like that. It is right here. In literally billions of instances. We'll figure it out. I have very high confidence this will happen, and that it isn't all that far out in the future.

The "turing test" obfuscates the issue. It is not intelligent if it is not self-aware.

I have no reason to assume that an Ai would not be self-aware. More to the point, neither do you.

Re:The carbon barrier will be broken by silicon.

[stinerman]

So it goes without saying that you believe in strong AI. This supposes that the only difference between a sufficiently advanced "computer" and a human is their hardware. In fact, one would consider a human to simply be a computer with the mind being the programs. One could even reason that artificial intelligences could love, feel pain, etc. This, to me, opens up a very large ethical can of worms. Do AIs now have the right to vote? Can they own property? What are the religious implications? What are the implications for free will?

I am a believer in weak AI until I see evidence to the contrary. In fact, weak AI is why I'm agnostic rather than atheist. We are, at a basic level, made up of atoms which are not self-aware. Our individual cells are also not self-aware. But at some level, we become self-aware and have consciousness. This is the only argument for divine creation that I buy. I would have a very hard time dealing with the fact that the only difference between me and a computer is complexity. My emotions, desires, and dreams are effectively meaningless in that they are manufactured by inborn programming rather than some sort of deeper force. Indeed, if one could discover the nature of consciousness and self-awareness, that would probably be enough to change my opinions.

I would be interested to hear what you have found in your research as well as your unconfirmed beliefs, as well as any moral, ethical, or religious dilemmas you see on the horizon.

Re:The carbon barrier will be broken by silicon.

[fyngyrz]

So it goes without saying that you believe in strong AI.

Yes. Humans already show this kind of intelligence can exist; I have no trouble generalizing to other forms from there. Artificial is not a distinction that concerns me in the sense of creating a barrier to possibility.

This, to me, opens up a very large ethical can of worms.

Agreed. But like most things in the world, "stuff" often happens without any consideration for the cans that get opened. We just have to deal with the issues. Not that I think we'll do very well. There may be attempts to legislate progress out of the loop (as we see with stem cells and cloning, for instance) but I don't see that as being effective, long term. Politicians don't have the control they think they do unless the resources required are so large that they cannot be hidden. Ai is the antithesis of such a project; you can do it at home, disconnected from the net, you could succeed and no one need know until your Ai has been duplicated and distributed a million or more times. Like DVD John's code, any attempts to "control" are doomed to failure before they begin.

Do AIs now have the right to vote? Can they own property? What are the religious implications? What are the implications for free will?

In order: They should, they should be able to, religion is mythology/100% bunkum and there are no actual implications whatsoever other than perhaps we're a step closer to getting over it, and free will in the philosophical sense is not a question that has any practical application, so why bother and for that matter, how many people really care? Will Ai's care? Good question. I hope to be able to ask some day. :)

I would have a very hard time dealing with the fact that the only difference between me and a computer is complexity.

Reality doesn't care if you have a hard time. Things are what they are. No more, no less. We either intelligently play the cards reality deals us, or we buy into illusion / bad metaphor and generate canned responses via someone else's playbook. Each of us has to make that call.

My emotions, desires, and dreams are effectively meaningless in that they are manufactured by inborn programming rather than some sort of deeper force.

Well, mine aren't; they're meaningful because I deem them so. Likewise, the emotions, dreams and desires of those I care about are meaningful to me for the same reason; I elect to engage them and enjoy that process. All else, to me, is utterly meaningless navel-gazing.

I would be interested to hear what you have found in your research as well as your unconfirmed beliefs, as well as any moral, ethical, or religious dilemmas you see on the horizon.

My research is on high performance associative memory. My results have been very pragmatic; no surprises at all for me; things work as I pretty much always thought they worked, and though they may also work in other ways, the path I'm on has been quite productive.

I see no religious problems other than religion itself, which I do see as a huge problem, basically the result of fear, gullibility, and ignorance in various combinations. As far as moral and ethical issues go, we've been really poor at dealing with them among humans; there is no indication we will be any better if or when we introduce (or find, or are found by) other forms of life. Things will get more complicated, more divisive, and we'll make a further muddle of it. In my opinion. As to my "unconfirmed beliefs", that'd be 99% of what I think about in every domain. I've a confidence-based world view, not a conviction based one. So you'll have to be more specific. :)

Re:The carbon barrier will be broken by silicon.

[fyngyrz]

Specifically, what is your theory of consciousness?

I don't have a formal theory. My opinion is that it is an emergent property with considerable variation that we like to put under one comfortable name, but that which really doesn't fit as well as we would like it to. In other words, no, animals and humans were not all created equal in any sense. :)

How did consciousness develop over time

Slowly, I suspect. Other than that, I have no idea.

d why do we have it and other living (and non-living) things don't?

This is an assumption I am not on-board with. I think cats, dogs and horses, all animals I am very familiar with, are conscious in pretty much the exact way that most humans think of the term. They're not going to produce Einstein, but then again, the best of them routinely outperform lower functioning humans. Most of the objections I've heard, such as the mirror ideas, I have personally seen debunked by animals in the normal course of events. And there are public examples, like the elephant in the news a few weeks back. Even if that were not so, I see no reason that such capabilities are definitive of consciousness, only of arbitrary lines some of us like to draw to make ourselves feel superior.

Is consciousness metaphysical in nature or is it simply about having the right algorithm?

Oh, the latter, no question.

If it is the latter, then doesn't that imply that we are no better than computers this minute, only more complex?

Perhaps it does. So? Why do we have to be better?

at what point do computers get rights?

After congress freezes over? Or are you asking at what point should they get rights? If that is the question, then perhaps a good answer would be when they themselves can explain the answer to you.

Of course, I don't expect you to answer each question individually, I'm just spitballing at this point.

Don't mind a bit. My favorite subject, frankly.

I think if strong AI is true, it would challenge some very fundamental assumptions about life, ethics, and morality.

No doubt. And the more, er, "fundamental" the assumptions are, the harder they will fall.

comment on how close you think we are to true "strong AI" intelligence.

I think we're literally one discovery away, a discovery that is entirely viable within the context of the computers that sit on our desks today; or let me say, that have been near top of the line for the last year or so. A few gigs of ram, a 64 bit CPU, single core or more, a few really big hard drives, the right software. I think once that discovery is made, the rest will happen like an avalanche. And once a reasonable speed, high powered Ai debuts, I think we can look forward to other types of advances. I'm very hopeful about the whole thing right now. The worst thing that could happen would be the discovery be made in a government controlled laboratory. We could very well not see it for some time if that is the case. Paranoid, I know, but there you have it. I'm hoping some wild-eyed GPL-minded type pulls it off and distributes the key ideas worldwide before anyone has a chance to choke the idea down. That'd blow the lid right off, and I'll be happy to watch it blow.

Comic book plot goldmine

[Sciros]

So, assuming I actually understood the article, it means that we will be able to create nanobiobots literally capable of mutation. I'm not sure how self-replication will work, but if it somehow does, we could potentially create a very deadly little bugger. Nevermind that as there's medical research in something cool there's *always* military research to go along with it. So making nice nanobiobots will go hand-in-hand with making mean ones. Wow I want to write a Superman comicbook right now.

_The Singularity is Near_

[march]

Ray Kurzweil has written YAB (yet another book) on a similar subject. It is quite an interesting read about how evolution in the universe is an exponential curve, and that we are just on the cusp, or knee, of it going up. In there, he has pages and pages of supporting data relating to nanotech and bionanotech. It is a good read.

We are very close to having strong AI, nanotech in our bodies, and greatly enhanced information sharing / intelligence - all the research is well under way with positive results thus far.

http://tinyurl.com/ygmtxw (amazon.com)

What this guy is missing

[Dark_MadMax666]

He dismisses rather pompously very smart people :

They don't realize what evolution is. They have come to the problem from artificial intelligence, or systems analysis, or mathematics, or astronomy, or aerospace engineering. Folks like Ray Kurzweil, Bill Joy and Eric Drexler have raised some alarms, but they are too dazzled by the complexity and power of human cybersystems, devices and networks to see it coming. They think the power of our tools lies in their ever-increasing complexity -- but they are wrong.


The biotech folks just don't get it either. People like Craig Venter and Leroy Hood are too enthralled with the possibilities inherent in engineering biology to get it

Failing to understand himself the very basics of evolutionary biology - little primitive nano -organisms (viruses, bacteria, single cell organisms) (even artificially created ones) are not as grave dangers as he paints precisely because they are primitive. Those primitive forms of life dominated earth and more complex organisms took over because there are inherent evolutionary benefits of being complex -if it wasn't so more complex forms of life would never evolve .

Complex lifeforms such dominated all primitive lifeforms over the course of millions years, due to their inherent capability to adapt better to more varied environment and conditions ,due to multitude of specialized mechanisms and systems which allow them to get better access to resources ,better combat external treats , etc .And now this guy says just because we make one artificial new life form it will dominate instantly? -having to fight with all the existing lifeforms ,which became better adapted to current environment over the course of hundreds of millions of years?

That the simple cellular automata (forgive me the pun ;) ) driven by chemistry can overcome combined intelligence of super beings/creators (from this lifeform' point of view) such as the scientists which created it? Everybody remembers from school that bacteria/virus/whatever primitive organisms can potentially cover whole earth in thick layers in record time, this guys seems missed the part why it never happens - conditions around it are never favorable for that to happen , and more primitive organism is - less tools it has to change its conditions to its own liking

This was true for "blind "evolution and will be even more true for human governed one -as we have and advantage over all other lifeforms - we can change its course the way we want with our tools and technologies ,and we become even more proficient at this ,not less so.

He dismisses ave of prominent futurologists for complex human created systems ,failing to understand that this is the most powerful engine on earth. Not the microorganism , note the insects, nor reptiles, nor mammals, nor anything else out of living realms has comparable power on earth to what our civilization has. Human civilization in the sheer ability to manipulate environment far exceeds anything " natural evolution" created so far .The ultimate power of life is the power to change environment around itself ,power to manipulate matter and energy to its own liking.

Primitive life forms can only manipulate what exist around them: at the level of molecular biology everything is simple chemistry -dependent on presence of particular elements: ,higher level you go you see organisms being able to create those necessary elements out of other elements ,and when you go even higher you start seeing more advance of its kind .Till you come to this bright flash of light ( from evolutionary scale of time point of view ) marking the time when evolution of technology started ,driven by first intelligence capable of doing so (hum

Drivel

[Master of Transhuman]

The fact that he supports Bill Joy and Richard Smalley pretty well defines this idiot.

Smalley is a wannabe who came late to nanotech and decided to use his higher conventional scientific status to try to take over the field from Drexler. He failed, despite this guy's opinion.

Joy is simply incapable of rational reasoning.

And this guy's paranoid fantasies about nanobots "spontaneously impregnating" each other with technology to become an artificial life form - and one that dooms all other life in addition, despite millions of years of evolutionary adaptation on this planet to just about every conceivable hazard - is just drivel.

Sure, nanotech could be designed to destroy all life - but it would have to be DESIGNED to do so. The odds of it happening by chance are so low as to be not worth considering. Sure, badly designed nanotech - and there WILL be badly designed nanotech, we CAN count on that - COULD cause massive medical issues on a par with a deadly virus such as the flu virus in the early 20th century or something like Ebola. So what? You take the risk and you try to prevent it. Nanotech offers many technical options for inhibiting this sort of thing. If the IT industry will get off its ass and develop some AI-based engineering programs that check for stupid engineering mistakes, the entire engineering industry would be better off as well.

What IS going to happen is that Transhumanists will use nanotech to transform themselves into a superior species And that's where the threat is going to come from as monkey-ass humans follow their usual primate instincts to try to suppress the Transhumans - and unlike the Star Trek shows and Terminator movies, the humans will get their asses kicked trying - at least until the Transhumans have improved enough that they can just ignore the chimps and go about their business anyway.

Re:Drivel

[newt0311]

Sure, nanotech could be designed to destroy all life - but it would have to be DESIGNED to do so. The odds of it happening by chance are so low as to be not worth considering. The chances of nanotech being designed to be deadly are actually very very high. Think of it as a very advanced targetted virus. This probably won't possible in the near decade or two but designing a nanobot which kills and replicates based on certain characteristics is far from impossible. Say... you don't like that certain terrorist or president. Well, we take this nanobot here, key in the DNA and off it goes to do its job. Its use as a wepon is very attractive and humans have a history of getting a weapon out of nearly everything. To think that nanotech is not going to be weaponized is naive. The flip side is that the moment we get nano-assassins, we will get nano-defenders; bots which can identify and destroy those would-be assasin bots. Maybe we will develope an artificial immune system in our bodies for this purpose. just a little speculation but I am pretty sure that nanotech WILL be weaponized. Its too effective not to be.

Very Poor Science

[YetAnotherBob]

So this guy has a PHD in Biochemestry? Where does he get his facts??

He states that the human body has a potential of thousands of Volts. In reality it seldom reaches 1 volt. (A potential of 1/2 volt over a distance of a 50 angstroms is not a potential of millions of volts, it may be high in terms of Volts per Meter, but over any larger distance, it just dissapears. That's why we can't power pacemakers or laptop computers off your neural energy. Zero power is just zero power, no matter how clever you think your argument is.) He states that there are strong similarities between Carbon and Silicon chemistry. Yes, but there are also energy differences that are profound. Reality, there are very few living creatures that can use Silicon. Most of those that can are bacteria, and they use it only to create a shell or frame.

A little reality here, there are good reasons to believe that the first engineered bio machines will not be too greatly different than the ones we've already been living with. We call them bacteria. Control is a problem. It has been a problem for a very long time.

The article is just an attempt to scare people with little knowlege of the underlying science. The Author appears to be ignorant of basic physics or chemistry. His biology may or may not be suspect. I don't know that area as well. If this is the best that the critics of nanobot research can do, then they should be doomed to failure.

Rank superstition and scary fiction are a very poor way to make technical policy.