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This website is about
realistic human extinction
threats in our generation,
mainly genetics,
biotechnology, and
nanotechnology.
It also discusses the
realities of Artificial
General Intelligence
by computer advances
in 20-30 years, the
so-called Singularity.

Nanotechnology

"Nanotechnology" is engineering at the molecular level whereby new things are created atom by atom, with no relation to anything biological. Theoretically, machines could be made at this level. Someday, they will be, if our species and our descendants survive the technological age.

However, we already perform engineering at the molecular level in laboratories when we synthesize polymers, manufacture pharmaceuticals, poke around at viruses, and so on. So what is "nanotechnology"? The difference between nanotechnology and biotechnology/genetics is that nanotechnology has no basis in biological matter, and is machine driven.

Of course, we already perform engineering on a molecular level, when we manufacture polymers and fuels, produce pharmaceuticals, etc. Nanotechnology is about making machines at the microscopic level, rather than a wash of chemicals.

Actually, nanotechnology can overlap with biotechnology if a molecular machine is made to act on a biological organism.

Nanotechnology is an emerging field. While there are many laboratories which call themselves "nanotechnology" research facilities, there actually isn't yet a lot of work of things covered in Dr. Drexler's book. What people call "nanotechnology" today is a stretch of the word. Indeed, many products now misuse this trendy word.

IBM made history many years ago by writing its IBM logo onto an electronic substance at the nano scale.

There are electronic applications which could utilize nanotechnology (including "molecular electronics").

However, the greatest commercial promise may be in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.

The main extinction threat of nanotechnology is the creation of a selfreplicating machine. It could derive its energy by eating plant and/or animal matter, or it could use sunlight and its own method of photosynthesis using elements in the air, water and ground. It could turn the Earth's biosphere into dust or so-called "grey goo" very quickly, rendering Earth practically lifeless. This capability is probably decades away, but it is a possibility.

Before then, it's possible that a nanotechnology laboratory could manufacture a microscopic catalyst or other substance in great quantity which is absorbed by plants or animals and interferes with cellular functions in some way.

Already, there is considerable concern about today's "nanotechnology" products, regarding how microscopic, man made particles in various products could affect the human body. These are generally not an extinction threat, but they do highlight examples of how research and development for commercial gain interfaces with regulatory agencies trying to keep up with advancing technology.

The best book by far on nanotechnology is the current edition of Drexler's book Engines of Creation which was last updated in ____. You can download it in its entirety in PDF form for just $1. That's what I did, and then printed it out. Otherwise, you can order it from Amazon.

After Drexler advocates Nanotechnology as nearly a cureall for things ranging from human diseases to recycling and even restoring extinct species, he also includes a very important chapter at the end titled "Engines of Destruction". For example, he writes:

"Plants" with "leaves" no more efficient than today's solar cells could out-compete real plants, crowding the biosphere with an inedible foliage. Tough omnivorous "bacteria" could out-compete real bacteria: They could spread like blowing pollen, replicate swiftly, and reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of days. Dangerous replicators could easily be too tough, small, and rapidly spreading to stop - at least if we make no preparation. We have trouble enough controlling viruses and fruit flies.

Drexler proposes ways to regulate nanotechnology development, but few people think this would be effective in the Real World.

Drexler founded the Foresight Institute to help deal with the issues of emerging nanotechnology. The word "nanotechnology" goes back many decades, but Dr. Drexler expounded on the topic in the early 1980s, bringing it into contemporary times.

Interest in nanotechnology by industry vastly expanded in the 1990s and after the turn of the century, dwarfing the earlier theoretical work of Drexler and his predecessors. However, the word nanotechnology became very trendy and is now misused by many commercial products, as well as being blurred by quasi-nanotechnology applications. Nevertheless, I've simply never seen a better word or phrase, except perhaps "true nanotechnology" or "nano scale engineering" or something like that...

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