Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: bill@braille.uwo.ca (W.B. Carss (519) 438-0344) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Is this stuff for real? Keywords: reality nanotech questions Message-ID: Date: 1 Mar 91 04:14:18 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: The Computer Braille Facility, UWO, London Lines: 128 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu Let me preface what follows by saying that my ignorance on this topic could fill volumes. I am neither a "scientist" nor a "theoratician" (nor probably as you can tell, a speller of any great note). Even so, I have a few ideas which I thought I would add to the discussion. Probably the best thing I have going for me is a good imagination which, I have often been told, is more than a little over-active. As Josh mentioned, there are several examples of nanotechnology in existence in the world around us right now - bacteria, cells in our bodies, process involved in digestion and many many more. The big question, as far as I can tell, is whether we will be able to get enough of a handle on EXACTLY how things are done to CAUSE THEM TO BE DONE OURSELVES. Certainly, many people would say that we are already doing that with genetic engineering. This is only partly true. From the little I know of the topic, it seems to me that what we are doing is CAUSING existing systems to make changes for us. There is a big difference between telling a calculator to find the nth root of a number and knowing how to do it yourself. I think we are still pretty-much at the 'calculator' stage of our nanotech development. That isn't to say that we won't eventually get there, only that we have an awful lot to learn before we are even generally knowledgeable enough to make any SERIOUS of MEANINGFUL attempts. I think one of the major dangers, (without wishing to squelch any dreams or rain on anyone's parade), is that we may try to do more than we are ready for too soon and botch it. From my own experience, I have done this several times in all kinds of situations. Certainly, the only real result in my own personal case is a fail to accomplish what i have set out to do. In the case of nanotechnology, however, it isn't inconceivable that something may be created which we can't control. I don't wish to be an alarmist nor anything like that, but I do believe that GREAT PAINS SHOULD BE TAKEN TO INSURE THAT BEFORE ANY NEW "MACHINES" GET CREATED BY US WE KNOW WHAT THE HEC WE ARE DOING!!! Certainly the ever-popular trial and error method is just about the only way we will know for sure whether something works, and I have no problem with that except to say that when the trial takes place let's make darn sure it is in a situation where we can control WHATEVER happens!! AND I MEAN CONTROL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All we need is some "rogue" machine running loose doing who knows what as a result of mutation to who knows what. I am thinking specifically of machines that are able to self-replicate. In any such situation millions if not billions (thanks Karl) of these machines would be necessary to really accomplish anything of significance on our size scale. Therefore, the machines would have to be self-replicating and the "offspring" would be prone to "mutation" (for lack of a better term). What would these mutations be "designed" to do? Would the mutations increase the rate at which the self-replications occur? Would this be a perpetually compounding problem? It could be argued that there could well be "guard" machines to oversee the machines that are self-replicating. In such a manner some "control" could be exerted over the situation. To do this would require millions or billions of "guards" and the problem recurs. A related concern is indeed the "fuel" that these machines use. What if the mutations "require" a different fuel than we planned? What if the mutations "took a liking" to organic matter? Never mind us, plants, useful bacteria, the list isn't endless, but I am sure you get the point. Without wishing to sound too foolish, this is the stuff of which "The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" is made. And whether anyone wants to actually discuss these ideas, they ARE within the realm of possibility. All I am saying is that we should go slowly and carefully. What we are really talking about here, in essence, is the creation of life from lifelessness. At least I believe that nono-machines could be considered "alive". We don't have any real idea what the release or even exposure of "beings" such as these into our environment would do. We don't know how the other organisms in our environment would react to these newly arrived "intruders". Could we end up with a similar situation to rabbits in Australia, where no "natural" predator (or in our case controls) exist? -- Bill Carss bill@braille.uwo.ca [This is essentially what is referred to as the gray goo problem, from the concept that unchecked replication could lead to the entire biosphere being consumed by nanobots and there would be nothing left but a "goo" consisting of them. This scenario is considered quite unlikely and overdramatic by most who have studied it seriously. The reasons are several. First, the only reason we have to believe that we can build a nanobot more efficient than a bacterium, for example, is that it would be built like a machine: it would be specialized, it would have precise components built to atomic precision, it would have a highly sophisticated design. By this very assumption, it COULD NOT MUTATE. The inefficiencies in cells are the very thing that allow mutation, and for lifeforms, that's good. But you couldn't build a nanobot to mutate unless you tried very very hard to achieve that specific goal. On the other side of the assumption, of course, is that if your nanobots are not more efficient than say, bacteria, they won't win out over bacteria when taken out of the laboratory environment. Fears of accidental gray goo scenarios are less comparable to rabbits in Australia, than to a story where feral automobiles run wild, mutating into herds of grass-eating vans hunted by carniverous pickup trucks. I would worry instead about what people do with them on purpose; I was in Australia recently and I saw a hell of a lot more sheep than rabbits. --JoSH]