Nanotechnology: What Will It Mean?

1. Nanotechnology: What Will It Mean? Ralph Merkle January 2001

2. Outline • Introduction • Visions of good, visions of harm • Guidelines to principled development

3. Introduction • Nanotechnology in a few decades will: • Bring medical nanobots, smaller than a cell, that: • cure cancer, • heart failure, • old age. • make our times look the way we view medieval times: Everyone who dies pre-nano will be thought to have lived briefly & in poverty. • Pollution will be gone (unclear) Molecular manufacture will have no chemical side effects.

4. Introduction … • In the early 80s, Eric Drexler published Engines of Creation • Scientists were skeptical. • Science was telling us: nanotechnology is “unavoidable”. • Computer technology points the way: • ICs are now sub-micron feature length • Why not other kinds of products? • In 2000, 106 $ are being spent on nanotech development.

5. Outline • Introduction • Visions of good, visions of harm • Guidelines to principled development

6. Visions of good, visions of harm • Some people (Bill Joy) recently, publicly, & belatedly noted: Nano is dangerous! • Drexler discussed the dangers extensively as far back ’86 & ’88 (A Dialog on Dangers) • Bill Joy advocates “relinquishing” nano research.

7. Visions of good, visions of harm … • Doing so is problematic • The attraction of wealth, glory, & strategic advantage are great. • The research will continue, underground & thus w/o oversight. • The advantages of nano will be lost to the obedient.

8. Visions of good, visions of harm … • What are the kinds of concerns? • Deliberate abuse • Accidents • Deliberate abuse (by a small group or nation) • Could cause catastrophic harm • Best prevented by clear understanding of technology: • Its offensive capabilities • Countermeasures to those capabilities • (The good guys don’t always win.) • Lack of clear understanding puts innocents at the mercy of those who disregard laws.

9. Visions of good, visions of harm … • Accidents: • a self-replicating machine could replicate itself unchecked, converting the biosphere into copies of itself. • The entire earth biosphere might vanish in 1 day. • Merkle: replicating nanobots are no more likely to be like living things (threatening the biosphere), than existing computers are. • (Hmmm. What about suicidal misanthropes? )

10. Visions of good, visions of harm … Accidents … • Merkle gives an example of robotic arms that make robotic arms. • They are not autonomous. • If you cut off their power, they stop, just like robots do on a larger scale. (But, what if an autonomous nanobot was made, deriving its energy from its surrounding (e.g., photosynthesis)?)

11. Outline • Introduction • Visions of good, visions of harm • Guidelines to principled development

12. Guidelines to principled development • The Foresight Institute (founded by Eric Drexler, I believe) has draft guidelines for safe molecular manufacturing.

13. Guidelines to principled development • For example: • Replicators are incapable of replication in natural uncontrolled environment. • Replication depends on artificial energy source or components. • Use encryption & error-detection to prevent alteration of their blueprints. • Etc.

14. Guidelines to principled development • The upside potential of nano is staggering. • We cannot stop all people from developing it. • Focus on doing so responsibly.