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Societal Implications of Nanoscale Science and Technology Bruce E. Seely Michigan Tech NUE Workshop July 2-3, 2003

Societal Implications of Nanoscale Science and Technology Bruce E. Seely Michigan Tech NUE Workshop July 2-3, 2003. Societal Implications of Nanotechnology. Qualitatively New Step in Miniaturization Basic Scientific Breakthroughs New Technologies

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Societal Implications of Nanoscale Science and Technology Bruce E. Seely Michigan Tech NUE Workshop July 2-3, 2003

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  1. Societal Implications of Nanoscale Science and TechnologyBruce E. SeelyMichigan Tech NUE WorkshopJuly 2-3, 2003

  2. Societal Implications of Nanotechnology • Qualitatively New Step in Miniaturization • Basic Scientific Breakthroughs • New Technologies • Economic Consequences: But Always Balance the Hype • Industrial Manufacturing , Materials and Product • Medicine and the Human Body • Sustainability: Environment • Filters; Solar Cells; Catalysts; Efficient lighting, Nanocomposites • Space Exploration (Environment, Energy, Water) • National Security/Economic Competitiveness • Nanocomputing: Extending Moore’s Law • Interactions May Offer greatest benefits

  3. Ethical Challenges • “Playing God?” • Limits? Essence of Humanity? • Ethics of Implants? Eugenics? • Replication – Brains? • Possibility of Sentient Machines? • Risk and Harm: Patients and Testing? • Values: Individual or Community? • Control over Personal Information? • Equally Distributing Costs & Benefits • What can be Patented? • What Research Gets Funded? • Access and Availability of Results

  4. Societal Interactions • Public Acceptance/Resistance • Post-WW II Ambivalence to Technology • A Cautionary Tale -- Genetically-Modified Food • Complexity causes Uncertainty: Science vs. Commonsense • Nano: Invisible and Intrusive • Unintended Consequences • Past History, Impact on Institutions • NANO: Uncontrolled Replication? • Past Predictions and Faulty Crystal Balls • Who Wins, Who Loses? Haves and Have-nots. • Who Decides? Control and Public Participation • Mis-use? Standards? Kranzberg’s Law • Enthusiasm And Hype Vs. Uncertainty Of The Future

  5. Education of Informed Scientists and Engineers • Expertise and its Limits • Neutrality? • Dialogue during Research • Responses and Attitudes toward Critics • Responsibility

  6. CONCLUSION “…many intricate societal and institutional adjustments transcending in complexity and uncertainty the redirection of private investment planning, are usually entailed in effecting the passage from one technological regime to another. On this view there are likely to be many difficulties and obstacles that normal market processes cannot readily overcome.” Irwin Feller, in Roco and Bainbridge, Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, pp. 112-13.

  7. NANO Sources Ratner & Ratner, 2003 B.C. Crandell, ed., 1996 David Newton, 2002 Excellent list of sources

  8. Roco and Bainbridge, 2001. Proceedings of NSF Conference

  9. Scientific American 285 (March 2001) Technology Review 105 (March 2002)

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