Hi All,

Recently I saw a TV show dealing with issues involved with nanotechnology. The first half of the show was great...I mean the possibilties make your head spin, and it would truley be a quantum leap in lifestyles for the entire planet...however this technology can also destroy the planet, us and everything else on it. One scenario that was discussed was that of the "grey goo" scenario, i.e. we develop this technology release it to the general public and inevitably something goes wrong, a technical glitch a melicious attack...whatever. Now this grey goo thing is realy quite simple and frightning all at once. You could take a "nanobot" an asembler of some kind that has the capabilty of reproducing itself, take away its limits of reproduction and let it go to work, the estimate is that in approximatley 48 hours the entire planet and everything on it would be transformed into this nanobot.
This technology would be just as prone to "virus" attacks etc as our PC are now, any teenager/madman with a technical knowledge of the technology could very easily engineer a nanobot that is capable of destroying our planet.

I have been thinking about it since I saw the show, this technology is estimated to be a reality by approximatley 2020, and I believe there has been tremendous progress in the research...so lets face it it's coming...how do we police this technology, it would be a shame to have it tightly controled by governments etc...so how do we have our cake and eat it too?? I am very keen to read any ideas out there...

p.s forgive the spelling (I had to rush this post)

Where do I start? The grey goo. Ummm. Sounds so sinister doesn’t it? …and given your scenario I guess it is. Exponential multiplication without end, until obtainable resources are consumed. In this case the world.

While that thought hadn’t come to mind, here is another scenario that has. A nanoassembler with instructions in cellular code sent to say Mars. Upon arrival code tells it what to build. In this case amongst other things how many to build. After that the harvesting of materials necessary for it’s task.
Upon your arrival, you find that your base is ready to move into having already been built by the assembler, or at least this was what was to happen.

Enter solar radiation, a known mutater to cellular growth and material. Instructions gone amuck. Before a decision could be made, damage done. Not as bad as your scenario where everything is lost.

I would think that if this was the danger that a safety override would have to be put into place. Something not in the clear, such as trying to read assembly language for a computer, that would terminate the assembler and all functions, rendering it inert scrap if a function had an attempt to be altered. Just a thought.

<valign="center" valign="middle">

There are two sides to nanotechnology. One, being that it could change our world and give us a hand at playing with creation. Or, it could be a swift kick in the butt. If it went wrong, there would be little we could do to save ourselves. But the concept is so enticing that it will happen eventually. We can only hope that our efforts to control it will hold. If nanobots were like cars, we would have no need for worry. For cars do not replicate on their own, and cars band together at will to manipulate their surroundings, but nanobots, as I understand, are life forms - they reproduce- and life is hard to control.

Whatever happens, I would expect the worst......

The nanobot are not that different from one cellular life forms. They also multiply very quickly and keep on doing this until every available resource is used. So how come the entire planet isn't turned into a huge biological blob of one cellulare life ?
Because not everything on this planet is a useful resource.
The same goes for the nanobots, they will only use those materials in order to reprocude themselves. They can't start tailoring their own atoms by fusing other atoms together since they can't operate on such a level (that would be the femto scale) so once they run out of resources they die sort of speak.

what happened to the good-ol-fashioned EMP cannon?
would it work?

groove on

You make a good point by comparing nanotech to our already existing protazoe and bacterium......
but nanobots will be something new to the environment and our own bodies. They have not coexisted with us as our native micro-organisms have. And yes, when they run out of resources to reproduce and function, then they will cease to function, however who is to say that the damage done will not be great.
And lets not forget that they will be a form of life, so we cannot say that they will not mutate or change......?

Hi All,

My understanding is that these nanobots will be programable, so even if they can't turn the entire planet and everything on it into itself a far more probable danger exists, and that is of computer generated virus that will attack US. If this technology is availabale to the genral public sooner or later some "hacker" will find a way to manipulate the programing for their own use....I suppose they could be developed to attack a particular genetic "signiture" (not sure if thats the word to use). Imagine if another person like Hitler got their hands on this technology.

I guess what I am asking is, has the human species "matured" enough to be exposed to such a technology? can we take the good and control the bad?

set up a system of protective nanorobots that destroy out of control colonies of other nanorobots....

I don't know too much about nanotechnology... however I'm kind of catching on from reading this. I agree with Rambler on this one... I had the same thoughts in my head. If someone with the ability to alter and hack nanobots were to do so (and if they were as insane for power as Hitler or Napolean were) this planet could face it's doom pretty damn fast. The major problem is these people wouldn't think of the consequences of doing this. There's always some idiots out there that think "fun" is to destroy other people's lives (i.e. Virus makers, vandalizers, Hitler, etc), but this time it could wipe out all of humanity and perhaps the earth itself. I'm not sure of the pro's of nanotechnology... but I don't want to be around when the con's of it come around :P

Hi Again,

I've also thought about the "police nanobots" but I don't think it would be a feasible solution. I think it would be more of a reactive approach and hence you would need casaulities before the police nano's could be sent in to attack the rogue nano's, also you would need to ingest the police nano's so they could attack the rogue nano's in your body. I just don't think it would work. Maybe the early solution would be to walk through a powerfull magnet of somekind that would send a magnetic pulse through your body and kill the nano's. As long as we don't have nano type enhancements in our bodies.


Kram006,
The pro's of nanotechnology are mind boggeling!!! there is little limit to what can be achieved, if this technology was freely available then manufacturing would be CHEAP everyone's lifestyles would take a quantum leap forward, disease would be controled, aging would be controled, exotic materials, wafers about 1cm^2 and thinner then a light microscope can see would store 1000 terabytes of data....it goes on and on. Simply put the pro's are HUGE!!!!! infact just as huge as the potential cons.

Nanobots do not need to be organisms. they can just as easily be robots with advanced AI and/or voice recognition and commands. even if they become organisms, then of course they will evolve, just as humans did, but who is to say how fast or slow it will happen. not to mention, the "mutations" might be useful and help much more than hurt.
another defense we have against a major "outbreak" is the fact that we do not have to "teach" them to reproduce and/or the recources needed to do so.

Nanobots do not need to be organisms. they can just as easily be robots with advanced AI and/or voice recognition and commands. even if they become organisms, then of course they will evolve, just as humans did, but who is to say how fast or slow it will happen. not to mention, the "mutations" might be useful and help much more than hurt.
another defense we have against a major "outbreak" is the fact that we do not have to "teach" them to reproduce and/or the recources needed to do so.

Nanobots do not need to be organisms. they can just as easily be robots with advanced AI and/or voice recognition and commands. even if they become organisms, then of course they will evolve, just as humans did, but who is to say how fast or slow it will happen. not to mention, the "mutations" might be useful and help much more than hurt.
another defense we have against a major "outbreak" is the fact that we do not have to "teach" them to reproduce and/or the recources needed to do so.

Funny you should say that. What if there was a planet called Earth and you wanted to terraform it to have infrastructure so you create a life form called Humans. They get it built up just the way you want it, then you just exterminate the Humans and move in.

the difference from virus's is what they would use to reproduce. For starters they would be more like bacteria than a virus in that they wouldnt need another "cell" to reproduce

secondly the difference is in what they would use

for example say we have a nanobot made ONLY from iron. Well where could it get iron. From your blood, from a bar, from a ship, from the ground. It would be vertually unlimited in the area's it COULD get iron from. The only thing would be wether the typs of iron i could get would be those its programed to use. If it was programed as an iron destillery and it went wrong then god help us all

sounds fun, i must get some