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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Month: May 2001

New: Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

from the nanopublishing-heating-up dept.
The new quarterly Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology has published its first issue. Cost is $149 for individuals, $575 for institutions. Editor is H.S. Nalwa (formerly of Hitachi), Editor of the Handbook of Nanostructured Materials and Nanotechnology. Editorial board includes some familiar big names: H. Craighead, Cornell; J. Gimzewski, IBM; C. Lieber, Harvard; M. Reed, Yale; A. Requicha, USC; N. Seeman, NYU; U. Sleytr, Austria; H.I. Smith, MIT; D. Srivastava, NASA. Looks like direct competition for the journal Nanotechnology published by IOP in the UK, and indirect competition for ACS's new Nano Letters.

Nanotechnology and the Environment

from the think-green dept.
Glenn Reynolds, professor of law at the University of Tennessee and a member of the Foresight board of directors, has writen an essay titled "Environmental Regulation of Nanotechnology: Some Preliminary Observations", which appeared in the June 2001 issue of the Environmental Law Reporter.

As Glenn notes in his introduction, "This all-too-brief essay will outline the basic nature of molecular nanotechnology. It will then discuss the likely environmental benefits … and harms … of this technology, and at least seek to begin the discussion of how nanotechnology might be dealt with in a way that will maximize the environmental benefits — which are likely to be enormous — while minimizing the potential harms, which, if allowed to materialize, are likely to be large as well."

The essay is available on the Foresight Institute web site, as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file (~112 KB), and is posted with the permission of the journal's publisher, the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C.

ASME engineers put strong focus on nanotechnology

from the engineering-the-future dept.
A number of interesting presentations from a workshop titled "Beyond Micro Device Engineering: Nanotechnology", held by ASME International (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) in December 2000 in Washington, D.C., are now available either as HTML web pages or Adobe Acrobat PDF files. (Note: some of the PDF files are huge.)

This workshop, as well as the rapidly increasing level of interest in nanotechnology and nanosystems among various engineering communities, was the focus of one of the cover articles in Foresight Update #44 (April 2001). The article provides additional coverage on the workshop, as well as information on other engineering organizations that are taking an interest in nanotechnology.

Special Note: Nanotechnology will be the focal point of one of the many technical tracks that will be featured during ASME's 2001 Congress and Exhibition in November. Nanotechnology will also be the subject of several tutorials to be given during the conference, which will take place in New York City from November 11-16, 2001.

UK Defense ministry reviews nanotechnology

from the World-Watch dept.
RobertBradbury writes "The British Minstry of Defence (MOD) has released this recent report NANOTECHNOLOGY: Its Impact on Defence and the MOD (in Adobe Acrobat PDF format).

It's interesting for what they get wrong. They seem to be including quantum cryptography, AI, MEMS and biotechnology as part of "nanotechnology" while entirely missing the possibility of nanobots. Guess that's what happens when you don't include a microbiologist on the "expert" panel. It mentions that European funding is ~100 million pounds a year, but like the U.S. funding, that probably includes a lot of nanoscience and larger-than-nanoscale research."

Investors assess nanotechnology

from the blind-men-and-an-elephant dept.
A recent article from United Press International ("Investors weigh merits of nanotech", 11 May 2001) reveals that investors are still uncertain about nanotechnology, largely because it is an ill-defined new field. According to the article, investment experts say gauging the level of private investment in nanotechnologies is nearly impossible because no industry statistics are available and because of disagreements over what nanotechnology means.

The article quotes Foresight Senior Associate Steven Vetter, CEO of Molecular Manufacturing Enterprises Inc., a seed capital firm in St. Paul Minnesota: "It's hard to gauge the levels of investment because there is so much confusion over what the term includes . . . What's happened is that the term has become stylish and has been broadened to apply to many more things."

"Nanoscience is a more appropriate term at this stage than nanotechnology," said Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital, an investment firm in New York City.

And even though IMM Research Fellow and Foresight founder Eric Drexler has played a pivotal role in the development of the field, we have to point out that the articleís characterization of Eric as "the world's leading authority on nanoscience" is a bit of an exaggeration!

NIST conference sessions will examine future of technology

from the setting-standards? dept.
The Advanced Technology Program of the U.S. National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) is sponsoring a special program on "Technology at the Crossroads: Frontiers of the Future" at its 2001 national meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, 3-5 June 2001. Two session of high interest include:
– "Replication of Nanodevices", presented by Ralph Merkle of Zyvex and J. Storrs Hall from the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing. This session will cover molecular replicating systems, including replications of more complex structures on the nanometer scale and exponential assembly into larger devices at the micron scale.
– "The Challenge of Molecular Electronics: Focusing Nanotechnology on the Future Computer", presented by Christopher B. Murray, Manager, Nanoscale Materials and Devices, IBM, T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY; and Dr. Paul Weiss, Professor of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University. This Frontier session will explore recent notable achievements that show the promise of molecular scale electronics. Anticipating a stream of new advances, such as molecular wires, molecular switches and molecular sensors, particular attention will be placed on the enabling, spillover possibilities for this rapidly moving field.

Other sessions will cover virtual reality in medicine, regenerative medicine (tissue regeneration & stem cell research), information technology, and a discussion by a panel of venture capitalists.
There will also be a keynote address on "Ten Ideas that Have Already Decided the Future", by Foresight Advisor Peter Schwartz, Cofounder and Chairman, Global Business Network, and author, The Long Boom: The Coming Age of Prosperity.

New light-based computer runs at quantum speeds

from the quantum-computing dept.
A research team at the University of Rochester in New York state has created an optical information processing device that provides some of the advantages of quantum computing. The device mimics quantum interference, an important property that makes quantum computers exponentially faster at tasks such as breaking encryption codes or searching huge databases. Instead of interference, conventional computers use electrons to perform tasks sequentially. Quantum interference methods allow massive parallelism, vastly increasing the speed of the process. The new device proves that using light interference is just as effective as quantum interference in retrieving items from a database. The optical device does not, however, employ quantum entanglement, a property which may allow unique computing capabilities, but which so far has not been harnessed on a large scale.

Extro-5 Conference Coming in June

from the thinking-big dept.
The Extropy Institute will be hosting the EXTRO-5 Conference: "Shaping Things to Come", in San Jose, California, June 15-17, 2001. According to a press release, the Extro-5 international conference will assemble "big thinkers from numerous fields to provoke our culture to think more carefully about the more plausible perils of progress and to shape the future for the better."

Big thinkers at Extro-5: "Shaping Things to Come" include inventor, entrepreneur, and writer Ray Kurzweil, leading information economist Hal Varian, science correspondent Ronald Bailey, leading information economy strategist Steve Flinn, cyberspace economist David Friedman, best-selling author Greg Bear, extropic philosopher Max More, evolutionary biologist Michael Rose, artist and cultural catalyst Natasha Vita-More, co-architect of the pre-Web Xanadu hypertext system Mark Miller, and other leading thinkers from computing, artificial intelligence, law, "hard" science fiction, Internet technologies, neuroscience, and business.

Don't miss out on this singular chance to listen to and network with those who are shaping the future. Stimulate your brain, expand your vision of the future, make contacts for your interests and businesses. Attendance is limited, so register now to secure your place.

For more information, visit the Extropy Institute conference Web site, email [email protected] or call conference Chair Max More at 310-823-3594.

Read more for the complete press release.

Paper Analyzes Human Extinction Scenarios

from the broad-scale-thinking dept.
Nick Bostrom writes "This is a beefed-up version of the presenation I gave in a SIG meeting at the recent Foresight gathering. Comments and suggestions would be welcome. Maybe it can develop into a FI white paper?

The aim is to try to get a better view of the threat picture of what I call "existential risks" – ways in which humankind could go extinct or have its potential permanently destroyed. The paper provides a classification of these risks and argues that they have a cluster of features that make ordinary risk management unworkable. It also argues that there is a substantial probability that we will fall victim to one of these risks. The point, of course, is not to welter in gloom and doom, but to understand where the pitfalls are so we can create better strategies for avoiding falling into them. The paper discusses several implications for policy and ethics, and the potential for destructive uses of nanotechnology is given particular attention.

The text is available in two formats: on the web and as an MS Word document. (Footnotes and formatting are nicer in the M$-version.)"

Spielberg readies AI, the movie.

Mark Gubrud writes "Steven Spielberg plans to release a new movie about Artificial Intelligence, AI as a summer blockbuster starting in June. The movie's official website gives a few clues to what the plot is about, but if there is an official synopsis, I did not find it. There are pointers to related sites which appear to be put-ups, allegedly the homepages of pro- and anti-AI groups, including an "anti-robot militia" which revels in homemade high-tech weaponry to be used in the destruction of "non-human sentients."

[Editor's note: Spielberg's movie is apparently the result of his taking over the project for a movie about AI which the late Stanley Kubrick (the director of 2001: A space odyssey) had been working on for some years.]

Mark adds "While researching about the AI movie, I came across the very useful website AI Topics from the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. There is a subpage on the movie, plus many links to other high-quality resources on artificial intelligence and related topics."

Read more for additional comments . . .

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