Critique of Nanotechnology
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i I _ CRITIQUE OF HE WORD "nanotechnology" means very nanor different things to different people. While long-t NANOTECHNOLOGY: most would agree that Nanotechnology techni is technology performed on the scale of day's, nanometers - one nanometer being about the size A DEBATE IN FOUR of four zinc atoms laid side-by-side - that is where The b the agreement often ends. sembli byK. E PARTS To Howard Craighead, director of the National Nano- Manife fabrication Facility at Cornell University, Nanotech- asseml nology is a science that uses the chip-making tech- single . niques of the microelectronics revolution to produce made 1. Chemistry devices of increasingly smaller dimensions. chines robotic says it can't happen. To Rick L. Danheiser, a professor of chemistry at the struct ( Massachusetts BY SIMSON GARFINKEL Institute of Technology, Nanotech- vices a nology is a word that describes synthetic organic produce chemistry - a science whlic it woulc seeks to place atoms in precise a single and complex arrangements in order assemb) to accomplish exacting goals. Althoug To K. Eric Drexler, an author and single a, visiting scholar in the Computer thing la: Science department at Stanford lions of University, Nanotechnology de- gether c scribes a technology of the future You coul - a technology based upon self- the task replicating microscopic robots con- job with trolled by tiny mechanical com- diamond puters, capable of manipulating a time by matter atom by atom. from cart Who is right? Everybody and no- the surrc body, really, because "nanotech- rust and nology" isn't a scientific term. could res Nanotechnology is a mind set, an ance of th ideology, a way of solving big prob- ozone in lems by thinking small - think- They cou ing very small. eating up they coul One nanotechnology tool is molecular modeling software, such as SYBYL, shown My first exposure to Nanotechnol- seawater. here The program represents not only the 3D image of atoms but also their surrounding force fields. Images of atoms brought together wil but also theiral ogy was several years ago when I mate weal atoms, binding or repelling in a correspondingly "atomic" wa'y.Simulated eS ave e real was a student at MIT. A new stu- rip apart a chemistry such as this is now being used to design pharmacet iticals, in order dent activity was forming called There is cc to build drugs "rationally," atom by atom, much as nanotechi iology forecasts. the Nanotechnology Study Group, at the atot a band of individuals committed living thin to exploring the technology and implications of destroying Nanotechnologyisa new engineering skill which promises great "Nanotechnology." power by manipulating matter at the atom level (see WER #54, nanomachi p 8). To date, the debate over its consequences (solution or prob- The Study Group's handouts were drawings of atoms structural, lemS) have assumed its inevitability. Critiques of the proposed and some science - can it actually be done? - have been nonexistent in arranged into nanometer-sized gears and bearings, as the public discourse. The following critique of nanotechnology well as arrangements of atoms that were supposed to are almost doesn'taddress all the questions this technology brings up, but be memory circuits and logic building blocks for quire nearl' what a relief to have any technicalchallenge. Simson Garfinkel, nanometer-scale computers. But the people in the duce and rt a reporterforthe Christian Science Monitor, has a master'sdegree Study Group weren't things that in science journalism from Columbia andgraduated with a triple chemists and physicists: they major in chemistry political science, and history.of technology were computer scientists. The questions that the to do. at MIT: He starts off this four-part debate by challenging the Study Group was interested in exploring were not One of the underlying technical details this new power is based on. Eric "will these particular drawings of nanodevices work?" machines is Drexler, Visiting Scholarat Stanford University and a key vision- - it was taken for granted that if these didn't, others ary of nanotechnology, offers his rebuttal. Garfinkel responds, a red blood c and Drexler counters. Lastly, Steven Levy, author of Hackers, would - but rather, what would be the uses and im- circulatory reportson the first conference dedicated to the issues raisedhere. plications of such robots to medicine, science, in- posits When -Kevin Kelly dustry and warfare; what would happen if an army of doesn't belo: 104 WHOLE EARTHREVIEW SUMMER 1990 I _ _----- ._ - - neans very, nanorobots got out of control; and what would be their drills and shred the offending blockage. With a few ,ple. we-~: long-term impact on society. The people of the Nano- robot arms, the sub could even repair damage. Sort echn,. jy technology Study Group were the forerunners to to- of a nano-Fantastic Voyage, the concept of this sub has te scale of day's cult of Nanotechnology. appeared in prestigious newspapers like The New York it the size : Times and The Wall Street Journal, as well as mag- t is where The basic tool of the Nanotechnologist is the "as- sembler," according to Engines of Creation, the book azines such as Scientific American. The sub by K. Eric Drexler that reads like the Nanotechnologist represents the best of what Nanotechnology has to nal Nano- Manifesto. No larger than a few hundred atoms across, offer: the ability to make our lives better. '1anotech- assemblers would be constructed from gears that use The Cult of Nanotechnology paints a future in which king tech- single atoms for teeth and turn on frictionless pivots technology has grown unimaginably more powerful o produce made from single chemical bonds. These nanoma- than it is today. As a much bigger lever than any Is. chines would come equipped with a computer and a technology before it, they argue, it would do us well robotic arm, and have the remarkable ability to con- to think about the potential of the technology before stry at the struct "assemble") materials or molecule-sized de- the revolution happens: this is what they are doing. 4anotech- vices a single atom at a time. Assemblers would re- The problem with these people's ideas is that they ic organic produce by building exact copies of themselves - thus envision working with atoms the same way a model- :e which it would only be necessary to build n precise _ 1I_I _ __ _ _ _t I I1 __ __ J I . 1_ . ts in order a single assembler, and this first A visualization of assembler would build the rest. goals. a nanomachine Although it would be slow for a swimming through athor and a capillary blood single assembler to construct any- vessel, chewing computer thing larger than a fly speck, bil- away a fat deposit, Stanford lions of assemblers working to- lower left. Glucose )logy de- gether could do almost anything. and oxygen in the he future You could set a fleet of them about blood power two tpon self- tiny screw propel- the task of covering your car's paint lers. The nanobot )bots con- job with a micron-thin coating of randomly wanders cal com- diamond, constructed an atom at through the capil- ipu'--` a time by assemblers using carbon laries, programmed to eat only fat. from carbon dioxide plucked from One can easily and no- the surrounding air: forget about imagine both the anotech- rust and car washes. Assemblers advantages and could restore the ecological bal- problems of such ic term. a device. d set, an ance of the planet by making more big prob- ozone in the upper atmosphere. - think- They could clean up oil spills by eating up the oil, or alternatively they could make oil from air and technol- seawater. In wartime, assemblers would be the ulti- maker might work with wooden sticks and styrofoam , when I mate weapon, programmed to be "'omnivores" and balls - breaking a bond here, moving an atom to the lew stu- rip apart attacking armies atom by atom. other side, and forming a new bond. It is that con- g called ceptual model which is at the heart of all the Nano- Group, There is certainly evidence that such manipulations at the atomic level are.possible. Every cell of every technologists' drawings of gears, motors and nanocom- nmitted living thing is constantly manufacturing, using and puter parts, as well as the very idea of the assembler's :ions of destroying tremendous numbers of relatively simple robot arm and the nanosub's drill. But atoms don't nanomachines called proteins. Some of them are work that way. ifatoms structural, some of them perform chemical reactions, ings, as and some of them transmit messages. But proteins "[Drexler] discusses these molecular systems as me- osed to are almost always single-purpose devices which re- chanical systems," says Robert . Silby, a professor of cks for quire nearly all of the machinery of the cell to pro- chemistry at MIT. "He bangs them and they go." in the duce and regulate them. No protein does all of the The problem is, Dr. Silby explains, "molecules are ts: they things that an assembler would supposedly be able not rigid - they vibrate, they have bending motions." hat the to do. Even cross-linked or interlocked networks of carbon ere not One of the most intriguing of the proposed nano- atoms exhibit these characteristics, Silby explains. work?" machines is the nanosub, a device a little smaller than "Therefore these will not act, mechanically, in the , other- I a red blood cell which could swim through a person's way he has written down. There is more to it than nd i: circulatory system in search of plaque or fatty de- he has said." ice, in- posits.