Nanotech Guidelines

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Pine_net, Jan 6, 2003.

  1. Pine_net Chaos Product Registered Senior Member

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    I'm still reading through alot of this so please drop your comments in on what you think.

    Foresight.org Guidelines

    Some of the main areas I was interested in were Development Principles of Nanotech.


    - Artificial replicators must not be capable of replication in a natural, uncontrolled environment.

    - Evolution within the context of a self-replicating manufacturing system is discouraged.

    - Any replicated information should be error free.

    - MNT device designs should specifically limit proliferation and provide traceability of any replicating systems.

    - Developers should attempt to consider systematically the environmental consequences of the technology, and to limit these consequences to intended effects. This requires significant research on environmental models, risk management, as well as the theory, mechanisms, and experimental designs for built-in safeguard systems.

    - Industry self-regulation should be designed in whenever possible. Economic incentives could be provided through discounts on insurance policies for MNT development organizations that certify Guidelines compliance. Willingness to provide self-regulation should be one condition for access to advanced forms of the technology.

    - Distribution of molecular manufacturing development capability should be restricted, whenever possible, to responsible actors that have agreed to use the Guidelines. No such restriction need apply to end products of the development process that satisfy the Guidelines.



    Peace
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2003
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  3. Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

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  5. Pine_net Chaos Product Registered Senior Member

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  7. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Pine Net,

    Is there any mention of nanotechnology utlising quantum layering techniques to generate nanotechnology that can be multi-positioned across different universal references.

    Erm... let me make that simpler, making one nano become 2,4,8 or more nano's but existing on different universal layers. So 1 nano is actually split and turned into a parallel to exist as a clust of 2,4 or 8 etc.

    (Just wondering because I kind of have a plan for some nano's to be clustered through this method. Can't tell you the project though.)
     
  8. Clockwood You Forgot Poland Registered Senior Member

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    Perhaps each nanite is only able to produce a certain number of offspring in its lifetime and the number shrinks in subsequent generations. Generation 1 can produce 12 each. Generation 2 can produce 6 each. Generation 3 can produce 3 each. And so on until you reach zero and the nanite is sterile.
     
  9. NanoTec Registered Senior Member

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    Ah…

    “Replicators” in application can not replicate in an uncontrolled environment. They should not be capable of creating their own controlled environment from an uncontrolled one.
    Everyone forgets; it is energy density that limits and allows the existence of this technology.

    The remainder is bureaucracy.
    Error is inevitable and all working systems reduce the probability of this, but it is unavoidable. Cancer
    Evolution is vastly overrated. Inefficiency is death or inactivity, but options are beneficial.

    Finally, the whole point is that the manufacturing capability can not be restricted in any way; self-replicators are manufacturers in themselves, so are the cells in your hand.
    How do you propose to limit that?
     
  10. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    This wouldn't work because as soon as any of your 'many' nano-machines interacted with something it would lose its superposition on become a singe machine. Assuming I understood what you were saying.
     
  11. Clockwood You Forgot Poland Registered Senior Member

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    Mass produced but sterile nano-cannables. They kill any nanite they find and even eat each other once turned on but are incapable of harming anything else. Spray some around and you soon have a nanite free zone. They commit suicide after 24 hours.
     
  12. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    You understood what I was saying, although I question if an energy burst (photonic perhaps) couldn't cause a stablising of positioning while they are in a superpositioned state.
     
  13. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    As soon as the nano-machine tried to interact with something (which would presumably be necessary for it to do any work) it would be 'measured' an lose its superposition. You could put it back into a superposition, but then it would be unable to do work. Remember also that when a particle (or nano-machine) is in a superposition it is still only one particle - it's just existing in more than one place. So you don't actually have many machines, you just have a singe machine that isn't anywhere specific. It would still only be able to do one machine's worth of work.

    Again, this is assuming that I understand you correctly, which I'm not sure I do.
     
  14. Pine_net Chaos Product Registered Senior Member

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    As far as quantum phenomena goes in nanotech, all I have heard of is tunneling and quantum confinement (‘trapping’) of electrons. I will check into it though.

    Here is a question I have been rolling about. What happens when the nanotech haves decide not to share with the have-not’s? My fear is that the haves will come to see humans as just another natural resource and decide we ( the have-not’s ) are either to dangerous or to unmanageable to transcend to the next evolutional ladder rung. The words Soylent Green come to mind...

    Let’s face it; this technology is more than even the smartest and wisest of brains can handle right now. It's in our nature to plan ahead and model the future as accurately as possible, but this technology is going to be so far beyond anything we can imagine that even the smallest mistake could be disastrous. As far as I can tell, nanotech will be hundreds of millions of times more dangerous than anything that exists today. Evolution within the context of a self-replicating manufacturing system, I believe, should be discouraged to the fullest extent possible, but I just don't see that happening. Looking through history, things that just shouldn't be built or done in any fashion seem to become reality for one reason or another. Weather it be cultural or economical reasons for the push is irrelevant. Human imagination is the most dangerous force in the universe. One person’s dream of utopia is another’s nightmare.

    Now I’m not trying to sound all doom and gloom, but that's my imagination hard at work. From the simplest thing as a computer game can turn into a living hell with an advanced form of nano/bio/cogno tech. I can just imagine what the 2020 version of Doom or Diablo will look like. Can you smell the blood yet?

    Peace
     
  15. NanoTec Registered Senior Member

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    If there are “haves,” the “have nots” will have the same or more stepping stones to work with to reach the technology; however is there a reason for the disparity? The “haves” of nuclear weapons keep increasing. Nuclear power for peace warped into a nightmare by many small steps and at each one they had a choice to continue.

    This technology is something different than what came before. There is always the chance that nature creates a new plague. The virus is its simplest form and occurs without our intervention.

    Leaving blood behind to smell would be a waste of energy and materials.

    (As a side note, the benefits to having nuclear weapons: a few man made lakes in the former USSR, and neutron crystallography.) Atoms for Peace…
     

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