Category: Nanodot

from the major-disagreement dept.
Senior Associate Peter Voss writes "Josh Hallís Ethics for Machines suffers many of the problems endemic to moral debate: vague and shifting definitions, confusion over ëdutyí, rejecting the possibility of a rationally derived morality, and confusing description and prescription. Specifically, it fails to clearly define, or justify, its implied meta-ethical goal of ëgroup dynamismí. Other core problems are: its mischaracterization of ëethical instinctí, its condemnation of self-interest and common sense, and its failure to recognize the importance of high-level intelligence and consciousness to morality. Ethics for Transhumans addresses these points, and sketches an alternative path."

from the utopian-dystopian-or-atopian? dept.
Senior Associate BryanBruns writes "Reason magazine has a story "Dystopian Fearmongers Strike Again" criticizing the "TechnoUtopian" advertisement recently run in the New York Times. (The ad is available online: technoad.pdf.) The advertisement has three paragraphs on nanotechnology, with reasonably accurate content, using nanotech as another example of technological optimism. The section on nanotech finishes by saying "[Bill] Joy has grave doubts about proceeding, citing dangers from escaping self-replicating nanomachines, and from military applications. (There are also terribly frightening surveillance and privacy concerns.) So far, Joy is one of the few major scientists to be openly critical." Read more for details and analysis.

from the to-tell-or-not-to-tell dept.
Prominent MIT psychologist Steven Pinker predicts in Technology Review: How far can this revolution in the human condition go? Will the world of 3000 be as unthinkable to us today as the world of 2000 would have been to our forebears a millennium ago?…The future, I suggest, will not be unrecognizably exotic because across all the dizzying changes that shaped the present and will shape the future one element remains constant: human nature…It is also far from certain that we will redesign human nature through genetic engineering. People are repulsed by genetically modified soybeans, let alone babies, and the risks and reservations surrounding germ-line engineering of the human brain may consign it to the fate of the nuclear-powered vacuum cleaner…Third-millennium futurologists should realize that their fantasies are scaring people to death. The preposterous world in which we interact only in cyberspace, choose the endings of our novels, merge with our computers and design our children from a catalogue gives people the creeps and turns them off to the genuine promise of technological progress.

from the vision:-two-yes,-one-no dept.
from the New Scientists' Next Generation Symposium site: "Welcome to the future…it's getting seriously strange out there as we head for the millennium. Below 24 young scientists working at the cutting edge bring you their thoughts and predictions. Check them out before you take your journey into the future… " Included:
Brain Repair in the 21st Century: "How much of the brain can be replaced before you require a new passport?"
Soft-condensed matter: "we could design desirable structures without actually having to build them, and if you break them, they will 'repair' themselves…we'd really like to have systems that completely self-assemble and produce hard bits and soft bits and valves and pistons and all the necessary things we need to make nanomachines, all from exploiting the properties of soft matter."
AI is possible, but AI won't happen: "there is no obvious way of getting from here to there–to human-level intelligence from the rather useless robots and brittle software programs that we have nowadays." [Yes, okay, it's not obvious.]

from the dismal-scientists-boggled dept.
From a widely-published Boston Globe story: "Greenspan's comments…indicated his strengthening conviction that a stunning surge in the productivity of U.S. workers will persist…ensuring that the longest-running expansion in U.S. history has no end in sight…[his] main point was about the world economy and the profound impact of technology and globalization…Economists said such strong gains in productivity are unusual, if not unprecedented." He compared the current situation to the railroads, which "helped elevate economic growth for a considerable period of time. But the pace of growth eventually slowed when full or near-full exploitation of the newer technologies was achieved." But will we stop seeing such gaps between newer technologies, as they arrive with increasing frequency?

from the "Bill:-Foresight-IS-having-this-discussion" dept.
Foresight Advisor and Senior Associate RalphMerkle brings to our attention the latest from Bill Joy. An excerpt: "So these technologies are that powerful that they really threaten our individual liberties, if other people have so much power. And that's a discussion we have to have, and we have never really had that discussion in the context of power to individuals. Certainly, the nation-states have had the power to destroy civilization, but to give individuals that power or to threaten our liberties is really an unprecedented situation that we face in this century." OK, he has a point here. Not a new point, but an important one.

from the trying-to-figure-out-what's-going-on dept.
BryanBruns writes "In connection with the Engines of Creation 2000 project, it would be interesting to discuss what seem to be the most important changes to consider for revising Engines of Creation, and more generally for formulating scenarios and strategies to "prepare society for advanced technologies." Below is a short list, which might stimulate discussion about the most important changes to consider, and their implications:
End of the cold war: democratization, capitalist globalization, China joining WTO…
Weak and poorly deliberated policies for science and technology: OTA abolished. No science courts. Media focus on risks frames discussion of environment, nuclear, biotech and other technologies.
Silicon Valley rules: network economy, web, internet time, open source, etc.
No big breakthroughs yet in AI: IT industry investing heavily in nanoscale technologies to follow Moore's law, biotech advancing rapidly, suggesting nanotech likely before artificial intelligence".
Read More for implications.

from the well-OK-if-they-insist dept.
Given all the teeth-gnashing and hair-rending about the ethics of nanotechnology, it's worth reviewing Nobel chemist Rick Smalley's case that we must develop nanotech to deal with urgent problems: "Even given that, even if we stop population growth somewhere between 6 and 10 billion people, we can't sustain even the current population with the current technology. So for the 50 years, there's really only one good alternative: we need more technology, not less. It has to be green, it has to be clean, and it has to be closed loop. And I am confident that in almost every area the keys to these technologies are going to come when we start learning how to put things together one atom at a time on the nanometer scale…We need it urgently to get through these next 50 years. It will be a challenge. But, I am confident we will succeed."

David Gelernter (author of Mirror Worlds and other visionary books on computing) has published an essay on John Brockman's Edge site, titled "The Second Coming: A Manifesto". It's a prose-poem-slash-state-of-the-union-address about the potential for making our computers much more useful, intuitive, and unobtrusive. I say "prose poem" because it is rich in metaphors like "lifestreams", "cyberbodies", and "microcosms" that Gelernter argues are more useful than files, directories, desktops, etc. His castle-in-the-air vision is worthy of having a foundation built under it.

from the maybe-he's-not-all-wrong dept.
28 June, CP: This has been toned down at the request of a former Foresight Conference chair. YakiraHeyman reports that many Foresight members alerted us to this story on WiredNews: "Some scientists believe that nanotechnology will transform computing, biotechnology, and medicine, even proclaiming that the technology will one day solve every problem from hunger to disease. But researcher Steven Block has one thing to say to these nanotech Polyannas: Wake up." Read More for additional quotes. (Important: please don't send rude email to Prof. Block; he makes some good points.) Query to Nanodot readers: If some call us PollyAnna (too optimistic) and some call us Chicken Little (too pessimistic), does that mean we are about right?