Lifeboat Foundation Nanoshield 73
Maria Williams writes "KurzweilAI.net
says:
Tomorrow's biggest danger may be
nanoweapons (grey goo and other) created with molecular manufacturing. The
Lifeboat Foundation proposes development of detection methods, such as infrared satellite surveillance for
nanobot signatures, along with a three-layer defense system, with devices such as an orbiting mirror to focus concentrated sunlight on an ecophagic outbreak."
Get your sunglasses out, (Score:4, Funny)
Nanoweapons scare me (Score:3, Insightful)
I have been long considering a society of very long lived people through the use of nano technology. I have envisioned nano bots injected into a person to be used for "maintenance" of organs that fail over time. I always thought these bots could be programmed to roam our body and kill off viruses, bad bacteria, and cancer cells as well as repairing failing organs and using our fat cells as an energy source, thereby keeping us thin.
My wife has always said a weapon would be developed long before any life enrichment uses. We have seen a steady flow of nano technology in the last decade or so, I just hope global nano terrorism is not just around the corner.
Virusses,Bugs, ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you think they could out-perform white blood cells?
"as well as repairing failing organs..."Given that modern day robots millions of times larger have problems with simple tasks like picking up a glass, I think organ repair in the near future will be solved with genetic engineering over robots.
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
Jaysyn
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:3, Interesting)
Got to remember that, evolutionarily speaking, death is an advantage. If we never died, we'd never evolve. Every generation would be far more similar to past generations through back-breeding, and there would be much stronger forces maintaining the genetic status quo. Just a mess.
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:3, Insightful)
While this might be true, it is also much more likely that we'd never evolve if we never reproduced.
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2, Insightful)
yes, and the real key to propelling cargo down a street is to use really excellent horses, because internal combustion engines will never do that good a job. (This comment brought to you from the 1700s.)
hooray, abuse of moderation! (Score:2)
A troll is when you say something you do not believe in order to elicit a desired response. If anything, this comment would have been more accurately moderated as "flamebait" - any comment intended (or so poorly crafted as) to piss people off. However, I was sharing an opinion and illustrating a point through a constructive example, which makes this particular moderation simple abuse.
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:3, Insightful)
Artificial nanobots don't need to "out-perform" white blood cells, because we'll still have white blood cells.
What they can do is fill in holes in the immune system, which is far from perfect. Any cancer that kills a person was clearly not caught by the immune system. A nanobot might be specifically tasked with killing that cancer, and it will do a better job that the human immune system.
However, I doubt "a robot" of any kind will be the nanotech solutio
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
Yep. White blood cells can easily be confused and sometimes do the wrong thing, because there is no way to control them with external intelligence. These bots will be able to speak to each other and to a central system which will be able to make complicated decisions for them. Thus, yes.
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:1)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
1960: The complex process of computer-guided milling of precision components is complex enough for corporations with millions in R&D funds...
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:1)
Please tell me this is a troll I am feeding.
Set aside the sensible answers you have aleady recieved for your rational assesment of the risk new technology may be implemented into weapons.
Think for a second: I just hope global nano terrorism is not just around the corner.
Isn't this just a little too buzword compliant. Is it possible that americans are so scared and paranoid today that EVERYTHING has to do with terrorism??!!! Gosh, am I fed up.
go discuss gray goo and doomsday but please leave
Re:Nanoweapons scare me (Score:2)
http://www.orionsarm.com/tech/Limitations_of_Nano
Really a good read - especially considering that none of it is bullshit.
The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most nanotechnology concerns at present are materials science affairs, and this is likely to remain the case for a while. Nanoscale robots just aren't very feasible under the currently known laws of physics, especially not the infamous "grey goo" variety.
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:3, Interesting)
-Rick
More things than nanoparticles can do that. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think we're overly complacent about the killer weapons (biologicals, particularly) that are already scattered around the planet in significant quantities; before we go and spend a lot of effort worrying about the possible effects of technologies that don't exist yet, we could spend some of the same resources cleaning up problems that exist right now.
Dying from antibiotic-resistant TB may not be as sexy as being consumed by nanobots-run-amok, but at least in the foreseeable future, it's a lot more likely.
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
as far as i know - none - they're doing a good job of not releasing "nanosoot" - so DON'T PANIC
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
I think we just found out that you don't know very much. It's quite irrelevant if they're releasing them. Actually, though, literal nanosoot is a serious problem... but the real point is that nanoscale structures break down into nanoscale "soot" (Stephenson called it "toner" in his work of fiction, The Diamond Age) when they come apart.
Your first step: engage brain. Engage mouth (or in this case, hands) sho
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:4, Interesting)
If you ever happened to read Ray Kurzweil's, The Singularity is Near, he argues that the evidence that nanotechnology is possible is the human body, viruses, and bacteria. Chances are that the first nanotechnologies will resemble our own cells if not just modified versions of them. When we talk about grey goo and the like most people envision little tiny robot spiders manufacturing everything into themselves.
However, we would more likely see a super virus or bacteria that kills off 50% of the population before we would see that. However, I'd like to point out gray goo is possible, but concrete and non-organic material would be resistance for a while. All the nanoids would have to do is process air, water, and sunlight much like plants.
Think of it like a super plankton consuming the ocean and all life as long as it has sunlight and the ability to break down water into oxygen and hydrogen.
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
Now given if we can develop some sorta energy technology that works on the nanometer scale that natural couldn't develop we might have a chance.
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
Sorry for sounding like a Troll, but you can't just skip steps in a lab if you don't know how to get where you are going.
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:1)
Why does everyone always assume some sort of catastrophic failure in future tech? Are you assuming that these tailor made organisms are going to go cancerous on us? or attack our immune system? I fail to see a future where we are smart enough to build these tiny devices/pseudo organisms, but we're not smart enough to put a kill switch on them.
Hell, the only way we really will get nanot
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2, Funny)
Hey, wait, the magnifying glass...
Lifeboat Foundation! I have foiled your evil plan at last!
Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with... (Score:2)
Signatures (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Signatures (Score:2)
-Rick
An orbiting MIRROR? Who comes up with this stuff? (Score:3, Funny)
Either way, somebody hasn't been keeping up with their classic sci-fi [wikipedia.org] studies!
Nanospam, anyone? (Score:2)
Re:Nanospam, anyone? (Score:2)
Re:Nanospam, anyone? (Score:2)
In fact, a nanospambot's utility function may be a closer match to the theory than the ones that we have already. Just for example, "MORE SPLUNGE GOOD!!!" is independent (no matter what you do, I want MORE SPLUN
Re:Nanospam, anyone? (Score:2)
Grey goo? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if it could convert biomatter to nanobots with the fantastically unlikely efficiency needed to build up an actual sea or even just a blob of them, I sure wouldn't be so stupid as to program them to clump together into an easy target if it were me.
A sea/blob won't happen by accident either, or else some strain of mold or bacteria would have done it by now.
Unless you mean to sterilize an entire area as a last resort, a mirror would be useless. It won't be a big localized thing you can just shoot at.
Re:Grey goo? (Score:2)
What, like a Portuguese Man of War? Or any number of colonial bacteria that eventually formed complex, higher-level organisms? I think you have to consider that evolution has a niche for every possible formation -- and that evolution would act on nanobots just as effectively as it does on other organisms competing for finite resources.
As long as the nanobots have some ability to analyze their
Re:It would seem (Score:2)
Re:It would seem (Score:1, Interesting)
Get some perspective here (Score:5, Interesting)
Where will the grey goo get _energy_ from to be such a big threat? Solar energy isn't that great a source of energy.
Bacteria have been around for billions of years, there are all sorts of bacteria "eating" all sorts of stuff. If it was so easy to turn the entire environment to goo, the bacteria would have done it already - it's practically what all of them try to do all the time (just look up fermentation).
It takes a pretty sophisticated grey goo to do what bacteria do, and if the grey goo is made of stuff which bacteria or fungi can use, then I think it's the grey goo that has to watch out...
Viruses, bacteria etc can be a problem to us, because they can get energy and resources by parasiting _us_ and other creatures we depend on, in often harmful or deadly ways. They are made from the same stuff as us and thus they can build themselves from us (or subvert our machinery to build themselves).
So if you have a "naive" organic-based goo, good luck stopping fungus and bacteria etc from eating it the moment it gets wet
In theory if you have a normal naive (no defense against other micro/nano organisms) organic-based goo our immune system (phages) would probably be able to eat it too. Now if you design a goo that subverts our immune and other systems, then we could have a problem, however I suspect it will be easier to modify an existing virus than to build a "goo" one from scratch.
Alternatively if you have a metal based goo, these would only be a problem if you could create a grey goo that can somehow float around, land and burn/catalyze oil and air and use the energy to shape metal in a way so it can reproduce and repeat the process... The big issue is the burn/catalyze part. Catalysts used by common living creatures (enzymes) are mainly made of commonly available materials - only very trace amounts of other elements are required (if at all). If you prefer to burn instead, then you need to store a fair bit more energy, be able to release it at a high enough power and at the right time to start the burning process.
I recall there was a fungus in South America that was eating CDs - polycarbonate and metal.
So IMO, the most likely great danger to humans from micro/nano stuff would be biological viruses whether modified/bred/engineered or "natural".
I'm not a biotech person but I believe one can feasibly breed viruses to be more dangerous - just get tons of cultures of human cells, then expose the viruses to them, and repeat the process with viruses that produce the effect closest to what you want. No need for much engineering - could probably be very automated. Or do it in conjunction with a carrier organism and human cells - basically breed the virus to survive and spread sublethally in the target carrier organism - rat/roach/flies etc, but be really bad to human cells. The danger is some person/organization actually doing this for USD100k or something.
For macro dangers it'll be one of those meteorites/comets, or humans (we are probably one of the best things at killing ourselves).
Re:Get some perspective here (Score:2, Funny)
Supposing someone put up a big satellite with a magnifying glass to amplify the available solar energy?
I guess then they would have enough to take over the world faster
It seems like a big flaw in their plan.
Perspective indeed (Score:2)
Granted, Humans [wikipedia.org] were pretty self-destructive, but not quite as much so as Lemmings [wikipedia.org].
Re:Perspective indeed (Score:2)
As for the Lemmings game - I think humans did a fair bit of killing of lemmings too
forget the bots, just the particles.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Gray Goo is NOT the only threat! (Score:3, Insightful)
Energy (Score:1)
Bill Joy (Score:1)
Orbiting mirrors? (Score:2)
What would be the point? We'd just use nukes. Much cheaper and already at hand.
SB
Re:What about our immune system? (Score:2)
nanobot defense force (Score:1)