Smart Dust: A Followup

Geoffrey Kidd writes "Hemos posted an article about the Berkeley Smart Dust project on Sept. 8. I've located Pister's web site which includes a block diagram of the gadget and some other details on the progress they're making."

Comments

The Dark Side

[drox]

Did it seem to anyone else that the authors were just a little filp about the possible "dark side" applications of their invention? I know it's disheartening to think that one's labor of love might be used for evil as well as good, but they dismissed the idea out of hand, rather than considering (or better yet, attempting to debunk) the notion of smart dust as a tool of Big Brother.

To the point of implying that anyone who dwells on that issue is not "dealing with it".

Yes, personal privacy is getting harder and harder to come by. Yes, you can hype Smart Dust as being great for big brother (thank you, New Scientist). Yawn. Every technology has a dark side - deal with it.

Might I kindly suggest that the authors/inventors do the same. Deal with it. Preferably by considering, and doing something to minimize, the "dark side" uses to which their invention could be put.

Re:The Dark Side

[DustMeister]

I didn't imply only as many motes as Pentia - I used chip area in the calculation, not number of chips. ksjp

Re:The Dark Side

[DustMeister]

It wasn't "the authors", it was me - don't blame my colleagues for what's on my web pages. I was only flip about it because it seems like such a non-issue to me. There is so much great potential for this technology that it seems obvious to me that I am doing the right thing by working on it. It isn't that I don't spend time thinking about these issues, it's that I've spent so much time thinking about them that the conclusion seems clear. Another reason that I was flip with the issue is that it is such a stereotypical response to new technology: 1) this might be used for bad things 2) I bet that the people working on it are evil/ignorant/arrogant and are just doing it for fame/money/whatever. I can't imagine going through life with such a negative attitude. There are so many people working so hard to make this planet work, and so few people who are actually doing things because they are evil/ignorant/arrogant, why not go with the statistics and assume that there are some good people working on this project, and that they spend a *lot* of time thinking about the implications of what they are doing, and that they try to make the right decisions. I'm sure that we'll screw up occasionally, but we're not the assholes you make us out to be. ksjp

Re:Environmental Impact

[DustMeister]

Yes, let's assume that we produce them not in the tens of millions, but in the tens of *billions*! At one cubic millimter each that will be tens of cubic meters of dust. That's a lot of batteries to throw away in your backyard, but if that is the entire production volume of dust (I said tens of billions, remember), it is so far down on the scale of bad things to do to the planet that it is not worth discussing.

If it's just tens of millions, then we're talking about a volume of about a liter. A 10cm cube. My local grocery store sells more than that in a day, and I'm sure that lots of those don't get recycled.

But wait, you say, this is different, because they are being distributed everywhere, and maybe I'll inhale one. A good point, it does make it different, but again, we're talking about a *liter* here, and it's not exactly plutonium. If you inhale one, which I think is extremely unlikely, you will cough it up very quickly. That's what our lungs are designed to do. I'd far rather inhale one of my dust motes than smoke a pack of cigarettes.

ksjp

smart dust and mini spyplanes

[theonetruekeebler]

The smart dust page had a link to a page with some really snazzy micro aircraft. Can you imagine using dust sensors/controllers to build a tiny self-guiding spy plane that can provide 20 minutes of flight time?

--

People, not tools.

[RovingSlug]

Minimize the "dark side"???

It's a tool. Tools don't do evil things. People use tools. People do evil things. People sometimes use tools to do evil things.

Anything that a human can manipulate, by definition, can be used. No object or knowledge has a magic "stop evil" gate to keep humans from using something for good versus evil. From the point of view of the tool, it's not that the definition of good or evil arbitrary, it just plain doesn't exist.

Knowledge is a tool. Ancient China outlawed the common man from knowing math. The reasoning being that math could be used for astronomy, and astronomy could foretell the future. A common man with knowledge of the future could threaten those in control -- something those in control felt was evil.

Computers are a tool. Among other amazing things computers can do, they can strongly encrypt information. This subverts national intelligence and threatens national security (with respect to terrorist activity, what have you). The safest way to "deal with" this evil use of computers is to limit the common man's processing power. Please turn in your Pentium III 500 for this solar powered hand calculator -- it's the only way the government not invade your privacy but ensure you're not strongly encrypting sensitive information. Your sacrifice will help stop evil's spread through the world.

Look, I can go on and on and on. The point is, to "deal with it" at the level of the tool is a flawed, impossible, insane notion.

The only way to have a world in which people don't do "evil" things is not to take away or modify potentially "evil" tools or knowledge, but to construct a society and a world in which people don't try to, think to, or care to do evil things.

By limiting our world knowledge and ability now, you're inhibiting the possibility of ever reaching the utopia you implicity argue for.

- Cory

Re:big brotha

[smartalix]

I noticed that the designers have not gotten the laser design finalized. There is some interesting work currently being done on microcavity lasers by Nanovation. This should allow them to squeeze a few mils off of the device.