Communicating with nanotech


Means of communicating with (active) nanotech is something worth
considering. While the issue of how humans get information to
the nanotech is very interesting, the question of how the
nanotech gives information to humans is a definite issue. In
particular, if some sort of alarm or warning needs to be sent.

If you assume that the nanotech is acting in isolation, with no
nanotech communications infrastructure which it can guarantee to
use. And, no enhancements to the basic human anatomy, like
implanted communications interfaces, that the nanotech can assume
are present in all humans.

With technology on a human-scale making use of the human senses
of sight and hearing is the common approach. Human-scale
technology can produce a change in the environment, like a
flashing light, or a buzzer, or even simply that a 'power-on'
indicator light can be seen not to be lit. Human-scale
technology is also physically obvious, in that it is large enough
to be seen, and distinguished from the background environment.
It may also produce noise or vibration, indicating that it is
functioning. All this feedback is an important part of making
effective use of the technology.

Nanotech is by its very nature small, and it may not be known
that it is physically present. It would likely be a considerable
complexity to add ways to a nanotech system to communicate via
light or sound on a human-scale, and this might involve the
nanotech needing ways to detect humans, so that messages could be
directed towards them.

However, there is a human sense that also functions on
approaching the nanoscale, smell. Even very small quantities of
some substances can be clearly smelt. It might be possible to
use warning smells, to say things like "this nanotech system has
problems", through to 'run away now' smells, meaning "this
nanotech system is dangerous to humans".


The idea this grew out of was a comment made to me by a friend,
JD, that smell was the obvious human sense that nanotech would
use to communicate with humans.

--
Rory McLean
rory@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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Relevant Pages

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