[extropy-chat] Smalley, Drexler and the monster in Lake Michigan

[Robin Hanson]

On 12/7/2003 Eugen* Leitl  wrote:
> > 2) If neither Drexler (and associates) nor Smalley (and associates) were to
> > *accept* the burden of proof scientifically what happens by default
> > politically?
>
>The Nobel "what's this purple crap in soxhleted soot?" laureate wins by 
>default</duh>

It's worse than that actually.  My strong impression from the recent NNI 
conference I just attended is that even if Drexler had the Nobel prize, 
Smalley's position would still win.

The key dynamic is government agencies perceive that "nanobots" have been 
associated in the public mind with possible big dangers, and they'd rather 
avoid any such association with dangers.  So they want to declare that 
"nanobots" are impossible, with no more specific common definition of what 
the impossible things are than whatever it is that the public is afraid 
of.  As long as respectable scientists can be recruited who say they are 
impossible, this is the position the government agencies will take.  And 
given the vast money available, it was pretty sure that some respectable 
scientists would be found to take this position.

Given all this, they key political "mistake" was to publicly create a 
vision of nanotech that included possible big dangers.  Given this initial 
choice, it was pretty much determined that this vision would never get 
government funding.  Of course it could still have been the right thing to 
do to warn the world about the dangers.  It should just have been realized 
(given 20/20 hindsight of course) that this would preclude any direct 
government funding.

An irony is that it was the exciting vision, including both dangers and 
great promise, that created enough public interest to make politicians 
think of creating a special research program, and to make those politicians 
want to explicitly require that there be some study of the social 
implications of this technology.  Given the way this plays out, the studies 
they actually do of social implications will explicitly exclude all 
scenarios that they think have anything to do with the declared impossible 
dangerous nanobots.




Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323