The Smaller the Better - Part Two
Gray Goo
The second nanotechnology risk that worries ETC Group activists is runaway self-replication. Mooney points to a scenario suggested by Eric Drexler himself in The Engines of Creation: Self-replicating nanobots get out of control and spread exponentially across the landscape, destroying everything in their path by converting it into copies of themselves. In this scenario, the biosphere is transformed by rampaging nanobots into "gray goo."
But according to Nobelist Richard Smalley, "Self-replicating nanorobots like those envisioned by Eric Drexler are simply impossible to make." Mihail Roco likewise dismisses such nanobots as "sci fi," insisting there is "common agreement among scientists that they cannot exist."
Drexler replies, reasonably enough, that we know nanoassembly is possible because that’s what living things do. Cells, using little machines such as ribosomes, mitochondria, and enzymes, precisely position molecules, store and access assembly instructions, and produce energy. Some have quipped that biology is nanotechnology that works.
As that analogy suggests, there is a close affinity between nanotechnology and biotechnology. "The separation between nanotechnology and biotechnology is almost nonexistent," said Minoo Dastoor, a senior adviser in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Office of Aerospace Technology, at the National Nanotechnology Initiative’s conference in April. For future missions, NASA needs machines that are resilient, evolvable, self-sufficient, ultra-efficient, and autonomous. "Biology seems to be able to do all these things very elegantly and efficiently," noted Dastoor. "The wet world of biology and the dry world of nanotechnology will have to live side by side and merge."
The fact is that no one has yet definitively shown that Drexler’s vision of molecular manufacturing using nanoassemblers is impossible. So let’s suppose Smalley and Roco are wrong, and such nanobots are possible. How dangerous would self-replicating nanobots be? One of the ironies of the debate over regulation of nanotechnology is that it was nanotech boosters like Drexler who first worried about such risks. To address potential dangers such as the uncontrolled self-replication envisioned in his gray goo scenario, Drexler and others founded the Foresight Institute in 1989. Over the years, Foresight devised a set of guidelines aimed at preventing mishaps like a gray goo breakout.
Among other things, the Foresight guidelines propose that nanotech replicators "must not be capable of replication in a natural, uncontrolled environment." This could be accomplished, the guidelines suggest, by designing devices so that they have an "absolute dependence on a single artificial fuel source or artificial ‘vitamins’ that don’t exist in any natural environment." So if some replicators should get away, they would simply run down when they ran out of fuel. Another proposal is that self-replicating nanotech devices be "dependent on broadcast transmissions for replication or in some cases operation." That would put human operators in complete control of the circumstances under which nanotech devices could replicate. One other sensible proposal is that devices be programmed with termination dates. Like senescent cells in the human body, such devices would stop working and self-destruct when their time was up.
"The moratorium is not a new proposal," says Foresight Institute President Christine Peterson. "Eric Drexler considered that idea a long time ago in The Engines of Creation and dismissed it as not a safe option. With a moratorium, we, the good guys, are going to be sitting on our hands. It’s very risky to let the bad guys be the ones developing the technology. To do arms control on nanotechnology, you’d better have better nanotechnology than the bad guys."
Software entrepreneur Ray Kurzweil is confident that nanotech defenses against uncontrolled replication will be stronger than the abilities to replicate. Citing our current ability to reduce computer viruses to nuisances, Kurzweil argues that we will be even more vigilant against a technology that could kill if uncontrolled.
Smalley suggests we can learn how to control nanotech by looking at biology. The natural world is filled with self-replicating systems. In a sense, living things are "green goo." We already successfully defend ourselves against all kinds of self-replicating organisms that try to kill us, such as cholera, malaria, and typhoid. "What do we do about biological systems right now?" says Smalley. "I don’t see that it’s any different from biotechnology. We can make bacteria and viruses that have never existed before, and we’ll handle [nanobots] the same way."
Nanotech theorist Robert Freitas has written a study, "Some Limits to Global Ecophagy by Biovorous Nano-replicators With Public Policy Recommendations," which concludes that all "scenarios examined appear to permit early detection by vigilant monitoring, thus enabling rapid deployment of effective defensive instrumentalities." Frei-tas persuasively argues that dangerous self-replicating nanobots could not emerge from laboratory accidents but would have to be made on purpose using very sophisticated technologies that would take years to develop.
Magic Monopolies
Nanofactories would be magic boxes that could produce whatever a person desired. A world of nanotech abundance would be highly disruptive: If material needs could be satisfied at the touch of a button, who would have to work? Who would own the nanofactories? How would people pay for items produced by nanotechnology? If nanotech works, big changes are in store.
Not surprisingly, the ETC Group’s worries in this connection are chiefly egalitarian, specifically that nanotechnology will increase the power of corporations and governments while further immiserating the poor. Yet the new technologies that have been developed during the last two centuries -- antibiotics, electricity, telephony -- have greatly benefited billions, and the main economic problem in the world is that billions are still too poor to gain access to them. Furthermore, new technologies tend to be safer than the ones they replace.
Let’s consider a couple of dystopic nanotech visions outlined by University of Saskatchewan sociologist Michael Mehta, an ETC Group sympathizer: "nanopanopticism" and "nanomercantilism."
The philosopher Jeremy Bentham imagined an architecture for a prison he called the Panopticon. In Bentham’s prison all the cells are open to surveillance by a single guard hidden in a tower at the center. The idea is that prisoners would behave themselves because they could never be sure they were not being watched. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how nanotechnology could shrink video cameras and microphones while vastly expanding the ability to record and store information. In fact, this trend seems unavoidable in the long run. Such technology solely in the hands of governments and corporations would be oppressive.
Mehta, of course, recommends the creation of new regulatory agencies to control nanotechnology and the enactment of new privacy laws to protect against the advent of nanopanopticism. In his 1998 book The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?, science fiction writer and futurist David Brin suggests another way to handle intrusive surveillance: make sure the watchers are watched. Brin persuasively argues that if spies know they are likely to be observed, they will be more restrained. Along with invisible spy devices, nanotechnology will give us tiny sensors that tell people when they’re under surveillance. Such spy countermeasures also might inhibit or destroy surveillance devices that approach too closely. There is an added benefit for those who worry that someone might abuse nanotechnology. In a truly transparent society, would-be terrorists who try to build dangerous replicators would always know someone could be monitoring them. In other words, nanopanopticism would deter misbehavior rather than encourage it.
Mehta’s other concern is nanomercantilism. He suggests that once a country developed the capability for molecular manufacturing using nanoassemblers, it would lose its incentive to trade. There would be no need to trade raw materials because the feedstocks for nanofactories would be derived from ubiquitous substances such as dirt and air.
In another scenario, Mehta suggests that a nation with nanofactories would become so powerful that it could reduce the rest of the world to the status of colonies. Perhaps the countries or companies that develop assembler technology would build assemblers in other countries and sell licenses to manufacture various objects. Such a world would be a true information economy, with trade consisting chiefly of blueprints for products. Or countries might not want to give assemblers to other countries, in which case assembler products might be modeled on software that works only when a license fee is paid. If the licenses were not renewed, the products would stop working or fall apart.
Like the ETC Group, Mehta evidently believes the creators of assembler technology will want to manufacture artificial scarcities to keep or expand their power or to maintain certain social institutions. Perhaps so. But once it is known that building assemblers is possible, other countries and companies no doubt will embark on crash programs to create their own nanofactories. Assuming that nanofactories really can provide people with anything they need and want, why would anyone care to block access to them by others? To the extent that competition and status seeking are inherent in human nature, those drives in a world of nanotech abundance will have to be satisfied in new ways.
Dangerous Caution
To address the social and economic effects of nanotechnology, the ETC Group is proposing a sweeping international effort to regulate and control its development. "Extreme care should be taken that, unlike with biotech, society does not lose control of this technology," warns Mooney. For the ETC Group, raising health and environmental concerns about nanomaterials and nanobots is mainly a delaying tactic. "The biggest concern really is that with a technology as powerful as this one, society has a role in deciding how it can and will be used," says Mooney. "This is going to have a profound effect on people’s lives. Let people know that their jobs are going to be taken away."
In an April report on nanotechnology, the ETC Group declares: "The international community must begin work on a legally binding mechanism to govern atomtechnology, based on the Precautionary Principle, one that will look beyond laboratory research to consider the wider health, socioeconomic and environmental implications of nanoscale technologies....This protocol should be embedded in one or more of the relevant United Nations agencies....Ultimately, ETC Group believes that the international regulations for atomtechnology should be incorporated under a new International Convention for the Evaluation of New Technologies (ICENT)."
The framework for ICENT’s evaluation of new technologies would be the Precautionary Principle. As the ETC Group explains, "The Precautionary Principle says that governments have a responsibility to take preventive action to avoid harm to human health or the environment, even before scientific certainty of the harm has been established. Under the Precautionary Principle it is the proponent of a new technology, rather than the public, that bears the burden of proof." Greenpeace’s Douglas Parr also advocates using the Precautionary Principle to regulate the development of nanotechnology.
The Precautionary Principle can be summarized as "never do anything for the first time." (See "Precautionary Tale," April 1999.) The chief problem with the Precautionary Principle is that it encourages the natural conservatism of our species. People far more easily imagine the harms new developments might bring than the benefits. But history clearly demonstrates that the benefits of modern technology have far outweighed the harms. "Basically, people who support the strong Precautionary Principle say, ‘We don’t care if we throw the baby out with the bathwater,’" says the Foresight Institute’s Peterson. "They don’t want any risks, so they are willing to forgo the benefits."
The ETC Group also wants nanotechnology regulation to be "transparent, democratic and involve those who are potentially adversely affected by new technologies." That last proviso might have given whale oil entrepreneurs the power to veto electric lighting or allowed mimeograph machine manufacturers to nix photocopiers. When asked about how Michael Faraday, the inventor of the electric motor, might have fared under an ICENT evaluation, Mooney doesn’t blink. It would "have been great if we had had a societal discussion about the impact of electricity," he says. "Someone might have said, ‘This is going to be hell on horses.’"
An effective ICENT would have an effect opposite from the one the ETC Group imagines. By forbidding the spread of a technology that could end hunger, homelessness, and pollution, ICENT would in effect force poor people to remain in their traditional menial jobs while preserving corporate profits.
Mehta agrees with the ETC Group. He points to the automobile as a transformative and disruptive technology. "In the late 1800s, 85 to 90 percent of vehicles were electric," he says. "If we had had a regulatory authority that could have made the decision to go with electric instead of internal combustion engines and the power to enforce it, we would be in a different world and would have avoided a lot of later problems like urban sprawl....In 1900 people didn’t have a sensitivity to social issues or a well-developed social science. We can’t risk the same thing with nanotechnology, which could accelerate social injustice."
It’s not clear on what basis such an authority would have opted for electric cars over internal combustion engines. Electric cars were and are more expensive than cars fueled by gasoline. If only electric cars had been permitted, we might be living in a world where people were much poorer, more crowded, and suffering from heavy metal poisoning from lead/acid batteries. Ironically, it may well be nanotechnology that finally ushers in the age of affordable electric automobiles by making possible more-efficient batteries or better fuel cells.
ICENT Assent
The ETC Group’s ICENT proposal is starting to be taken seriously. Committees of both the European Parliament and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization have called for the adoption of an ICENT. "ICENT would have the power to conduct analyses of the economic impacts, the effects on labor, on restructuring society," says Mooney. "ICENT would examine all scientific, economic and social issues of any new technology." Mooney argues that ICENT would improve our ability to forecast the effects of new technologies.
The track record for social, economic, and technological forecasting by experts is not very encouraging. Consider the notorious 1972 Club of Rome study The Limits to Growth and President Carter’s Global 2000 report, both of which predicted that humanity would run out of a wide variety of natural resources by now. Or take Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich’s prediction that hundreds of millions of people would starve to death in massive famines in the 1970s. Such forecasts are not harmless. The predictions in the 1970s that the world would soon run out of oil, for instance, resulted in the creation of the expensive and polluting Synfuels program.
Corporations aren’t any better at forecasting than government agencies. In 1876 a Western Union internal memo concluded, "This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." In 1943 IBM CEO Thomas Watson famously predicted there would be a global demand for perhaps five computers.
Over the short term, nanotechnology will seem less odd than the telephone or the computer did. It will simply be incorporated into products that we already know how to use: computers, cameras, clothing, cars. It will make them function better and more cheaply. By contrast, a full-fledged nanotechnology, especially if molecular assemblers can be built, will disrupt all kinds of social and economic processes. Yet there is no reason to believe that humanity will be unable to cope with what is coming.
As for unintended consequences, someday something will go wrong with nanotechnology, as it has with electricity, cars, and computers. But we shouldn’t deny ourselves the benefits of a new technology just because we cannot foresee every consequence. We should proceed by trial and error and ameliorate problems as they arise. That’s how the dramatic progress humanity has seen during the last two centuries was accomplished. If an ICENT had existed in the 19th century, we probably would still be riding horses, using candles for lighting, cooking on wood stoves, and gulping whiskey for anesthesia.
Mooney comes close to celebrating the emancipating possibilities offered by the new technologies he fears. Yet he seems almost wistful for a time when he and many others believed ecological and economic collapse was imminent. "We have lived so long by the assumptions of The Limits to Growth, it is hard to contemplate alternative possibilities," he writes. "If nanotech does work, we might console ourselves with the knowledge that we were not really wrong all this time, it is just that The Limits to Growth have been postponed a few billion years....If nanotechnology is commercialized successfully, Armageddon may have to be put on the back burner."
Armageddon may indeed be postponed indefinitely, but only if, with due caution, we leave human genius free to harvest the fruits of technological progress.
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