[extropy-chat] Nanotech educations

[Chris Phoenix]

Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
 > Chris Phoenix wrote:
 >> If we want the private sector to stay clueless, and
 >> the President's
 >> Technology Council to stay misinformed, while we
 >> wait and see which
 >> government catches on first and spends a billion to
 >> develop a
 >> nanofactory, then our current strategy is very
 >> effective.
 >
> One can't get 100% odds on these things, but I
> suspect the odds favor the American government doing
> this first, given what they're already funding.  But
> this will be once someone comes up with a solid way to
> make a nanofactory for US$1,000,000,000.00 or so,
> having formed the proposal enough that one could make
> useful budgetary projections.

Then the first step would be to spend US$1,000,000 on a crash project to 
form that proposal.  Maybe we've done that... but there's no evidence 
that we've had much reason to think it worth doing.  Especially with a 
bunch of big-name scientists running around telling everyone that MNT is 
about trying to pick up peas with boxing gloves.

> What all needs to be done to write "useful" CAD
> software?  As had been pointed out, efforts towards
> this are being made; I'd view these as components,
> while the rest of the components (and assembly into
> the final software package) would wait for the actual
> hardware.

I'm thinking about product design and manufacturing control.  These are 
not even beginning to be studied.  Maybe we can't write the final 
version of the software yet--but we can certainly write the first draft.

 >> * Similar end result: If *any* technology is able to
 >> achieve the MNT end
 >> result in the next few years, then we have to
 >> consider that the end
 >> result is imminent.
 >
> Logic error: just because something could happen
> doesn't mean it automatically will happen.  Certain
> techs could lead to MNT in the next few years.
> Doesn't mean they will, and while we can alter the
> odds somewhat, nothing we can do will give them 100%
> or 0% success rates.

I said "have to consider that," not "know that."  And "imminent" in this 
case meant "soon enough that we may not be ready," which goes beyond 
"next few years."

If we can identify, with our pitifully small amount of MNT research, a 
technology that can achieve it in only a few years, then anyone who's 
been actually working on it will very likely use that technology or 
another even easier one to achieve MNT sometime in the next five years. 
  I have to consider that imminent.

> Part of the crash project would be to discuss, as in
> iron out and nail down, the details of the technology.
> In fact, that'd possibly be the most important part.

Yep.  And who's doing that?  I can count them on one hand: Drexler, 
Merkle, Freitas, Phoenix.  JoSH Hall did some work years ago.  AFAIK, we 
have no one working on computer architectures.  No one working on 
product design (though I'm planning to).  Freitas has mainly 
concentrated on nanomedicine, Drexler on small nanosystems.

> #1: Start with two probes, rigged to be able to hold
> and release atoms.  .... then the manipulator releases
> its atom with a pulse of electricity, freeing it to
> latch onto the product.  

I'm suspecting that just releasing atoms near the product, even with 
sub-angstrom precision, would not be enough to make them bind where you 
want them.  And the idea of "holding" an atom is pretty questionable, 
except at very low temperature.

> #2: Take single atom thin layers of material, possibly
> created by deposition on an evaporatable substrate.
> Press these layers onto the product being made, and
> fire laser pulses at the substrate to knock off single
> atoms in the desired position.  

Laser beams are a lot wider than atoms.  I guess you could do it with 
ebeams, but I'm not sure they're down to atomic precision yet.  And this 
still sounds like a way to deposit amorphous unbonded stuff, rather than 
eutactic molecules.

 >> [Is nano-anarchy survivable?]
> .... if a general purpose molecular
> assembler and replicator capable of doing everything
> described in Nanosystems were to be developed this
> year and appear, without any legislative controls that
> do not apply to most types of physical property, for
> sale at under $100/gram at retail hardware stores ....
 > [plus software]
> 
> Long winded, but before I explain my reasoning behind
> that conclusion, does that meet your definition of
> nano-anarchy?

Yes.

If you're going to argue that people will be able to get out into space, 
I tentatively agree that that's plausible and would increase the chances 
that at least a few humans will survive.  Wouldn't guarantee it, since 
the people on earth would likely be paranoid and it's hard for a 
spacecraft to outrun a laser.

But my definition of "survivable" doesn't include the death of 95% of 
the human race.

> You mean oppression by those using nanotechnology
> against those who don't?  I'd agree there's a
> significant danger that that will happen, somewhere.
> I wouldn't agree that it's likely that fate would
> befall a large fraction of humanity, whether in the
> industrialized nations that could produce MNT (since
> the oppressed would also know how, and soon enough
> gain their own)

Not if the oppression were severe enough!  That's why I said the slope 
is near-vertical.  We Americans don't have any concept how bad 
oppression can get.  It's quite common for new regimes to simply kill 
intellectuals en masse.  And nano-enabled oppression could be a lot 
worse than Stalin (killed millions of his own people) or Mao (Cultural 
Revolution).  I don't think "the oppressed" would have much chance of 
"gaining their own" if they were chemically lobotomized, or denied 
access to electricity, chemistry, and biology.

 > We're just talking the about availability of MNT
 > here, not the intelligence to effectively clamp down
 > on its use.

Destruction doesn't take a lot of intelligence.  An unintelligent 
paranoid person in charge of MNT could easily wipe out the world's 
ability to bootstrap to MNT, if he didn't care how much infrastructure 
he destroyed.

> I'm thinking that practical efforts, in today's
> political climate, would wind up being closer to the
> stem cell funding ban than to the ABM treaty.

Then we need better policymaking.

> Besides, the ABM treaty was a deal between the only
> two significant sources of nuclear weapons at the
> time.  There are how many labs researching nanotech
> these days?  And not all of them will respond to
> international treaties - indeed, a few of them are
> probably acting in deliberate defiance of local laws.

I'm not arguing that anti-nano treaties are a good thing.  Just that 
agreements on how to guide/limit R&D&deployment *can* be a good thing.

 >> Someone got their stories *really* mixed up, to the
 >> point of
 >> irresponsibility or even lying.

> No, the sources you gave are consistent with what I
> heard.  They weren't talking about the rat story, just
> the fish.  From:
> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-03/acs-ob031904.php
> What they don't say is how this "exposure" happened:
> direct injection into the fish throats.  I recall
> hearing concerns that the injection completely
> blocked the throat; correlating to the description
> above, it sounds like they were concerned the
> buckyballs weren't the only thing in that injection,
> or that the balls formed a semi-solid despite the low
> dose and water solubility.

The research writeup is at: 
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2004/7021/7021.html

"I exposed fish in groups of either three larger fish (control and 0.5 
ppm nC60) or four smaller fish (1 ppm nC60) per 10-L aquarium containing 
7 L exposure water. To avoid aggressive interactions, I used smaller 
fish in the 1-ppm exposure aquaria to allow more space for individual 
fish. For aquaria with three fish, the fish were physically separated 
from one another with glass dividers. Vigorous aeration assured that 
water flowed freely between all three compartments.

Water quality. A 30% water volume change and redosing was performed 
after 24 hr. At that point, it was apparent that the water was visibly 
more clear in the aquaria dosed with nC60 and H2O2 than in the control 
aquaria."

That makes it pretty clear that the buckyballs were in the water, not 
injected into the fish throats.  There's something very fishy here, and 
it's not the carp.

 >> what,
 >> she shouldn't have talked to colleagues?  Or they
 >> should have kept the
 >> press out of the meeting?
 >
> The latter, if either.  It was the press that altered
> the details so that what they said failed to match
> reality, no?  

Um, no.  The articles I saw looked pretty reasonable.  They said the 
buckyballs had significant effects, but they also quoted the researcher 
as saying this should stimulate more studies, not a ban.  I don't 
remember any glaring factual errors.  Read the original scientific 
article, and see who's failing to match reality.

> Oh, they realize that.  That's why the study was done
> in the first place.  But there's a wide difference
> between identifying and dealing rationally with
> dangers, and slapping on the Precautionary Principle
> to ban an entire industry.

I think the only people calling for that are a few extremists.

 >> And the most likely and appropriate response to the
 >> initial studies is... more studies.  Not a big risk.
> 
> Ah...that's different from what I thought you were
> arguing for.  Yes, more studies are a good idea.  I
> thought you were arguing for passing laws right now to
> ban certain activities or the like.

No!  Passing laws right now?  When we don't even know what outcomes are 
stable?  Bleah...

> Only 32%, and I'd say you're being generous with the
> chance of arms race and unstable arms race.  (Who
> would we have an arms race with, for starters?  The
> whole world's playing technological catch up to the US
> military as it is.)

If we don't start targeted work on molecular manufacturing in the next 
five years, I think any of half a dozen countries starting today could 
give us a run for our money.  If they started when Nanosystems came out, 
we may already be behind.  We lead in high-tech conventional weaponry 
and manufacturing capacity.  These will not matter much in a nanofactory 
world.

> And an unstable arms race would
> not necessarily invoke WWIII.

Um, by definition...

Well, OK, WWIII has lots of connotations that may not apply.  And in 
fact I don't know how a nano-enabled war would play out.  We need to 
know more about what kinds of products (weapons) can be quickly 
designed, built, and deployed.  But it may be that the easiest way to 
hurt the other side will be to kill large numbers of their civilians.

> And given the US
> tendency towards smart weapons, if WWIII does seem
> imminent, what's the chance one side or the other will
> simply assassinate the leaders to encourage regime
> change (and suceed at it), thereby making total
> casualties under 1,000?  And, and, and...

The leaders would be very well protected.

 >> So I'm
 >> predicting at least 3 million statistical deaths
 >> from just one tiny
 >> consequence of molecular manufacturing.
> 
> Balanced against how many lives saved due to improved
> medicine?  And lost from other consequences?

War will be more or less orthogonal to medicine.  (Hasn't always been... 
different this time...)  I'm not saying molecular manufacturing is bad. 
  I'm saying that it could lead to avoidable disasters.

> I question the applicability of the numbers.  They
> only seem to capture a tiny portion of the big
> picture.  But it is the big picture that matters: will
> a certain action cause more deaths than its absence?

1) My calculation was an example of how to calculate a piece of 
nano-risk, not an overview of nano-risk.  Obviously a single scenario 
considered in isolation is not a basis for policy.

2) Three million was the minimum; a nano-war could just as easily kill 
half a billion people.  I hope that's not a tiny portion of the big picture!

 > ... immediate studies are good.

Glad you agree.  Now... why is no one doing them, and how can we change 
that?

Chris

-- 
Chris Phoenix                                  cphoenix at CRNano.org
Director of Research
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology          http://CRNano.org