Disparate paces of law and technology

DavidForrest writes "Thanks to Kris Holley for finding this article on human cloning and the desire by some to regulate it:
http://cnn.technology.emailthis.clickability.com/e t/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=490262681 From my perspective, this continues to demonstrate how technological advances lead regulatory control. (I'm not necessarily advocating regulatory control for human cloning.) But in the case of nanotechnology I have proposed a regulatory framework (https://foresight.org/NanoRev/ Forrest1989.html). It seems likely that nothing like this will be implemented prior to the development of molecular assembler systems. In the absence of that, all we have now are the IMM and Foresight Guidelines (http://www.imm.org/guidelines/current.html) and whatever inadequate laws can be adopted to molecular assembler systems (discussed in my 1989 paper).
– David Forrest"