Regulating Nanotechnology Development
David Forrest
Rev. 1.1
23 March 1989
This paper was originally written by David Forrest for Course TPP32:
"Law, Technology, and Public Policy",
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Room 8-135, 77
Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139
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Table of Contents
The emergence of new technologies continually forces us to ask
whether our laws provide the proper balance between protecting us
from potentially harmful consequences of those technologies, and
allowing us to reap the benefits. The development of
nanotechnology, a molecular-precision manufacturing technology
which is surprisingly close to realization, will seriously
challenge the ability of our regulatory system to respond quickly
and to maintain the critical balance between dangers and
benefits.
The development of nanotechnology will affect regulations in
most areas, from banking and commerce to air safety and toxic
waste. This paper concentrates on regulations to assure that
molecular machines and their products are developed in a safe and
responsible manner. The aims of this paper are to:
- flag nanotechnology as an important area for technology
policy research,
- highlight some of the issues related to regulating
nanotechnology, and
- provide an approach toward constructing a regulatory
framework for nanotechnology.
1.
Overview
Nanotechnology is an emerging manufacturing technology which
will provide a very high level of control over the manipulation
of matter [1, 2].
Machines, called assemblers, will be able to build
things to atomic specification under programmable control. Their
design and operation can be like robots and miniature factories,
with levers, gears, bearings, electric motors, pulleys, cables,
conveyer belts, and computers to coordinate their
operation—all with parts of molecular dimensions (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Because the laws that govern molecular systems are reasonably
well-understood, the development of this technology does not
depend on discovering new scientific principles. The advances we
need are engineering advances: improved computational abilities
(for the design of molecular systems) and improved capabilities
for automated manipulation of individual atoms and molecules.
 Paths to nanotechnology
The development of nanotechnology is not dependent on advances
in any single branch of technology. Any one or combination of
advances in molecular chemistry, protein engineering, molecular
biology, or scanning tunneling microscope technology would
advance the development of nanotechnology. Regulation of
nanotechnology should therefore cover all types of nanomachines
along all the development paths. From what we know now, we can
project at least three distinct ways to develop an assembler with
the ability to construct arbitrary structures:
- Extend the capabilities of current bio-engineering tools
to build protein and non-protein structures for
assemblers.
- Use synthetic chemistry to build molecular structures for
assemblers.
- Build an assembler by simply putting the appropriate
atoms and molecules directly into place using an advanced
form of scanning tunneling microscope technology.
Each of these paths could proceed in one of two ways: (1)
first build limited assemblers which could build more
sophisticated assemblers which would build even more
sophisticated assemblers, and so on, until a general assembler is
built, and (2) directly build an assembler with general
capabilities if the manipulation tools are adequate.
2. General Implications
At first glance, the ability to put atoms and molecules
exactly where you want them may not seem so spectacular an
achievement. We already can make things to micron-scale
precision, so why should an extra three decimal places make that
much of a difference? The answer lies principally in this: with
nanotechnology you can manipulate any kind of atom or molecule,
not just the highly specialized materials of microelectronics or
biology. And with this general capability to make structures, it
will be possible to make assembler systems which can be
programmed to make copies of themselves. After the relatively
short time it takes to make a trillion trillion assemblers, they
can be reprogrammed to make other things rapidly and cheaply. The
following examples illustrate some of the consequences of general
assembler capability.
Materials. With the ability to build things
atom-by-atom, nanomachines will be able to build any physically
possible machine or structure, given enough time, space, matter,
energy, and design capability. Estimates show that, with
nanotechnology, materials such as steel could be made ten times
stronger and more ductile than is possible today. Materials made
from diamond could be even stronger than that, and three times
lighter. These supermaterials will allow dramatic improvements in
the performance of machines limited today by material
capabilities; applications include power generators, automobiles,
jets, and spacecraft.
Computers and Artificial Intelligence [3]. Molecular computers a trillion times smaller
than today's machines and at least as fast as current devices
will be possible. Molecular tape memory, similar in principle to
the way information is stored in DNA molecules, will allow
storage densities of one gigabyte per cubic micron. This means
that we could store all of the information contained in the
Library of Congress in a cube the thickness of a sheet of paper.
To process this information, calculations show that we could have
a desktop-sized computer which contains the raw processing power
of one million human brains.1
Medicine. Molecular computers will be small
enough to fit the equivalent of a mainframe computer within the
volume of a typical human cell. These computers could direct
machines to repair DNA and other damaged cell structures and
destroy cancerous cells, viruses, and bacteria. Death due to
disease and aging would be eliminated [4, 5].
Environment. Self-replicating assemblers
could scour toxic and nuclear waste sites, transforming
carcinogens into harmless chemicals and separating radioactive
isotopes. Materials which people now discard as trash could be
recycled within the household to make food, clothing, and
household goods. The acts of dumping, pouring, and exhausting
chemical by-products into the environment will become practices
of a bygone era. Nanotechnology will allow us to make things
without dangerous by-products; leftover atoms can be recycled or
made into harmless chemicals.
Economy. Nanotechnology will alter the
economy of the world, changing our concepts of what things are of
value. Ordinary dirt will become a useful construction material
with nanotechnology, and therefore more valuable. Diamond will
become a common, inexpensive substance, useful as a construction
material for nanomachines and household items. Food will be
virtually free, because the machines to make it will be
self-replicating and the materials are abundant in dirt, water,
and air. Transportation of goods will be mostly unnecessary; the
information needed to make a desired product can be sent
electronically to a local assembler system.
Military Systems. Applications to offensive,
defensive, and military surveillance systems abound. The same
could be said for law enforcement systems, terrorist weapons, and
devices for criminal purposes. Examples include virus-like
machines able to identify people by their genetic code and attack
or spy on them, and plagues of omnivorous "locusts"
able to ravage continents.
1 In terms of gate operations per second. This does not
automatically imply one million times the intelligence of a
human. That will depend on the capabilities of future software.
3. Nanotechnology is an Area for
Immediate
Technology Policy Research
From the general implications given above, we can see that
nanotechnology will radically alter several aspects of the way we
live and work. Along with the many changes, we will have to
insure that we can still enforce our existing laws as well as
develop new laws to keep pace with new problems and challenges
that nanotech-nology will bring. This is the task of our
policymakers, and it will require a substantial effort given the
range of issues cited in the previous section.
This technology is very close to realization, but how close?
Prediction of the timing of future developments is a notoriously
difficult task, made even worse by the multi-disciplinary nature
of nanotechnology. The only certainty is that the developments
will occur. Factors that will influence the speed of development
are:
- the number and quality of major funding initiatives for
molecular technology research,
- the availability of individuals with relevant skills able
to conduct this research,
- the rate of advance in molecular manipulation technology,
and
- the rate of advance in our ability to design and simulate
the behavior of molecular structures, which, in turn,
affects the constantly-shrinking turn-around time from
design to product.
It is not unreasonable to expect a U.S. initiative on
nanotechnology, once politicians become aware of its importance.2 This will
accelerate development. Current estimates (by those familiar with
the issues) of when an assembler will be developed range between
the years 2000 and 2030 [6, 7].
It is worth considering the possibility of simply banning
nanotechnology altogether, in which case we would avoid the need
to expend further effort on technology policy questions. There
will be enormous pressures to develop nanotechnology because of
the potential benefits to society, as well as the threat of
others gaining military superiority should they develop it first.
It does not seem likely that all nations would agree to
ban development. Even if they did, verification would be nearly
impossible because research efforts could be easily hidden in
small laboratories. And because of the multi-disciplinary nature
of nanotechnology, one would have to ban a large fraction of
scientific research because so many areas will impact on
developing nanotechnology, e.g.—scanning tunneling
microscopes or computational chemistry. So it seems unlikely that
we could implement a verifiable worldwide ban.
If we tried to block or slow the development of nanotechnology
in the United States, or in other democracies, we would increase
the chances that nanotechnology is first developed in a country
without a free press. In which case we could not be certain that
that country would not use nanotechnology to oppress its
neighbors or the rest of the world. So efforts to slow progress
only serve to threaten our own freedom.
Therefore, a sensible course of action when formulating
nanotechnology policy is to assume that nanotechnology will be
here sooner than most people expect (the ten-year time horizon)
and concentrate on guiding development to avoid the dangers
instead of blindly opposing development. When we consider what
must be accomplished in that time frame, it seems clear that we
should begin the task as soon as possible.
2 Efforts related to nanotechnology, such as the Kunitake
Molecular Architecture Project and the Frontier Research Program,
have already started in Japan.
4. Regulatory Issues
It is necessary to make some assumptions regarding the course
of development of a future technology in order to make some
reasonable statements about the regulation of that technology. A
major assumption that I make is that the U.S. will pursue the
following policy in developing nanotechnology: (1) concurrent
with developing an assembler, develop a "sealed assembler
laboratory" [8] for safe experimentation
with molecular assemblers (the lab would allow only information
in or out, not atoms); (2) develop an "active shield"
to protect the biosphere against hostile nanomachines.3
On the basis of these assumptions, part 4 concentrates on
issues relating to the safe development of nanotechnology.
Instead of exploring the full range of all possible regulatory
frameworks or alternatives to regulation, I took the approach of
presenting one plausible scenario and, in doing so, highlighted
issues which would also be important in other approaches to
regulation. A regulatory agency which could assume the
responsibilities described does not currently exist; presumably,
the cleanest way to implement this proposal would be to write new
legislation and create a new agency, clearly defining any areas
of overlap with existing regulatory agencies.
3 The active shield, as described by Drexler, would be a
cornerstone of defense policy. The shield would be an automated
system because the time scale of attacks could be on the order of
minutes or seconds—faster than ordinary human response
times. It would protect the environment against hostile systems
regardless of their origin [9]. For example, it could protect Soviet, Chinese,
American, and European territories equally against Soviet,
Chinese, American, and European nanomachines. This would
therefore be a stabilizing defense initiative.
4.1 Freedom—The Most Critical Issue (Far-Term)
Common law and the U.S. Code are the rules to which we ideally
adhere in our society. One of the most difficult far-term
problems that nanotechnology will bring is how to enforce those
rules. Whether current penalties will be stiff enough to deter
certain crimes, and whether we will even be able to catch
criminals at all, are likely to be areas of much debate. Central
to this debate will be the issue of what level of surveillance is
necessary to enforce the law—the classic conflict between
(a) the right to privacy and personal freedom and (b) the need
for public safety.
One unknown is the amount of surveillance on human activities
which would be necessary for effective protection. People may
decide they want a high level of surveillance if it would
eliminate violent crimes. The amount of freedom a society must
sacrifice depends on the range of options our technology can
provide (still largely unexplored) and the level of risk that
that society, and other affected societies, are willing to
accept. While our attention will be mostly devoted toward
shorter-term regulatory problems, we must not forget to think of
them in the context of this most important overall goal of
preserving and extending the freedoms we now enjoy.
4.2 When to regulate
Slightly modifying the language of the Toxic Substances
Control Act (TSCA) provides a reasonable starting point: we
should regulate when a device based on assembler technology
whose manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, or
disposal may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or
the environment. The term "manufacture" should include
making the device under laboratory conditions as part of the
development effort. Devices which would potentially fall under
this category include: (1) machines based on assembler technology
able to autonomously make significant modifications to the
natural environment outside of the machine,4 (2) machines that can
self-replicate in the natural environment,5 accounting for the full range of
possible environmental conditions and for materials normally
encountered in the environment. Machines, or their decomposition
products, which have chemically toxic properties would be covered
under TSCA and would probably not need additional legislation.
It is important to recognize that, while the release of a
replicating assembler into the natural environment is an area for
concern, there is little danger of any resulting problem unless
the device was intentionally designed to operate in that
environment [10]—especially if the
device is designed in accordance with a set of safety standards.
The primary concern is the theft of an assembler by those who
would abuse its capabilities. Thus, both regulatory issues and
national security issues must be considered.
The next question involves the notification mechanism by which
a regulatory agency knows that someone is developing a machine
with the above properties and should begin monitoring for
compliance with applicable regulations. Again, using TSCA as a
model, anyone wishing to manufacture a new chemical must give
prior notice to the EPA for review under the pre-manufacturing
notice requirement [11]. In the face of
civil and criminal penalties (as in TSCA) most firms and
researchers would comply with the notification requirements. Laws
could also restrict companies from doing research in countries
which do not have similar regulations. Apart from that, national
security concerns may dictate the need for a task force to
actively seek out those who might develop such machines in
secret; the regulatory agency would probably not be directly
responsible for this type of activity.
4 The wording is intended to cover, for example,
steel-eating termites.
5 The term "environment" includes the insides of
people and other life forms.
4.3 Four phases of regulatory control
In this assumed scenario of nanotechnology development there
are four distinct phases for which different amounts of
regulatory control are required. This suggests a broad outline
for phase-in and phase-out of regulatory control during the most
dangerous periods of development.
|
| Phase 1—Pre-assembler |
| Phase 2—Post-assembler, Pre-assembler lab |
| Phase 3—Post assembler lab, Pre-active shield |
| Phase 4—Post active shield |
|
Phase 1 is where we are now—assemblers have not yet been
built. A regulatory framework should be developed in parallel
with the development of assembler technology. Careful thought and
critical debate about the problems now will avoid needless fears
about the safety of this technology. The federal government could
act without necessarily regulating by promoting and assisting the
writing of standards. As developers get closer to the assembler
"breakthrough," security precautions should increase.
Regulations and an operative regulatory agency should be in place
before the breakthrough.
In Phase 2, assemblers have been successfully developed, but
no assembler-proof containment facilities are available. This
situation requires close monitoring for compliance with
standards, but even more importantly, assemblers (and the
techniques used to make them) must be protected against theft by
those who would abuse the technology. An important goal during
this phase is to develop sealed assembler labs so that widespread
experimentation can be performed without the need for security
measures. Advantages of careful inspections are reductions in
developers' proof-of-compliance paperwork, and enhanced assurance
to the public that development efforts are conducted in a safe
manner.
Avenues for commercial development could be made available
during Phase 2, with extensive safety reviews of both the
manufacturing process and the product by an appropriate
regulatory agency. This would provide a near-term economic
incentive for developers to advance the technology, reduce the
government's funding burden, and provide the public with some
near-term benefits of the technology. Here, a sorting process
would be helpful. Products that do not contain replicators or
assemblers6
could be deferred to existing regulatory agencies for review.
Products that contain non-replicating assemblers7 would undergo thorough review by
an agency with appropriate expertise in assembler technology.
Products and manufacturing devices that contain replicating
assemblers would undergo the most stringent levels of review;
quite possibly, they should not be made available until they can
be extensively tested under safer conditions during Phase 3. A
further distinction could be made depending on the evolutionary
capacities of the machines. Although the only systems described
so far would not have the ability to mutate and evolve, it is
conceivable that such a system could be designed at some point.8 Machines in
this category are of special concern since their functions and
capabilities could change over time. Sorting should be performed
by an agency familiar with all aspects of assembler technology
and be performed according to due process procedures.
In Phase 3, sealed assembler labs have been developed, which
means that experiments on assemblers can be safely performed by
anyone. If these labs are made widely available to people wishing
to develop advanced assemblers or other devices and materials,
there will be little incentive for these people to develop their
own assemblers outside of assembler labs. That is, provided
that they have some outlet for turning their designs into safe
products. Assemblers in a sealed box are fine for experiments and
development work, but not much good if you want to get a finished
product out. A logical approach would be to have the same review
channels as described for Phase 2 commercial development. Once a
person's design clears these channels, the product could be
manufactured by a producer with an "open" assembler
operating under heavy security.
In Phase 4, the active shield has been developed and is in
place. Assemblers outside of sealed labs could be made widely
available. Many regulatory controls (e.g., the close monitoring
of Phase 2) can be phased out and regulatory alternatives can
take over, because bad nanomachines can be contained. It is
difficult to say what regulatory alternatives will be most
effective, because that will depend on what levels of potential
damage and surveillance the society has decided it is willing to
tolerate.
For example, the tort system may or may not be as effective as
it now is. With molecular assemblers to cheaply repair injuries
and damages, any liability claims are likely to be quite small.
Since the liability system has not historically remedied minor
problems and risks [13], and most problems will
be minor because of nanotechnology, this mechanism may fade into
disuse. However, if the court system also takes advantage of this
new technology, it may be possible for a person to collect
damages quite easily; with electronic transactions (and yes,
maybe electronic lawyers and judges) a successful lawsuit could
be accomplished in minutes from one's living room.
Market forces are likely to be much more powerful. With rapid
access to accurate information on how good a product is, and who
likes it and who doesn't, consumers can rapidly select against
poorly-designed products and for the safer, more reliable, and
otherwise most appealing products. But this will depend on the
extent to which people will value safety and reliability, and
that is currently unclear. Product features other than safety and
reliability may have much greater perceived value.
6 For example, pocket supercomputers.
7 For example, a machine that makes only food. These
non-reprogrammable limited assemblers are devices into which you
dump a bucket of raw material and out of which comes a bunch of
widgets. The widgets, of course, should be safe products as
determined by CPSC or other applicable institutions.
8 Such a system would have to be designed; reference [12]
presents specific arguments why evolving nanomechanical systems
would not occur by accident.
4.4 Standards Enforcement as a Regulatory Framework
Apart from intentional abuses, there are many reasons to
believe that systems made using nanotechnology can be extremely
safe. First, there are the market forces just mentioned. Second,
because of nanomachines' high degree of control over matter,
dangerous manufacturing by-products can be avoided.9 And Drexler
has already proposed several good solutions to the problem of
nanomachines accidentally replicating out of control.10 These
approaches to safety could be incorporated into a set of
standards. Regulatory enforcement of, or voluntary compliance
with these standards would be desirable to ensure safety. But
questions remain: What institutions will develop these standards?
How will they develop them? Will the standards be enforced, and
if so, by whom? In addition, we may want to avoid having
enforcement procedures significantly slow down or interfere with
legitimate development efforts.
Consensus standards.
Developing a set of safety standards for experimental
procedures, a set of standard tests to determine when an
assembler may be hazardous, and a set of standard assembler
designs will be an important part of the proposed regulatory
framework. One type of standard now in use is a consensus
standard. Voluntary consensus standards are developed by
organizations with the participation of interested
parties—producers, users, and general interest groups. Due
process safeguards are incorporated into the rules for developing
these standards, allowing for airing of diverse viewpoints and
means of appeal [15, 16].
Industry compliance is voluntary, unless the standards are
subsequently adopted by a regulatory agency. The technical
expertise available in the private sector makes this a valuable
approach for developing safety standards, as pointed out by Baram
[17]:
The advantage of utilizing the private
sector's technical expertise in formulating health, safety,
and environmental regulatory standards cannot be
overemphasized. It is a fact that this expertise cannot be
matched, in the vast majority of instances, by the technical
staffs of federal, state, and local regulatory authorities.
In addition, the utilization of active technical
standards-writing committees from the private sector is an
efficient and dependable means of ensuring that standards are
kept up to date with developing technology.
Existing standards organizations, such as the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the American Society for
Testing and Materials (ASTM), are well-equipped to do this
procedurally, but currently do not have expertise in
nanotechnology. The same holds true for testing laboratories such
as Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. As nanotechnology develops,
these institutions should be encouraged to develop the expertise
needed to formulate a sound set of standards.
Questions regarding the appropriateness of voluntary consensus
standards still remain: How can we assure ourselves that due
process will be followed in developing these standards? Even if
it is followed, will the standards be good enough? Will everyone
voluntarily comply with all of the standards? If they don't, what
are the chances of a serious accident? And even if all this is
ok, it may look bad politically if the government isn't directly
involved.
Baram [18] points out that, historically,
success with using nongovernmental standards as an alternative to
regulation depended on two conditions: (1) the technologies and
risks were well-understood, and (2) potential liability was
significant enough to force responsible industry behavior. The
potential liability of a runaway replicating assembler is the
worth of our biosphere, price enough to insure significant
caution. But nanotechnology may not be sufficiently
well-understood to merit this voluntary approach. Furthermore,
most sources agree that if the potential effects of the substance
or product in question are clearly irreversible or hazardous to
human health or the environment, that item should be subjected to
standards enforcement [19, 20,
21]. Some products of nanotechnology could
fall into that category. This is the primary argument for
regulatory control of nanotechnology development efforts, and why
alternatives to regulation would be inappropriate.11
Recognizing that although there is a chance that it will not
be necessary to regulate the development of nanotechnology, for
the purposes of this paper I assume that the arguments are
compelling enough that it will be regulated.
9 Note that dangerous by-products will still be possible,
e.g., due to poor nanomachine design or by malicious intent. The
difference is that, unlike with current technology, the cost of
eliminating hazardous waste will be small.
10 A potential danger, that of a nanomachine escaping from
a lab and replicating trillions of copies of itself at the
expense of the environment, can be neutralized by a number of
engineering solutions: limiting the number of copies a machine
can make of itself; making machines that need special, rare
molecules in order to operate; and making machines that can work
only in special laboratory or industrial environments [14].
11 For example, if we used strict liability as an
alternative to regulation it would be impossible for any
developer to internalize the cost of the risk (destruction of the
biosphere), so theoretically the activity of developing
nanotechnology should never be undertaken [22].
Besides, if civilization is destroyed there won't be anyone
around to collect damages.
Standards enforcement.
Government regulation can provide an extra measure of security
that voluntary standards do not: a mechanism for enforcement.
Enforcement involves monitoring for compliance and taking action
when standards are violated. The standards developed by other
organizations could be adopted by a regulatory agency with the
power to enforce them. Adopting these standards would also be
accomplished via a due process mechanism which would serve as a
backup to the one used to develop the standards.
But regulatory control has its share of problems as well:
- in the appointments process, the people best-qualified to
handle regulatory responsibilities are not always chosen
[23],
- regulatory commissions often have an imbalanced
representation of members with various backgrounds,
talents, and outlook [23],
- the current mechanisms for public participation in the
regulatory process result in low participation rates;
this in turn results in a reduced range of ideas and
information, and heavy domination of rulemaking and
adjudicatory proceedings by the regulated industries [24],
- commissions of co-equal members have difficulty making
general policy rules, manage bureaucracies inefficiently,
and don't effectively coordinate their efforts with other
regulatory agencies [25],
- administrative procedures are slow and cumbersome [25, 26, 27],
- there is often redundancy of effort and lack of
coordination between agencies with overlapping areas of
jurisdiction [28, 29],
- because (a) regulators tend to be specialists in
particular areas and (b) their time is often consumed
with rulemaking, adjudications, and administrative tasks,
regulators generally do not consider broad policy issues
or the effects of new technology on future regulation [30, 31],
- mechanistic application of regulations by inspectors
tends to alienate those who are fundamentally law-abiding
and discourages cooperation; flexible enforcement (for
example, disregarding trivial violations, or getting a
firm to remedy an obvious hazard not covered in the
regulations) ". . . vests an extraordinary degree of
discretion in public officials, generates opportunities
for bribery or favoritism, and provides agency critics
with examples of overlooked violations." [32]
A variety of solutions to these problems have been proposed;
the best should be sorted out and incorporated into future
nanotechnology legislation. For example, for Item (7), the
American Bar Association proposed that regulatory agencies
establish policy consultation boards to help consider broad
policy issues [33]. For Item (3) Drexler has
proposed that a hypertext publishing system would be an effective
way to incorporate a much wider cross-section of the public's
knowledge and ideas into the decision-making process [34, 35].12 For Item (6), when writing new
legislation for regulation of nanotechnology, the authors could
clearly delineate the respective roles of any new regulatory
agency and existing agencies.
For Items (5) and (8), one way to reduce the compliance
paperwork burden on the developers (and their researchers) would
be to place on-site inspectors at the most critical development
centers, and assign roving inspectors to secondary sites during
Phase 2. The inspectors would be experts in appropriate
disciplines, and, to reduce chances of corruption, would work in
teams, be well-paid, and periodically rotated. There could be
due-process-compatible mechanisms for rapid incorporation of
overlooked problems into the regulations, based on inspectors'
observations. If the developers themselves have a reasonable
amount of input into the standards to which they must comply
there is likely to be an inherently good level of cooperation
with inspectors. This proposal pre-supposes that there will
either be a small number of critical development centers,
requiring a modest number of inspectors, or that the government
would be willing to pay for a large number of inspectors because
of the high risks involved. If the development centers are
for-profit institutions, a special tax could be assessed to share
the burden of inspections. This level of scrutiny would only be
necessary until Phase 3, after which there would be little need
to experiment outside sealed labs.
It therefore seems that a reasonable framework for assuring
safe development of nanomachines is a standards-enforcement
approach, where all interested parties would have a say in
developing standards and experimental practices via due-process
safeguards. Enforcement would be the responsibility of a
regulatory agency backed by the soundest legislative provisions
we can devise, written in clear language after considerable
thought and debate.
12 Although this system is still under development,
indications are that it will be implemented in 1989 or
1990—giving us sufficient lead time to evaluate the concept
for future legislation. [Editor's note: This time frame
estimate turned out to have been rather optimistic. For current
information on Foresight's hypertext publishing projects, see http://www.foresight.org/WebEnhance/index.html]
Standards before and after active shields.
Before active shields are developed, standard design elements
of nanomachines, standard experimental procedures, and
performance standards can be useful guides to avoid replication
accidents or other unwanted effects. The former two are specification
standards, which require a particular implementation ('you
must limit replicating ability using a counter limit embedded in
hardware,' or 'assemblers with replication ability must be kept
in a Level 3 containment facility'). They have the advantage of
being easy to monitor for compliance, but limit "the range
of technological change" [19] which
will be especially needed during the development process. Performance
standards require achievement of some measurable result
("you must limit the replicating ability of an assembler to
20 generations"). They allow more flexibility for
implementation, but require more monitoring to assure compliance.
During the early development stages performance standards and
standards for experimental procedures (specifically regarding
containment) would make sense. Once a variety of designs have
been tried and tested, the most successful could be converted
into specification standards, preferably with the option of
superseding them when even better designs and procedures become
available.13
After the development effort, the active shield will be in
place to prevent outbreaks of errant and hostile nanomachines, so
why should the latter have to conform to any safety standards?
Unless the implementation of the active shield is extremely
fine-grained (e.g., several defensive machines for every cubic
micron of matter on the planet), there could be local damage by
bad nanomachines. If the active shield is fairly coarse-grained,
there might also be significant costs associated with fighting
back large hoards of bad nanomachines.14 In determining who should bear
the burden of those costs, it would be necessary to learn whether
the developer was negligent. The existence of industry or
government standards and practices, and whether the developer
adhered to them, would be useful criteria.
Verification of the presence of a standard design in a
questionable nanomachine might also be a useful tool for the
active shield. One of the active shield's criteria for
suppressing certain machines or research efforts might be
violation of these standards.
13 I have in mind a standard design for a component which
limits the replication of an assembler and which could be
incorporated into a variety of assembler designs, in the same way
that a flywheel governor is a limiting device which works on a
general class of machines: rotating engines.
14 As the shield goes to finer and finer grain, shield
costs go up, but defense and repair are cheap because you
neutralize the bad machines before they replicate too much. As
the shield graininess coarsens, shield costs go down but defense
costs and amount of local damage increase. The optimum balance
will depend on factors such as how much potential damage a
society is willing to risk, the complexity of the shield, and the
amount and degree of intelligent surveillance a society is
willing to tolerate.
4.5 Access to Open Assemblers
In describing Phase 2 and 3 commercial development I alluded
to a system in which approved designs could be turned into
products through a limited number of highly-secure facilities.
Without restrictions on the facility owners, they would have an
instant monopoly on virtually every product because it will be
much cheaper to make most things using replicating assemblers
than by using any existing manufacturing process. What would be
needed is not only a review process for product safety, but ways
to provide fair access to the facilities for both individual
citizens and industry.
It seems possible to do this by treating these facilities as
regulated public utilities, with due process mechanisms for both
individuals and companies to gain access. Users could pay the
costs of producing a product, including the cost of the safety
reviews. Conforming to standard designs which have already passed
prior reviews would keep costs down and allow quick turnaround
through the safety reviews. Non-profit organizations, venture
capitalists, and other institutions could sponsor designs of
exceptional merit to help developers who cannot cover the costs
alone.
A major problem with this scenario is still how to decide,
from a large set of competing products, which get priority at
these facilities. Which will benefit society most? Economic
analysis may allow us to optimize the use of these limited
resources, except in cases where the benefits cannot be expressed
in economic terms (e.g., number of lives saved). It will not be
necessary to tie up the facility to make multiple copies of a
product, since the facility could make one copy of a limited
assembler which could in turn make unlimited quantities of the
product that you want. So limited assemblers will nearly always
be more cost effective than products which cannot make other
things.
Whether or not these facilities should be for-profit entities
is debatable. For example, there are instances of nuclear power
plants ranging from unsafe and inefficient to both safe and
efficient. In the final analysis, it is most important that the
open assembler facilities be safe from two
perspectives—militarily secure from outside access, and
internally secure so that only authorized products get out. Since
the facilities would eventually be phased out once the active
shield is implemented, efficiency of operation would not be of
long-term significance.
4.6 Issues not adequately addressed by existing laws
Although this paper concentrates on issues related to
regulating the safe development of nanotechnology, other laws
will have to be created or modified because of the technological
advances possible with replicating assemblers. Following are some
representative issues that have not been addressed by existing
laws and which highlight the importance of more research on
nanotechnology policy.
Machines' rights. With nanotechnology a brute
force approach to artificial intelligence would be to map the
architecture of a person's brain, atom for atom, and simulate its
operation on much faster nanocomputers. If this machine is
effectively smarter than a human, do we have the right to turn it
off? To own it? What criteria can we use to know what rights a
machine should have? How much decision-making control should
machines have?
Rights to our uniqueness. With nanotechnology
it will be possible to copy a person, atom-for-atom. Will this be
legal? Can a government make copies of its best soldiers, even
with their consent? What if you copy yourself, but your wife
doesn't want to do the same? Who is married to her?
Death. Large numbers of people will die
between now and the development of cell repair machines. As we
approach that development point, it will become increasingly
evident that we can suspend the decay of people just about to die
(by freezing them), wait until we get cell repair technology, and
then make necessary repairs and start them up again [36]. In today's society we do just about
everything possible to keep people alive. Do we therefore decide
that it is society's responsibility to begin placing dying people
in suspension? When do we start, since cryonic technology is
available now?
Distribution of land and wealth. At the point
when everyone can own replicating assemblers we will have a
situation where a few individuals own large amounts of land (read
"land" as "suddenly useful raw material for making
lots of useful things") and lots of people owning some or
none. Will this mean that wealth is radically redistributed the
instant that cheap replicating assemblers become available to
convert the previously low-value dirt into high-value product? Or
will replicating assemblers command such a high price that only
wealthy land-owners can afford them?
5. National Defense
The incentives to develop assembler-based systems for defense
purposes will be enormous, so we can expect a substantial
initiative. There are a variety of foreign policy and strategic
issues here which fall beyond the scope of this
paper—hopefully the initiative will be directed towards more
stable options like an active shield, than toward offensive
weapons. One area which is relevant to the subject of this paper
is the safety of classified research. Unfortunately, the number
of options available to insure that classified research is
conducted safely seems limited. Two options are as follows:
- The government initiative can generate its own set of
safety standards and practices, and enforce them
internally. If the government initiative is created
by a law, the legislative provisions could explicitly
state procedures for generating and enforcing safety
standards, although the prospects for enforcing the
law would be lower without direct public scrutiny.
Congressional oversight may help.
- A regulatory agency or commission, separate from the
defense initiative, could oversee the development of
internal standards (making them consistent with any
relevant unclassified standards), and monitor the
initiative for compliance with those standards. The
amount of due process possible in this type of
situation is necessarily limited, since relatively
few numbers of people would have access to all of the
information needed for critical debate. It may,
however, be possible to select a set of people with a
diversity of viewpoints (via normal due process
channels) and give them the necessary security
clearances for the task.
Although option (b) represents unprecedented scrutiny of
defense activities, careful selection of those who would have
access to classified information would help insure its secrecy.
The knowledge that the safety of classified research is being
independently monitored will help assuage public fears, even
though they cannot gain access to the classified information. The
motivation for a separate agency to oversee safety compliance
stems from the federal government's historic failures in
self-regulation: e.g., in nuclear power plants [37]
and the Department of Defense's Biological Defense Research
Program [38].
6. Summary
Nanotechnology policy is an important area for research. We
should aim to have most of the regulatory framework laid out
within the next ten years, before assemblers with general
capabilities to manipulate matter are developed.
There are potential dangers, such as runaway replication,
which can be avoided by design. It seems that regulatory control
will be necessary to assure that nanotechnology is developed
safely. Safe designs, safe experimental procedures, and methods
to test for potentially hazardous assemblers can be incorporated
into standards by consensus of interested parties. The standards
can be adopted and enforced by a regulatory agency. The greatest
danger appears to be intentional abuse of the technology, so
certain aspects of development should be performed in a secure
environment.
A plausible scenario is to phase in regulatory controls during
the most dangerous times, and then phase them out when they
become unnecessary. Four specific phases have been identified:
Phase 1—Pre-assembler: Safety standards are developed
in parallel with the technology; regulatory controls are
phased-in; security is increased to protect key aspects of
assembler technology and key personnel.
Phase 2—Post-assembler, Pre-assembler lab: Close
monitoring of key developers by a regulatory agency to assure
compliance with safety standards; heavy security of
facilities with "open" assemblers; efforts are
directed to develop sealed assembler labs; commercial
products can be made available after review by a regulatory
agency.
Phase 3—Post assembler lab, Pre-active shield: Most
research can be done safely in sealed assembler labs, so most
close monitoring of Phase 2 is no longer necessary; still
need heavy security of facilities with "open"
assemblers; commercial products can be developed by anyone
and submitted for review prior to manufacture by a secure
facility; other efforts are devoted toward developing an
active shield.
Phase 4—Post active shield: Environment is safe from
assemblers, secure facilities are no longer needed;
regulatory controls exist as necessary.
Development for defense purposes is likely and there is reason
for concern of inadequate compliance with appropriate safety
standards. A regulatory agency may be able to monitor the defense
initiative for compliance while satisfying both the initiative's
need for secrecy and the public's need for assurance of safe
research practices.
Acknowledgements
The concepts in section 3 (guiding nanotechnology development
rather than trying to block or slow development) were originally
advanced by Eric Drexler,
Foresight Institute. The ideas in section 4.6 were discussed
during a weekend retreat of the MIT Nanotechnology Study Group,
5-7 April 1985, Groton, New Hampshire, and at subsequent
meetings.
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