Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Defending Against Harmful Nanotechnology
Robert A. Freitas Jr. and Bill Joy are the two winners of the 2006 Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award. The award is given to scientists or public figures who have identified possible problems with futuristic technology along with potential solutions.
Robert Freitas Jr. is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing (a non-profit foundation formed in 1991 to conduct research on molecular nanotechnology). He authored the Nanomedicine book series dealing with medical implications of nanotechnology.
In 2000, he wrote Some Limits to Global Ecophagy by Biovorous Nanoreplicators, with Public Policy Recommendations. The worst-case assumptions in this study about the use of "gray goo" (self-replicating nanomachines) showed that the planet's biosphere could be completely destroyed.
In 2004, he coauthored Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines with Ralph C. Merkle. Rob described a 137-dimensional map of the replicator design space, suggesting a number of ways that replicators can be preemptively disabled or rendered incrementally safer. This defensive map is the first such list ever created.
Freitas recommends "An immediate international moratorium, if not outright ban, on all artificial life experiments implemented as nonbiological hardware. In this context, 'artificial life' is defined as autonomous foraging replicators, excluding purely biological implementations (already covered by NIH guidelines tacitly accepted worldwide) and also excluding software simulations which are essential preparatory work and should continue..."
Bill Joy was the co-founder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, with more than 40 patents. Before co-founding Sun in 1982, he designed and wrote Berkeley UNIX, the first open source OS with built-in TCP/IP, making it the backbone of the Internet.
In 2000 he wrote "Why the future doesn't need us: Our most powerful 21st-century technologies—robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech—are threatening to make humans an endangered species," a Wired magazine article that raised awareness of the potential problems with self-reproducing nanotechnology.
Of course, science fiction readers have known the potential dangers of self-reproducing machines for at least 65 years.
The best-known example of self-reproducing nanomachines in science fiction is probably found in Philip K. Dick's story Autofac, published in 1955. In the story, people succeed in demolishing a malevolent underground factory - but it begins to shoot pellets to far locations, rebuilding itself (read more about Autofac). The first scientist to speak formally about nanomachines, physicist Richard Feynman, did not do so until 1959 in his speech There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom.
As far as I know, the first person to truly describe nanomachines was Raymond Z. Gallun in his 1937 story Menace in Miniature.
I believe the earliest story to describe (and warn about!) self-reproducing machines was Mechanical Mice, written by Eric Frank Russel (writing as Maurice A. Hugi) in 1941. In the story, an inventor creates a mysterious machine called the Robot Mother sends out tiny robots to scavenge for parts. When the tiny robots attack people, the Robot Mother is destroyed by the inventor. Or is it?
Story from KurzweilAI.net.
With the Scarab as big as a beetle, I could make a Scarab as big as a sand grain. This second Scarab could build a miniature of itself, as big as a dust grain. The third Scarab could construct a fourth, bearing the same proportions as the first to the second, or the second to the third. And so on, down, to the limit imposed by the ultimate indivisibility of the atoms themselves.
(Read more about ultra-microrobots)
He said, "The Robot Mother! That's what I made - a duplicate of the Robot Mother. I didn't realize it, but I was patiently building the most dangerous thing in creation, a thing that is a terrible menace because it shares with mankind the ability to propagate. Thank Heaven we stopped it in time!"
(Read more about the Robot Mother)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/13/2006)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 4 )
Related News Stories - (" Medical ")
Heart Patches Grown In The Lab Repair Hearts
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
Pixel Watch 'Loss of Pulse Detection' And Philip K. Dick
'He carried on his person a triggering mechanism sensitive to his heartbeat.' - Philip K. Dick, 1965.
ErythroMer Artificial Blood
'My chemists are all working on the preparation of the artificial blood.' - Dr. David H. Keller, M.D.
MouthPad Supports Head And Tongue Tracking
'The operation that had transformed half his body... had located the control switchboard in his teeth.'- Alfred Bester, 1956.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'
'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
