Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech

[Robin Hanson]

On 11/13/2003, Chris Phoenix responded to my post of 11/10:
> > An easy simple opinion to have is that nanotech won't have much in the way
> > of specific social implications.  In this view, manufacturing will slowly
> > become more precise and more automated, as it has for centuries, and so the
> > social implications of nanotech are subsumed by the social implications of
> > generally improving tech, and any specific products that enables.
>
>An argument against this view:  Different technologies can be improved
>at different speeds.  Computers really took off when the transistor was
>invented; they couldn't have done it with vacuum tubes.  So this view is
>effectively arguing that nanotech will not invent any significant new
>manufacturing technique that can be improved rapidly or that provides a
>useful discontinuity like the difference between digital and analog
>computation.

Well of course its a matter of degree.  But compared to many claims made for
discontinuities induced by nanotech, computers were a pretty smooth transition.
Computers have of course been an important component of innovation, and some
specific social issues now arise from some of the specific products that
computers now make possible.  And some argue that we can understand some of
the macroeconomic dynamics of the last few decades in terms of PCs making
previous capital more obsolete than is usually the case.  But overall
computer tech progress has been relatively steady.

> > .... and most consumer goods are produced locally
> > on PGMDs, via downloaded designs and a few general feedstocks.   A
> > variation on this position posits that PGMDs can produce more PGMDs
> > relatively quickly.  And a refinement of this position posits that such
> > self-reproducing PGMDs dramatically lowers costs relative to technology
> > available just prior to this point.
>
>I'm not aware of any proposal for mechanochemistry-based PGMD's
>(MBPGMD's) that does not posit the MBPGMD being able to rapidly
>duplicate its structure. ... call this "autoproductive" ...
>Your phrasing makes it sound like there is a range of positions, but can
>you cite any source for them?  Or are they your invention?  If the
>latter, I think they will not serve you well, because I doubt that a
>non-autoproductive MBPGMD is technically  plausible, much less
>economically plausible, since you probably can't build a human-scale
>MBPGMD without bootstrapping it from a much smaller one.

The Royal Society of London just came out with a report saying nanotech
is possible, but that most of their advisors say self-reproduction is not.
I've just read a bunch of recent reports on nanotech, and I've been listening
to nanotech debates for a decade now, where a common theme is the feasibility
and ubiquity of self-reproduction, among people who grant that atom-scale
precision is possible.  The influential novel "Diamond Age" describes a world
where most people do not have access to self-reproducing devices, though
they do have access to capable PGMDs.  Drexler and the Foresight Institute
have been trying to downplay the role of self-replication for some time now.

I am struggling to clarify and identify the differing assumptions that
different people are making, and place them in economic terms to support
economic analysis.  *I'M OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS*, though I'm running out of
time for this round.  How would you describe the differing assumptions,
making them as explicit as possible, and trying not to assume everyone
who disagree with you is an idiot?

> > 2.  A big question is by what factor general manufacturing devices are less
> > efficient than specialized manufacturing devices, either in terms of
> > production time, material waste, or final product quality.
>
>Don't compare apples and oranges.  That's like asking by what factor
>digital computers are less efficient than analog computers.  Digital
>computers can do things that analog computers simply can't.

My point was just that if digital computers had been too inefficient in
emulating analog ones, then we'd still be making analog ones.

> > While many manufacturing plants today
> > are highly automated, it may cost quite a lot to produce designs for fully
> > automated production processes.  So design costs may be a lot higher.
>
>Or it may cost quite a bit less.  You don't have to retrain your
>workers.  You don't have to pay workers to retool your machines. ...

Those are not design costs.

> > 4.  The manufacturing fraction of the cost of most consumer goods today is
> > rather small (15%), and only part (~1/3) of those manufacturing costs now
> > are the physical capital, rather than labor and design.  So it is not clear
> > how just lowering those manufacturing costs will have a huge effect on the
> > economy.
>
>Um, why are you not counting the labor cost as a saving?
>And what about transportation costs, warehousing, the costs of
>compensating for uncertain and delayed supply chains?  ...

When I said "just lowering those ... costs" I meant just the costs I was
focusing on there, the cost of physical capital for manufacturing.



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