MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY}w¡¢£¤¥¦§¨ OF I !"#$%&'()+,-./012345<yA|NFORMATICS Dangers development of nanotechnologies can bring ESSAY FOR THE COURSE FUTURE CHALLENGES OF INFORMATICS Robert Zahradn´ıˇcek Brno, Spring 2014 Contents Introduction .......................................2 Positives, potential and brief history of the development of nanotechnology ..3 Risks and concerns arising from development of the nanotechnology ......4 Price we will have to pay ................................ 10 Conclusion ........................................ 11 1 Introduction Development and progress is important part of our evolution. Our natural passion for creating, enhancing, inventing and discovering is important in many aspects, there is no doubt about that. Trying to stop or limit evolution of our society, in any way, is the same as trying to stop the grass growing on the pavement. You can succeed for while but eventually it will find its way to continue despite your best effort. The same goes for science and technological progress. If we looked back, we would see that such attempts created more evil than good. On the other hand we should never allow the haunt for discoveries to overshadow the basic ethical and rational principles that should guide us in distinguishing good science from bad one. Technological development is driven by the passion of bright people for figuring thinks out and our need for better, faster, simpler and more modern way of life. Modern technologies are therefore becoming more and more encompassed in our day to day life. For this progress we are starting to pay considerable price nowadays. We can no longer imagine life without the digital technologies. We became dependent on them and basically cannot live without them. Also as the development of new technologies progresses, it finds its way to new fields and industries. Furthermore binds us to our own innovations. It is very easy now than ever to forget what is the real cost of these advancements. As any other technology developed by human society, nanotechnologies have numer- ous useful applications, but we shouldn’t be oblivious to the potential dangers such technologies can bring. Therefore we should prepare for what the advanced nanotech- nology can bring and understand its capabilities even before it arrives. So we would be able to use them properly to our benefit. However to make any rational argument, first lets examine both sides, including the background for the debate. There was not even a word ”nanotechnology” in 1959 when Richard Feynman, the Nobel prize laureate, presented his lecture at the California Institute of Technology inspiring the audience, and a lot of people after that, with a view of a working world that was so small that all of the world’s books could be stored on something of the size of a dust speck. In this lecture titled ”There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”[3], Richard Feynman said, ”A biological system can be extremely small. Many of the cells are very tiny, but they are active; they manufacture substances; they walk around; they wiggle; and they do all kinds of marvelous things, all on a very small scale. Also, they store information. Consider the possibility that we too can make a thing so small which does what we want, that we can manufacture an object that maneuvers at that level.” Feynman also said, ”I am not inventing anti-gravity, which is possible someday only if laws are not what we think. I am telling you what could be done if the laws are what we think; we are not doing it simply because we haven’t gotten around to it.” Many people will say that Feynman’s speech is the beginning of nanotechnology. However he only stressed that better tools were needed. He spoke of using available tools, the big tools, to make smaller tools suitable for making yet smaller tools, and so on, right to the point where we could manipulate bare atoms. 2 Its doubtful, Feynman envisioned the controversy this lecture and his ideas would produce. Another scientist, Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, published his es- say titled ”Why the future doesn’t need us”[4] in the April 2000 issue of Wired. Bill Joy wrote, ”From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century.” After considerable ratio- nalization, he added, ”Thus we have the possibility not just of weapons of mass destruction but of knowledge-enabled mass destruction, this destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self replication.” Positives, potential and brief history of the development of nanotechnology There is no doubt that nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize many indus- tries. Many modern problems of our society could be easily fixed by correct deployment of safe advanced nanotechnology. For example being able to analyze thousands microscopic samples of blood simulta- neously by nanosensors, would be great help for diagnostic purposes in medicine. This would essentially automated health diagnosis performed by computer, cutting down the cost, human errors and improving speed of the analysis. We should not need to wait for days for the results, mere minutes would be enough. When we stay in medicine ap- plication, other commonly spoken applications are smart drug delivery for combating diseases, like cancer, or creation of such drugs right at the source. Growing new organs or body parts cell by cell that would perfectly fit the intended recipient, making trans- plant rejection impossible and it could even wipe out the need for transplant donors. If we go even further to the future we could think of automated health centers that would automatically diagnose, detect and repair any known diseases. Practically making state of the art health-care available to everyone right at their homes. Another way to use the potential of the nanotechnology are various enhancements to human bodies, plants, crops or materials, then even immortality would not be so remote. Semiconductor industry is another place where the progress of nanotechnology is visible. Miniaturization of transistors, basic building blocks of modern computer chips, is main goal for creating more powerful, efficient and smaller computing units. Even embedded computing devices have numerous uses for nanotechnology. We could de- velop nanosensors and nanobots and deploy them to the environment around us that could sense, analyze and correct any deviation from normal state. Keeping our living environment clean and safe. Clean and cheap energy provided by solar panels incor- porated with nanotechnology, better water purification, existing pollution reduction, ozone layer repair and many more. These are all good examples of the power a development and correct usage of ad- vanced nanotechnology can provide. All these wonderful applications and examples 3 are what makes the nanotechnology so popular and drives the current research and our understanding to its limits and even beyond. However all of the examples mentioned above have something in common, the in- tended results are based upon assumption that there will be no alternation from the course intended by the creator of that particular technology, there will be no evil pur- poses why such technology was created, no misuse for personal gain, no secret alter- nation of the technology that would be done under the radar etc. That is the theory for imaginary world far from the real one, well at least at this point. Who does not thought at least once in a way, like what will happen if I change this? Or do this? This is the way how the most beautiful and unthinkable things were discovered, by accident or by experiment that revealed unexpected results. But at the same time it gives a space for unintended creations. So this is probably the time and place where we should stop thinking about all the awesome possibilities for a while and become to realize the po- tential dangers such power presents when everything would not be so perfect. Risks and concerns arising from development of the nanotechnology Recognition of the two-edged nature of nanotechnology and its ramifications is not something new. It dates back to 1959 and the, mentioned, famous lecture of the physi- cics Richard Feynman ”There is plenty of room at the bottom” [3] or 1986, the publication of ”Engines of Creation” [2], a largely positive view of nanotechnology. Or from our century, the article by Bill Joy in the Wired magazine [4]. They all shed some light on what the future of nanotechnology might hold. Although the risks of nanotechnology have been expressed in many fashions over the years, they can be viewed in four distinct ways: nanotechnology puts powerful means of destruction into the hands of irresponsible people; the unknowns of nan- otechnology threaten us with many unintended consequences; nanotechnology can take away our humanity; and nanotechnology contains potential of mass extinction. Much of this is predicated upon the ability of nanodevices to create more nanode- vices, either through the use of specialized assemblers or via self-replication. This could put exquisitely designed weapons into the hands of individuals, terrorists, or rogue nations. Both known weaponry and even new and yet not imagined weapons could become available. With current weapons of mass destruction, testing, obtaining exotic precursors, and specific evidence, make monitoring and control possible in many in- stances. In contrast, weapons created by nanotechnology can be created in such fashion that no current means of monitoring and detection will be applicable. Considering the possibility of nanoweapons, which by definition, are very small and made from com- mon materials, and would be virtually undetectable by any means. Against the background of the many promises of nanotechnology, there is a strong and legitimate concern about the potential dangers of this new capability.