Re: Nanobots Not Needed

From: Jim Logajan (JamesL_at_lugoj.com)
Date: 03/05/05 

Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 07:03:21 -0000

jsn@panix.com (John S. Novak, III) wrote:
> In article <d08gdc01923@enews4.newsguy.com>, Mike Treder, CRN wrote:
>
> Um. One hates to come off sounding rude or snarky, but... is this the
> whole document?

I'm afraid I had a reaction similar to John's. I agree with all his
comments and the best I can do is rephrase some of his objections and
throw in some of my own observations and opinionated opinions:

>> Nanobots Not Needed
>
>> SUMMARY: The popular idea of so-called nanobots, powerful and at risk
>> of running wild, is not part of modern plans for building things
>> "atom-by-atom" by molecular manufacturing.

John's already cited research efforts that void the claim that nanobots
aren't part of "modern plans". I'll just add that *I* still consider
"nanobots" part of the plan. The only aspect of the CRN release that I
can agree with is the implication that the "risk of running wild" is what
drives some of the fear of nanotechnology. But, as John notes, what
matters is who is afraid.

>> Nanobots are not needed for manufacturing,

Nanotechnology of *any sort* isn't needed for manufacturing. Neither is a
knowledge of quantum mechanics, since the industrial revolution was born
prior to either one of these things. It isn't until you get specific
about the problems you want to address if you had control at the
molecular level that the need for nanobots can be addressed.
Manufacturing, per se, is probably a Red Herring when it comes to
addressing the benefits and risks of nanotechnology.

>> Nanobots have plagued nanotechnology from the beginning.

I wonder, was the double entendre in that sentence intended or
accidental? ;-)

> I have no further comments on the rest of your paper, but I include
> the rest of it for the convenience of other readers.

Thanks - I have a few more comments.

>> No one worries about an inkjet printer crawling off the desk and
>> stealing ink cartridges. Molecular manufacturing systems will be no
>> more autonomous than inkjets. Early, primitive, microscopic systems
>> will not even have onboard computers. In advanced designs, called
>> nanofactories,[4] the molecular fabrication apparatus will all be
>> fastened down in well-ordered ranks inside a much larger structure.
>> All designs will be externally controlled and supplied, capable of
>> producing a duplicate nanofactory in about an hour-but only on
>> command.

Comparison with a relatively benign machine, an inkjet printer, belies
the large difference in potential capabilities and impact. On the one
hand we are to believe that a molecular manufacturing system would not
have sufficient intelligence to run autonomously, yet on the other hand
it might need to be intelligent enough to prohibit the manufacture of
anything dangerous. If there are no limits on what a nanofactory can
produce, it can hardly be compared to an inkjet printer - the differences
in output capabilities are humongous. But the intelligence that would
need to be incorporated in such a device to limit it to benign output
would, in my humble opinion, definitely accord it the capability of
crawling off the table to steal raw material!

The ink-jet comparison also happens to highlight an economic problem with
the nanofactory approach: just as ink-jet cartridges are a large profit
center for printer manufacturers, any use of preprocessed raw material
for nanofactories creates a supply choke-hold on users. The economic
miracle that would occur from the use of self-replicating devices that
are free from any form of central control (e.g. able to use unprocessed
raw material from their local environment) is cruelly denied.

In my humble opinion, nanotechnology's greatest benefits are in
improvements in medicine, the alleviation of poverty, and increase in
individual freedoms (due to possible decoupling from the global economy).
I believe the primary motivation of promoting nanofactories over nanobots
is to somehow mitigate the risks of nanotechnology. I consider such risk
avoidance dangerously misguided since, if successful, it would hinder and
delay the really meaningful benefits that only nanotechnology could
provide.