Diamond Age Approaching? 750
CosmicDreams writes "The CRN (Center for Responsible Nanotechnology) reports that nanofactories (like the ones that were installed in every home in Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age) will arrive "almost certainly within 20 years". In short they claim that molecular nanotechnology manufacturing will solve many of the world's problems, catalyze a technologic revolution, and start the greatest arms race we've ever seen. They conclude the risks are so great that we should discuss how to deal with this technology so that we don't kill each other when it arrives."
Sometimes I doubt... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Neil Diamond Age!!! (Score:0, Interesting)
More info (Score:5, Interesting)
"The Space Shuttle took less than ten years to design and build, from 1972 to 1981. The atomic bomb took only three years, from 1942 to 1945. Both of these programs involved more new science research and more development of new technologies and techniques than an assembler program would likely require. As analyzed above, they probably cost more too. The main question in estimating a timeline for fabricator development, then, is when it will be technically and politically feasible. There are probably five or more nations, and perhaps several large companies, that could finance a molecular fabricator effort starting in this decade. The technical feasibility depends on the enabling technologies. Even a single present-day technology, dip-pen nanolithography, may be able to fabricate an entire proto-fabricator with sufficient effort. At this point, we have not seen anything to make us believe that a five-year $10 billion fabricator project, starting today, would be infeasible, though we don't yet know enough to estimate its chance of success. Five years from now, we expect that a five-year project will be obviously feasible, and its cost may be well under $5 billion."
source [crnano.org]
Journal [slashdot.org]
The Sky is falling! the Sky is falling!! (Score:5, Interesting)
grey goo (Score:2, Interesting)
Software Assembler? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not gonna happen. (Score:5, Interesting)
Anything man CAN do, man WILL do. Regardless of if rules are in the way.
Even if we had such a thing as global laws (which ain't gonna happen anytime soon, either), the difference is that nanotech engineering would just be performed by outlaws instead of official scientists. Anything that carries a reward will get done, by somebody, somewhere. The greater the potential reward, the more people will be attempting it.
Whether it is legal is secondary to many enough people that it won't really matter whether it is.
P2P (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think its been bad with the RIAA and MPAA going after people, wait until you see GE, GM, Daimler-Chrysler, pharma companies, etc. start to take action when people are duplicating their products for a fraction of the cost without them getting a single cent for it.
I personally think this is great, as it would put many things within reach of people who would never have had a chance of ever being able to afford those things, but the ethical issues are the same as they are today, only perhaps escalated due to the increased value of the things you could duplicate.
The Post-Industrial Revolution (Score:5, Interesting)
The article talks about how a suitcase of equipment could create a village-sized industrial revolution. But this technology is, at least potentially, post-industrial. That is to say, it can be used on the small scale, making advanced technology available in a way which is independent of big corporations and large-scale manufacturing facilities. This is a huge thing.
If it is allowed to develop along these lines, it will mean the restructuring of our entire society, in a way which I and many others have been waiting and hoping for for some time now. It will mean we can have our cake and eat it too: we get all the benefits of advanced technology, without all the horrible detriments of the hegemony of megacorps. Whohoo!
Unfortunately, I doubt this will be allowed to happen, at least not at first. Here's a prediction: as soon as this becomes imminant, we will see the massive implementation of extremely restrictive measures to control it. These will be adopted in the name of security, but incidentally they will also have the effect of making it virtually impossible to use this technology independently, without relying on megacorporate support. This will probably mean continued widespread poverty in the third world, but we will accept it out of fear.
But at least the potential will be there.
On a completely unrelated note: most human-scale products would consist almost entirely of empty space
Actually, to be precise, everything consists almost entirely of empty space. "The solid parts of this rock, the neutrons, quarks, protons and electrons, compose only one quadrillianth of its total volume... you could pulverize that mountain and sift through it like breadcrumbs for the rest of your natural life, and you would never, ever, find... this!" --Buccaroo Banzai.
Re:Sometimes I doubt... (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, some occurences of natural immunity to the HIV has been observed in a group of Kenyan prostitutes. It is thought this immunity is caused by repetitive exposure to various strains of the virus, but once this exposure stops the persons become HIV-positive.
More info on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/619316.stm or search Google for "HIV immunity prostitutes".
I wonder if it'll eventually come to this - (Score:5, Interesting)
The human body will turn into the next battleground, and nano-armies will be the ones fighting on it.
After all, if bio-terrorism is going in that direction, someone will develop counter-measures.
Whole armies fighting between the pores of your skin and in your tissues - weird!
I've been saying this for years... (Score:5, Interesting)
why is it always a tradeoff between good and bad?
Why have this conversation now? Mod UP please (Score:4, Interesting)
Increasing kill ratios without having to commit troops to a battlefield is extremely seductive to those in power. Creating a weapons delivery system that can be dropped in an enemy area and begin sending out millions of tiny assasins within hours is indeed frightening. Assign a few thousand nanotodes to each victim. Their job is to simply inject a molecular amount of Ricin, just one molecule each. The amount of product the factory/delivery system needs to carry is minimal because every molecule reaches it's target. No area-wide spraying is needed. The system could devestate an entire army or city within hours. There would be no residual radiation, no explosion to announce it's arrival, and the nanos could simply be switched off after the slaughter is done.
Imagine two nations fighting with these weapons. Or imagine a self-replicating version that gets out of control. If you thought the A-Bomb was bad, imagine what these could do. From an ethical point of view, I think this is a good conversation to be having now. In 20 years, we have no idea where this technology could be, or what DARPA will make it capable of.
Re:We need to pass laws and treaties NOW. (Score:3, Interesting)
Again, I'm not suggesting going for it... I'm just asking people to look at the end result objectively, and suggest any alternate methods to get from here to there. Unless, of course, you're all saying that you don't WANT longer, healthier, happier lives.......
Open source hardware and space (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine, if you will, teams of people around the world contributing either CAD/CAM files that painstakingly reproduce technical drawings and assembly instructions for things like Saturn V rockets OR teams that design simplified heavy rockets that take advantage of nano reinforcement to make strong launchers with few moving parts.
Once the designs have been reviewed and tested, I imagine that either hobbyist or impromptu launch sites would start sprouting up and eventually people would start lobbing payloads into orbit. During this time, I'm sure there would be a frantic effort by the government to either outlaw or control the technology, but eventually it might reach a point where a committed individual might:
1. Design a modular living space
2. Go out to some island.
3. Pour a nano-construction farm out onto the beach
4. Sit back and wait for it to finish building a launch pad and Saturn-V or Energia class booster out of materials nano-mined from the ground.
5. Check the CRC on the structure or whatever it is a nano-inspection system would do.
6. Have it fueled by a system that breaks down the seawater into fuel and oxidizer.
7. Have it launch part 1 of his new home into orbit.
8. Rinse, repeat steps 4-8 until all components are in orbit (and docked, why not?)
9. Make one last man-rated launcher and put him/herself along with family up to dock with their new digs and take off.
If the main cost is the design time, there are certainly enough space-minded engineers and contributors out there to write up working specs and enough people to validate the designs. As the technology advances, the simulation of the constructs will become more accurate. If the construction cost is minimal, then the sky is quite literally the limit.
Treaties shmeaties. (Score:4, Interesting)
Both of us will weaponize nanotech, treaties or no.
What we have to do ASAP, is develop countermeasures. There *will* be a nanotech arms race. Otherwise, "rogue nations" will realize the age-old desire to reduce their enemies to bloody soup. The arms race is ok, so long as the defense keeps up against the offense, and we can get a nice, heady detente.
Unless this advocacy group has some really convincing argument, I don't see how they can say, "It's going to be like Diamond Age, except that for us, treaties will work." Explain why treaties will work. Neal Stephenson already explained why they wouldn't. I liked his argument.
Re:We need to pass laws and treaties NOW. (Score:5, Interesting)
> sell black-market perfect copies of everything
I prefer to imagine a time when geeks (and others) will share perfect copies of everything. This could be done via breaking the law, or by sharing perfect copies of our own replacements for the Things that people want/need: Free Things.
This Thing comes with permission to use, study & adapt to your needs, share with others, and distributed modified copies.
nano IP -- not grey goo -- is the first threat (Score:3, Interesting)
Much of this nanotech will overlap with biosciences patents, as biomechanical structures get emulated, discovered/invented, patented, and deployed in commercially strategic ways. The compensation for use of this tech will be horrendously complicated, and its inclusion in products (or design frameworks) will be subject to all kinds of IP battles. What is good for you and me, society, the biosphere, and the mineral planet, will be secondary to these concerns, since people will be jockeying to be the next B.Gates.
If ever there was a concern about analogies to closed API's and the bugginess produced by these kinds of closed-source strategies, it's here, where the molecular engines can make drastic and disastrous changes, that we need to pay attention to opening things up.
Access is the core issue. I suspect that software to model this stuff is the first place to start. Easy for me to say, I'm not a programmer!
Re:Don't buy diamonds now (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, that's about right. DeBeers' version of the "diamond age" is an impressive feat of marketing combined with agressive market control. It wasn't really that long ago that the "diamonds are a girl's best friend" meme was instilled in large portions of world culture.
But DeBeers' is hardly the only one who supports an entire industry with marketing tactics. For a real head-shaping check out "The Merchants of Cool" [pbs.org]. A rather eye-opening tutorial on modern marketing tactics, and the whole progam is available online now...
Foresight Institute (and its Guidelines), anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in 1999 the Foresight Institute released the first version of the Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology. [foresight.org]. These guidelines, interestingly enough, ended up in the US Congresses' recent (2003) bill on Molecular manufacturing / nanontechnology studies.
One point that the F.I. makes that often gets missed in discussion of nano: molecular nanotechnology != self-replicating machines. As Eric Drexler writes: "Much has been made of a concern I raised in 1986, under the name "gray goo" -- a hypothetical scenario involving runaway replicators. Building fully self-replicating machines would be difficult, however, and building machines that could replicate without external help would be more difficult still. Current work in the field shows that it will be easier and more efficient to develop molecular manufacturing without building any self-replicating machines at all."
One measure of the existence or success of a field is the jobs available in it: jobs certainly exist in 2004 [workingin-...nology.com]. By 2014 it should be really interesting. Another measure is "does the field have its equivalent of Slashdot?" Yup, Nanodot [nanodot.org].
The F.I.'s website has much good material: FAQs [foresight.org], Reviews of nano for the technical or non-technical reader [foresight.org], reviews of policy issues [foresight.org] and more. In their policy section they discuss how to avoid high-tech terrorism [foresight.org]: it involves more nano, not less. Another of their essays [foresight.org] talks about 6 lessons from 9/11 that should be applied to molecular nanotechnology:
Re:Don't buy diamonds now (Score:3, Interesting)
I "get" the idea of self-sacrifice, thus my suggestion of buying her land. Or even something useful, like a collection of her 1000 favorite DVDs. Or a car.
There's something about having a tangible thing on your hand that you can wave around at people to say "look, I'm engaged!" It's a lot harder to bring a collection of 1000 DVDs to your parents house in order to show them you're gonna get hitched. ;)
I did like the "mounting a rock from the land you bought" idea, though. That's unique and cool, along with being tangible. :)
Re:Don't buy diamonds now (Score:2, Interesting)
While we are on the subject, I agree that any self-sacrificing gift is worth while, but the point is that it should be a sacrifice. Buying jewlery that costs next to nothing because it is synthetic isn't much of a sacrifice, which is what I was trying to get at.
As for the $10K rock comment: It is just like anything else, who wouldn't want to have the best? Does a geek go out and buy the latest most expensive computer because it has the highest value, or because it grants the highest braging rights? I would guess that it is the latter. The more expensive the diamond, the more a woman can lord it over their friends (in the same good natured way that geeks lord their computer specs over their friends).
Sure, I'd blow a few grand on a trinket for my SO.
The point is that it isn't just a trinket to everyone. Why does it have to have utility to be a desireable possession?
But what does it say about her if she'd actually want me to do so?
It isn't about buying her what she wants. It is about giving a gift she doesn't expect. There should be no strings attached. Women shouldn't beg for jewlery or it doesn't mean anything anyway (it isn't very much of a gift if you have to be told to give it).
Re:Don't buy diamonds now (Score:2, Interesting)
As for the salesman comment... Maybe you have never tried to give a woman a gift that has no utility (particularly if it isn't even a special occasion), but I can tell you that it is a very easy way to brighten her day.
Please, don't network these! (Score:3, Interesting)
If this comes to pass, the next computer virus could very well kill you.
I can see the virus threat warning...
========
W64.nanodeath
Discovered on: April 2, 2044
W64.nanodeath is a mass-mailing worm that attempts to spread using mail and file-sharing networks. The worm also opens a backdoor on an infected computer.
When the worm runs, it activates all network attached Microsoft NanoFactory(TM) systems in the local area network. The affected Microsoft NanoFactory systems will randomly produce MicroSoft MicroMachines(TM) designed to do one of the following:
* Destroy human flesh
* Destroy bone matter
* Destroy human brain tissue
* Produce plush penguin toys
Also Known As: Die.MSUsers.Die, Long.Live.Linux
Type: Worm
Infection Length: varies
Systems Affected: Windows 2020, Windows 2016, Windows 2013, Windows 2010.
Systems Not Affected: Everything Else
"Total Annihilation" lesson (Score:1, Interesting)
Nanolathe solar collectors.
Nanotech itself, after boostrapping, solves its own energy problem.
Re:Sometimes I doubt... (Score:4, Interesting)
Immune systems work because viruses have an evolutionary barrier to get to anywhere the immune systems won't work (i.e., a "half metal" virus can't mutate into being; such a thing may be possible but the gulf to get there is too wide; evolution is powerful but kooky and definately not omnipotent, it does have limits and in many ways, people overestimate as much as they underestimate). Nanotech will have no such restrictions. A self-replicating plague of some kind would still be limited by what kind of elements we have in our bodies, but there's enough iron and a few other metals to make enough nano-bots to kill us... and the nanobots have all day, metaphorically speaking, because the immune system will never even see them, let alone attack them, so they can kill cells at their leisure.
Not to mention the biological judo a deliberately designed killer could apply, recruiting the body's own immune system to help.
Amused to Death (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't have to be that way though
Well, no, it doesn't, but the problem is, it can be, and almost certainly will be.
I've already talked about the religious and evolutionary perspectives, so let me talk about the political perspective. I would think this would be obvious on its face, but here we go...
The trouble with Eugenics is that it can, has, and almost certainly will again, be manipulated for political purposes. It is inevitable, I think, as long as our society continues on its current course, that it will be. I'm OK with that, actually, I'm prepared for the massive chaos and destruction we're in the process of unleashing on ourselves, and if not, oh well, that's evolution in action. But I intend to go kicking and screaming all the way. Even if resistance is futile, it's still important.
Anyway, what I'm saying is, things like this will inevitably be used to enforce some artificial standard of "normality" on the human population. The reason for this is that increasing industrialization and specialization of labor leads to increasing anomie (Durkheim). Another way of putting this is that people don't like being slaves to a faceless machine. Thus as technology increases, it will obviously be in the best interests of that machine to use technology to mould human nature to make it fit better into our way of life. This will happen, whether we like it or not, regardless of the stories we tell ourselves to reconcile ourselves to it. Mark my words, or in the words of our illustrious Governator, "hear me now and believe me later."
I have the same problem with the way we use prescription drugs. There are commercials on TV now for the use of Zoloft to treat "social anxiety disorder." I'm sure you've seen them. WTF? This used to be called "shyness." It is a character trait, and one which I find rather appealing. Now suddenly it's a disorder, and we are expected to medicate ourselves for it. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Zoloft should be illegal, people have a right to do this to themselves if they want, but I sure as hell wouldn't take it. Instead of admitting that our way of life is fundamentally incompatible with human nature, we are undertaking to simply modify human nature to fit with our way of life. We create these "disorders" by living in insanely overcrowded, mechanical, dehumanizing conditions, then we treat the symptoms with drugs.
The same thing will be done with genetic engineering. Oh, sure, it will start with the clear-cut cases, just as the use of prescription drugs in psychiatry did, things like schitzophrenia, or like surgery did, treating cancer and so forth. But then, before long, you have people going under the knife to get their voice modified so that it sounds younger. Where do you draw the line? The distinction between "good" and "bad" uses of human modification technology is, like all other distinctions, arbitrary. But in a society such as ours, it is enevitable that they will be used to keep us asleep, to keep us under control, to make us conform, so that we will fulfil our role in the machine without question and be happy little slaves.
Have you ever read "A Brave New World"?
Anyway, that's a very quick and dirty version of the argument, there's a lot more to it than that of course, but I think you can get the general idea.
"It's one of those things we wish we could un-invent" -- Nicholas Cage in "The Rock"
"This species has amused itself to death." -- Roger Waters