Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: pierce@cs.ucla.edu (Brad Pierce) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Worst-case scenario Message-ID: Date: 12 Apr 91 20:18:44 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Lines: 67 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu WARNING: The following gedanken experiment is distastefully ghoulish. PROBLEM: Suppose you are a malicious nanoengineer. Propose a nanodevice to: 1. Exterminate the human race. or more ambitiously, to: 2. Make earth uninhabitable by life as we know it. Or argue that: 3. No such nanodevice is possible. SOLUTION: ??? ---- I don't think we should underestimate the ability or willingness of a psychotic genius (perhaps motivated by the conviction that humanity is committing ecocide) to bring EVIL things to life; I'd like to know whether such a nanopath could realize her/his dreams. An affirmative answer needn't deter nanotech researchers, rather it should spur them on to answer the following: EXTRA CREDIT: 4. For each nanodevice proposed above, suggest a countermeasure (nanodevice or other). ---- -- Brad Pierce [This is an extremely poorly posed problem. It's easy to see why if you take it out of the realm of nanotechnology. Propose a device that could exterminate the human race: Kitchen knives--you simply cut everyone's throat. It's impossible to prove that the human race couldn't be exterminated by any of a large number of common household objects. After all, in historical times, millions of people *were* killed with overgrown kitchen knives, i.e., swords. Here are a few of the questions Brad has left open: Is this extermination to be done by a single person against the will of the rest of humanity united against him? Or do we allow that people may use the invention as a weapon against each other? Do we get to spring it on them as a complete surprise, or do they get any warning? Regardless of the answers to the above, one could make a good case in a purely verbal argument that, say, a flu virus could wipe out the human race. There's certainly no way to prove that it *can't* get out of control, spread exponentially, and kill millions, because it has done so on occasion. Now suppose we "design" a virus that simply combines the intractibility of AIDS and the contagion of the common cold. Goodbye human race! Here's another one: "Design" a nanotech-based form of life much more efficient than humans, in particular with bigger, faster, brains. Market them as strong, obedient, household and industrial robot servants. Once there are enough of them, they revolt, wage war on humanity, and due to their superior nature, wipe us out. This sort of stuff is common fare in science-fiction circles, but the writer is not under any necessity to make the crucial link that his "design" actually works--indeed he generally just describes it as having the properties he wants, without actually designing anything (as I did above). In any serious discussion of risks, this kind of "design by statement of wish list" is totally worthless. --JoSH]