[extropy-chat] Nanotech educations

[Chris Phoenix]

Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> --- Chris Phoenix <cphoenix at CRNano.org> wrote:
>> Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
>>> http://www.foresight.org/MolecularMachineSymposium/index.html#Topics
>> 
>> Most of this is fundamental research and enabling
>> technologies.  This 
>> technical symposium is being pretty near-term:
> 
> True, and they have to be.  Supporting tech, by
> definition, has to be developed before the final thing
> can be developed.

But what you're calling supporting tech is only one of several branches 
that lead to the final thing.  Each branch alone looks semi-useless, so 
is being pursued slowly and haphazardly.

I used to think that if no one did anything targeted at MNT until the 
project could be finished for a million bucks, we'd have MNT around 
2030.  Now I think it's more like 2020.  But we could have done it by 
2005.  It could still be done well before 2010.  Where "it" is a 
kg-scale factory making kg-scale products in less than a day.

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.

>> CAD systems that can allow us to design with sub-molar 
>> numbers of machines.  And I suspect at this point, 
>> it's CAD that'll turn out to be the limiting factor
>> in how quickly MNT can be developed.
> 
> ...?  I'm finding AutoCAD works just fine for laying
> out my designs, if I treat it like computer art (using
> discrete pixel elements in 2D/3D arrangements; a
> consequence of what they call "Manhattan geometry")
> and I've only about 125 * 10^6 atoms - far less than a
> mole - per voxel.  
> 
> Or did you mean something else?

Yes.  You're designing in bulk, not eutactically.  Several electrostatic 
motor/generators could fit inside one of your 100-nm voxels.  Even a 
microcontroller might fit.  When we can build eutactically, we'll want 
to be able to specify those devices, placing them with much better than 
100-nm precision.  We'll want to bookkeep their functionality--something 
that AutoCAD can't do.  We'll also want to build much bigger products 
than whatever you're working on.  A liter product would have 10^18 of 
your voxels.  I doubt AutoCAD could handle that.

> * that will be achieved surprisingly soon: fully
> fledged MNT probably won't be developed in the next
> year or two.  Sooner than people would predict,
> perhaps, but it doesn't look like we can leap to it
> right now.

Year or two, I agree (assuming no one's started already, 12 years after 
Nanosystems and 18 after Engines and 23 after Drexler's PNAS paper).

But writing useful CAD software could take five years.

>  Unless you have a specific technical
> architecture in mind which could be done with today's
> technology...and I can think of at least a
> couple...but those should be discussed as separate,
> specific projects, succeeding or failing on their own
> merits rather than just because or their similar end
> result.

Let's break this down into parts. :-)

* Succeeding or failing on their own merits:  I agree that their 
technical success is not determined by their desirability.  However, 
their economic success is.  If you can build a single Merkle "assembler" 
for $10^7, it's worth doing.

* 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.  At that point, we can stop talking about the 
details of the technology (while funding a crash project to develop it) 
and simply talk about the implications of exponential manufacturing of 
high-performance products.

Can you tell me about the architectures you've thought of?

>> I think this will delay MNT.  And make it happen
>> more abruptly and 
>> proliferate less controllably when it does arrive.
> 
> The former is bad; the latter, frankly, is arguably a
> good thing.

I arguably dis/agree with you.  We don't know whether it's a good thing. 
  We should start working on how to figure it out.  There are things we 
could do to reduce or increase the shock, and reduce or increase the 
control.

If you think that nano-anarchy is survivable, then I'd definitely argue 
with you.  If not, then we should both be pushing hard for studies in 
how to avoid it.

Maybe we can also agree that nano-oppression is a near-vertical slippery 
slope.  And one that we're arguably likely to step on.

>> In these comparisons of feasibility and timeline,
>> what cost and time are 
>> they claiming for MNT?  Or are they simply engaging
>> in rhetoric?
> 
> Mostly rhetoric, since they don't have timelines for
> MNT - though they do point out that the fact that they
> have timelines for their alternatives means that said
> alternatives are probably closer to reality.

That's just more rhetoric.  If you know where your next grant is coming 
from, it's a lot easier to make a timeline.

Molecular manufacturing is so fundamentally simple that it would not 
take much characterization to develop it.  It's more architecture and 
engineering than science at this point.

>> Identify ways we can hurt ourselves with it, and
>> take whatever actions 
>> are necessary to avoid the worst dangers.
> 
> I definitely disagree, then, based on the results to
> date of attempts to do so.  But only directly with the
> taking action part of it.

Hm... Which attempts are you thinking of?  I'm thinking of various 
anti-proliferation and pro-communication and pro-stability measures that 
have been taken to reduce the nuclear threat.  Do you think the ABM 
treaty did not make things more stable?

>>Planning would involve first, analyzing
>> the danger in more 
>> detail, and second (if it turns out that the danger
>> is significant) 
>> figuring out ways not to get into that situation.
> 
> At the NNI conference, an example of such an effort
> was detailed.  Someone did a toxicology study on
> buckyballs, reporting that injecting them into fish
> throats until the throats were blocked off had harmful
> effects on the fish.  (Well, *yeah*.  Most solids or
> liquids will do that.)  

Someone got their stories *really* mixed up, to the point of 
irresponsibility or even lying.  The respiratory study was done on rats. 
  And they found that buckytubes had a lung blocking effect that they'd 
never seen before.
http://www.nasvf.org/web/allpress.nsf/pages/8351

The fish study was done with buckyballs, and found that moderate 
concentrations of buckyballs caused lipid damage in fish brains.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-03/acs-ob031904.php

 > The press reported it as, to
> paraphrase, "NANOSTUFF IS TOXIC!!!"  

Well, *yeah*.  Most press will do that. :-)

The fish researcher reported her pilot-study findings at a scientific 
meeting.  The press picked up on it.  She was widely castigated for 
having talked about it at all.  I think this was inappropriate; what, 
she shouldn't have talked to colleagues?  Or they should have kept the 
press out of the meeting?

> The result was
> seen as not harmful to overall nanotech research only
> because no legislation had come of it.

Is that the main lesson they learned?  That they dodged a bullet by 
avoiding legislation?  Gaah.  They might realize that they're playing 
with new kinds of chemicals, and some fraction of them *will* be 
significantly toxic, maybe even with new mechanisms, and they should be 
thinking about how to deal with that reality.  Not shooting or even 
silencing the messengers.

And the fact is, nano industry has not been nearly cautious enough in 
some areas.  Selling nanoparticles of titanium dioxide to put on baby's 
skins is DUMB.  Even if it turns out (which we have no way of knowing 
yet) that those particular nanoparticles are no more dangerous than, 
say, silicone breast implants, as a business move it's very, very dumb. 
  (Of course, now that they've done it, stopping it may be an even 
dumber business move, since that would appear to indicate known danger. 
  Bleah.)

> In other words, identifying possible dangers as we
> come to know about them is a good thing.  Acting on
> the possible threats before we have enough data is
> not.  If planning causes action before we can be
> reasonably certain of the exact nature of the threat,
> and our only control over the action is whether to do
> the planning that causes it not, then don't plan.
 >
> (And yes, I realize this is kind of the Precautionary
> Principle, subverted to extropian ends.  The irony is
> not lost on me. ^_^; )

Then you'll have already seen my counter-argument coming.  Even if the 
exact nature of the threat is not known, if we have good reason to think 
that a threat exists, we should take action to avoid it.  In the case of 
nanoparticles, the threat is mostly too diffuse to act on, except with 
diverse studies ASAP (a good idea for several reasons).  But in the case 
of molecular manufacturing, the threat appears quite large and 
well-defined.  And the most likely and appropriate response to the 
initial studies is... more studies.  Not a big risk.

>> We can know with pretty good confidence that certain
>> things will become 
>> techincally possible.  Like, the
>> avionics/electronics for a jetliner 
>> will weigh less than 10 kg and cost less than $200.
>>  From this, we can predict that certain things which
>> are stable today 
>> will become unstable.  And if one of those things is
>> geopolitics, then 
>> we might want to make a plan for a new way of doing
>> geopolitics.
> 
> But by the time you get this far in practice, you've
> made so many assumptions that - if you look at the
> volume of assumptions - you can't have pretty good
> confidence in this result.

OK, let's hash this out.  Advanced cheap avionics within 10 years: 80% 
certain.  Arms race based on this: 50% likely.  Arms race will go 
unstable: I'm guessing another 80%.  Overall chance of geopolitical 
instability from this one chain of reasoning: 32%.  These percentages 
are based on my thinking about this for years.  My main uncertainty is 
the 50% chance of arms race.

People likely to die in WWIII: between 10 million and 1 billion.  So I'm 
predicting at least 3 million statistical deaths from just one tiny 
consequence of molecular manufacturing.  I have pretty good confidence 
that the problem will be at least that bad.  And there are many other 
problems of comparable magnitude.

Now, are you arguing that the best strategy is to ignore what I just 
said, rather than working to verify or criticize my numbers?  At what 
point would you change that strategy?

>> I
>> think we have 
>> enough of a clue to do at least some of our homework
>> in advance.
> 
> A little, perhaps.  Study and observe.  Just don't let
> the studies slide into action before they're ready.

Can we at least agree on the value of making contingency plans?  So that 
if events start validating a model which predicts disaster, we know what 
we need to tweak to avoid it?

> Ah, but solutions for the old reactions have already
> been developed, no?  Like the arms race: develop
> defenses ASAP once the nature of the threat is known
> (and thus defenses can be developed); until then,
> study the potential threat to determine it's nature.

In an arms race, defenses are not always stabilizing.  Developing 
defenses ASAP may make things worse.

>> You don't think it's possible to identify likely
>> instabilities and 
>> vicious cycles, and work to steer clear of them?
> 
> Possible, yes.  Advisable *at this time*, no, based on
> an analysis of previous instabilities/vicious cycles
> caused by premature efforts to do so.

Examples?  And note that I'm not proposing immediate action; I'm 
proposing immediate study.  If the study shows that we're obviously 
running off a cliff, *and* shows enough of the surrounding topology to 
show an alternate path, then I'd propose action; but it's too early to 
tell what action will save us.

Chris

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