| Study #29 |
What
policies toward administration of molecular manufacturing does all this
suggest? |
| |
There are several
options for administering molecular manufacturing. Which ones might work as
planned, and how desirable are they? Which classes of problem are suitable
for the various options? What are the consequences if an option is tried and
fails? Which options can coexist in one society, or even in one (shrinking)
world?
|
| |
Scope
and Degree of Control |
| |
The impact of local policy may reach far beyond local borders. |
| Subquestion |
Total control:
ironclad, worldwide control of all that relates to development or use of
molecular manufacturing? |
| Preliminary answer |
This could work,
if the controllers were sufficiently ruthless and intrusive. Obviously,
unless the controllers are also saintly, it would be a human rights
disaster. |
| Subquestion |
No control: let a
solution emerge? |
| Preliminary answer |
The continuing
problems of spam and computer viruses and intrusion indicates that this is
unlikely to protect most people. |
|
Subquestion |
Local control:
several autonomous regions each find their own solutions? |
| Preliminary answer |
Nano weapons,
nanofactories, and other dangerous products can easily cross borders. Unless
the regions all have an interest in keeping each other safe as well as
themselves, this probably won't work. |
| Subquestion |
Coordinated or
hierarchical control: a mix of local and top-down policy? |
| Preliminary answer |
This might be a good approach. Note
that it would require an international organization at the top, probably
with verification and enforcement capability. Note also that hierarchy is a
20th century invention, and may be outdated/surpassed by human networks. The
concept of "network democracy" as suggested by
Jim Garrison may work better these days. |
| Subquestion |
Other structures?
Implications of space access? |
| Preliminary answer |
It's hard to
control what happens several light-seconds away. This may imply a need to
allow only trusted people/groups into space. (It looks like this is our
unofficial global policy already.)
|
| |
Approaches to Resources |
| |
There are several
fundamentally different approaches to dealing with resource allocation and
other policy issues. We have covered these in detail in "Three
Systems of Action: A Proposed Application for Effective Administration of
Molecular Nanotechnology". |
| Subquestion |
Security:
preserve the status quo against destructive change |
| Preliminary answer |
Prevent
negative-sum transactions (e.g. theft). Deception and the use of force are
acceptable. Commerce and information sharing are potential weaknesses.
Loyalty, tradition, and honor are relevant values. Molecular manufacturing
will raise many security issues. |
| Subquestion |
Commerce:
optimize use of scarce resources; collect resources |
| Preliminary answer |
Maximize/optimize
positive-sum transactions (e.g. free market trade). Use of force is not
acceptable. Efficiency, innovation, and honesty are relevant values. Several
resources will still be scarce even under nearly-free manufacturing, and
much work will still benefit from commercial/monetary incentives. |
| Subquestion |
Information (non-rivalrous):
maximize availability of non-scarce resources |
| Preliminary answer |
Optimize use of
unlimited information (unlimited-sum transactions: the cost is very low and
is unrelated to the value). Creativity and openness are relevant values.
Reputation is a major motivator. This approach may be relevant for many
blueprints and nano-produced objects.
|
| |
Worldviews and Values |
| |
There are several
cultural traditions in the world—very different, and perhaps incompatible.
|
| Subquestion |
Personal freedom
and opportunity, openness, free market (Western) |
| Preliminary answer |
This has
spearheaded the development of science and technology, as well as democracy.
It values diversity, which makes it less destructive/oppressive. It may be
unwilling or politically unable to exert sufficient force to deal with major
threats to security. This will be countered to some extent by creativity in
problem solving. |
| Subquestion |
Paternalism,
social constraint (Tribal, Moralist) |
| Preliminary answer |
Compared with
Western, this has more opportunities for social engineering and less
resistance/rebellion to government control. But central planning allows less
creativity and diversity, and creates more oppression and limitation (at
least from the Western point of view). Lack of feedback and emergence allow
mistakes to persist. |
| Subquestion |
Suffering,
nihilism, submission (Fundamentalist) |
| Preliminary answer |
As far as we can
see, this can only be justified by intangible values alien to Western
thought (though present to some extent in America's Puritan heritage). It
may also see Western tradition as dangerous and immoral; this may lead to
unavoidable conflict.
|
| |
Decision Making
Options |
| |
There are many
ways to make decisions. This is just a sample. |
| Subquestion |
Laissez-faire? |
| Preliminary answer |
Just let things
happen. This is likely to be very hard on the average person. |
| Subquestion |
Democracy? |
| Preliminary answer |
Requires an
informed electorate. Not likely—too much science and technology background
required, too many counterintuitive and nonlinear effects. |
| Subquestion |
Bureaucracy? |
| Preliminary answer |
Adds friction to
the system. This is sometimes good, but unlikely to be adequately responsive
for most problem solving. |
| Subquestion |
Dictatorship? |
| Preliminary answer |
Requires a good
dictator, which is not likely and perhaps not possible—there's simply too
much to understand. |
| Subquestion |
Network? |
| Preliminary answer |
(As
suggested by
Jim Garrison.) Not well
understood yet, but may be the best option.
|
| |
Administration
Options |
| |
There are
many
ways to influence or limit the use of this technology. All have limitations.
These are just a sample. |
| Subquestion |
Law? |
| Preliminary answer |
Must be backed by
police force. Too much force reduces the legitimacy of the law. |
| Subquestion |
Treaty? |
| Preliminary answer |
At best, a
process for agreeing to standards and creating awareness of mutually
beneficial choices. Won't work if not in the interests of all signatories,
though may serve to formalize and focus the use of other incentives such as
military threat (see
study #27). |
| Subquestion |
Social
engineering and public perception? |
| Preliminary answer |
Will only work on
some people. |
| Subquestion |
Intellectual
property? |
| Preliminary answer |
An odd
convention, probably over-used in modern economies; not a good match for
non-rivalrous goods. |
| Subquestion |
Commercial
self-regulation? |
| Preliminary answer |
Companies will
sometimes modify their own behavior to prevent more onerous regulation. But
this probably requires a substantial threat of government regulation.
|
| Subquestion |
Surveillance? |
| Preliminary answer |
Surveillance will
be extremely useful and effective when sensors get cheap enough and
computers get powerful enough to watch everyone full-time and highlight
anomalous behavior. There are no obvious inherent limits on the use of
surveillance, and several obvious benefits. This poses a severe threat to
modern Western concepts of privacy. It also creates practical problems,
including strong pressure for full-time behavioral conformity (since any
unusual action will be scrutinized, only exhibitionists will be comfortable
risking any unusual behavior) and lack of ability to oppose unjust
government. |
| Subquestion |
Human
modification? |
| Preliminary answer |
Even more
intrusive than surveillance: With compact technology, cheap manufacturing,
and accelerated medical research, an implantable device could be developed
to monitor and possibly change people's psychiatric/neurochemical profile. This
threatens our concepts of autonomy and even selfhood. However, it may be the
most effective way to solve the most difficult security problems, making it
dangerously attractive. Efforts to design administration must take this
possibility into account, either rejecting it or limiting it, with strong
safeguards in either case. Conversely, the use of such technology within the
administration could serve to limit the impact of destructive people and
improve the effectiveness and reliability of the administration.
|
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Opposing Extremes
That Won't Work |
| |
It will be very
tempting to choose simplistic extremes of policy, especially if events seem
to be leading toward loss of control. But this virtually guarantees failure.
Furthermore, extreme policy disasters can't be corrected by further extreme
policy; in general, the bad effects will add, not cancel. |
| Subquestion |
Crash program vs.
delay |
| Preliminary answer |
As discussed in
study #30, a crash
program without substantial policy planning will lead to a powerful
technology we don't know how to handle. But a delay, especially if it's
implemented by denying the feasibility of the technology, will also lead to
lack of preparedness—and reduced ability to control or predict when someone
finally does develop MM. |
| Subquestion |
Restriction vs.
freedom |
| Preliminary answer |
A policy that is
too restrictive will inspire attempts to circumvent it, from within the
administration (idealism, high-stakes blackmail or subversion) and from
without (cracking restrictions, independent development). This will require
intolerable and unsustainable restrictions, and will eventually fuel a black
market where one leak spreads unconstrained nanotech beyond hope of
containment. |
| |
A policy that is
too lax will lead to a situation that can't be controlled, a "state
of nature" in which anyone can strike at anyone else unless eternal
vigilance is kept. This will create a public outcry for control as well as
government insecurity, leading to overly restrictive policy. |
| |
It looks like the
best approach is wide availability of personal nanofactories with built-in technical
restrictions. The more benefits are freely/widely available, the less
pressure for independent development. The widespread use of 'approved'
hardware allows all sorts of less-intrusive controls. See our paper on "Safe
Utilization of Advanced Nanotechnology". |
| Subquestion |
Global empire vs.
independent states |
| Preliminary answer |
A declared global
empire will be resented, hated, and feared, no matter who is emperor.
Preparation for it is likely to tempt preemptive strikes. |
|
Independent
states will not be able to coordinate the cross-border policing necessary to
prevent cross-border crime and terrorism. Some states will not be able to
police themselves adequately. Any state that maintains an uncontrolled
nanotech capability will threaten the entire world. |
| |
The best solution
is probably an international organization, both to administer the molecular
manufacturing that has been developed and to prevent possession of
dangerously unrestricted versions by illicit actors. This might be modeled
on the IAEA, the WHO, or UN peacekeeping forces. Unfortunately,
international cooperation is not at its best right now (in mid-2004); such an
organization would take time to develop, and some nations (especially,
perhaps, the U.S.) may try to sabotage it and go it alone. |
| |
Both nanotech
problems and nanotech solutions are international. If MM goes wrong, some of
its problems may be global in scope. grey goo and military nanorobots will
not respect national borders. Economic collapse of any large nation will
shake all the rest. Likewise, MM risk prevention must also be global.
Programs and policies for reducing poverty must be international.
Administration to detect and prevent rogue MM programs must have global
jurisdiction. An accretion of national programs may be able to mitigate some
problems and risks, but cannot address all of them. International policies,
and international
bodies, must be designed and created before molecular manufacturing
arrives. |
| |
We'll mention
again Jim Garrison's "network
democracy" as a possible approach. Small groups with specific focus may
be both more responsive and less threatening. However, there still has to be
some way to apply their recommendations. |
| Subquestion |
Guardian vs.
Commercial vs. Information |
| Preliminary answer |
As explored
above, negative-sum,
positive-sum, and unlimited-sum situations require very different
approaches. Any single approach will be inadequate, and will not only fail
but will be destructive in situations that demand a different approach. (See
Systems of Survival on "monstrous moral hybrids".)
Effective administration
will require application of all these approaches, chosen appropriately to
address the various kinds of problems, and probably implemented by distinct
but coordinated organizations. |
| Subquestion |
Capitalism vs.
socialism |
| Preliminary answer |
The goal of
socialism is to make sure that everyone is provided for adequately by
redistributing wealth. Molecular manufacturing will certainly produce enough
wealth to make everyone (worldwide) rich by today's standards, and will
probably exacerbate imbalances and inequities; this will tempt socialist
policy. Socialism is great in theory, but in practice it cripples the main
incentives for productivity, innovation, and trade. |
| |
The goal of
capitalism is to accumulate resources and use them to generate wealth.
However, it can lead to destructive imbalances of power such as monopolies.
When the cost of production becomes a miniscule fraction of the value to the
user, and when manufacturing capital and labor alike lose their value,
capitalistic wealth accumulation may cease to provide its customary spinoff
of value to the economy and to society. |
| |
The best solution
may be one inspired by software development. Software is another area where
the cost of duplication is far lower than the value of the product. For
several decades, commercial software has coexisted with free software; each
has benefited from the other, and neither has out-competed the other.
Commercial software tends to be more polished, adding value; free software
(and its recent cousin,
Open Source software) has been an important source of innovation, and is
available to people with no money to spend. |
| |
Patents or other
artificial scarcity applied to the personal nanofactory could restrict trillions of
dollars of economic benefit and comparable social benefit. Since a single
general-purpose manufacturing system can make millions of different kinds of
products, there is plenty of opportunity for corporations to make money by
designing and licensing products, and paying part of that fee to the
nanofactory inventors. At the same time, vast benefits could be delivered
both to poor users and to the common pool of information by designers who
wish to make their designs available for free—but only if nanofactory use
for producing free designs is not encumbered by heavy licensing fees. This
would allow a single fundamental invention, the personal nanofactory, to be used in
both a commercial context and a non-rivalrous, unlimited-sum context.
|
| |
The difference
between socialism and free sharing of non-rivalrous goods should be
carefully noted. Socialism is about redistribution: something must be taken
away from its owner in order to give it to someone else. By contrast,
increasing the distribution of non-rivalrous goods does not require denying
them to anyone. Intellectual property (both patent and copyright) is a legal
construct, a right invented and maintained by society and granted for the
purpose of benefiting society by stimulating innovation while maximizing
distribution. Failing to maintain this artificial scarcity does not take
away an inventor's intellectual property, because that property does not
exist unless and until society bestows it. Under the current proposal, the
inventor of a nanofactory would still become astonishingly rich by
extracting whatever licensing fee the market would bear from commercial
users. Thus the incentive to innovate would be preserved, while distribution
would be better than if the IP were completely commercialized. (See e.g.
Lawrence Lessig on upstream vs. downstream patents.)
|
| |
Post-Molecular-Manufacturing "To Do List"
|
| |
After molecular
manufacturing is developed, the job is just beginning. This list should be
expanded in consultation with various future studies groups and think tanks. |
| Subquestion |
Active shield?
(Global sensor grid to detect, and possibly respond to, nanorobot activity) |
| Preliminary answer |
If the administration fails to
prevent the development of small undesirable nanorobots, it may be very
important to have a system in place to rapidly detect their activity. For
example,
Robert Freitas has calculated that a well-dispersed airborne self-replicator
of advanced design might produce sufficient copies to block all sunlight in
as little as two days. If this development is possible, it obviously must be
prevented with multiple levels of safeguards. Research must be done well
ahead of time to determine whether such a thing may become possible; unless
it can be conclusively ruled out (better than billion-to-one certainty),
then deploying an early-warning sensor net and pre-positioning
countermeasures would seem to be a minimal precaution. |
|
Subquestion |
Artificial
intelligence? |
| Preliminary answer |
Computers will be
one of the easiest things to build with molecular manufacturing. A sudden
increase in available computer power by many orders of magnitude will surely
make various forms of artificial intelligence more powerful, and enable new
forms that are not practical with current hardware. Even if runaway AI
doesn't introduce inherent danger, misused AI could be extremely powerful.
Conversely, AI of various sorts—even something as straightforward as
advanced data-mining—could solve several problems that currently have us
stumped. It may be worth pre-planning to launch an AI research program as
soon as the computer power becomes available. |
| Subquestion |
Space program? |
| Preliminary answer |
Access to space
will become cheaper by at least several orders of magnitude. This should be
planned for. Space may be useful for resources, for quarantine, and for
science. |
| Conclusion |
Many options need to be considered and synthesized. Hastily chosen or
simplistic policy is extremely unlikely to be wise or effective.
|
| Other studies |
1.
Is
mechanically guided chemistry a viable basis for a manufacturing technology?
2. To what extent is molecular manufacturing counterintuitive and
underappreciated in a way that causes underestimation of its importance?
3. What is
the performance and potential of diamondoid machine-phase chemical
manufacturing and products?
4. What is the performance and potential of biological programmable
manufacturing and products?
5. What is the performance and potential of nucleic acid
manufacturing and products?
6. What other chemistries and options should be studied?
7. What
applicable sensing, manipulation, and fabrication tools exist?
8. What will be required to develop diamondoid machine-phase chemical
manufacturing and products?
9. What will be required to develop biological programmable
manufacturing and products?
10. What will be required to develop nucleic acid manufacturing and
products?
11. How rapidly will the cost of development decrease?
12. How could an effective development program be structured?
13. What is
the probable capability of the manufacturing system?
14. How capable will the products be?
15. What will the products cost?
16. How rapidly could products be designed?
17. Which
of today's products will the system make more accessible or cheaper?
18. What new products will the system make accessible?
19. What impact will the system have on production and distribution?
20. What effect will molecular manufacturing have on military and
government capability and planning, considering the implications of arms
races and unbalanced development?
21. What effect will this have on macro- and microeconomics?
22. How can proliferation and use of nanofactories and their products
be limited?
23. What effect will this have on policing?
24. What beneficial or desirable effects could this have?
25. What effect could this have on civil rights and liberties?
26. What are the disaster/disruption scenarios?
27. What effect could this have on geopolitics?
28. What policies toward development of molecular manufacturing does
all this suggest?
30. How can appropriate policy be made and implemented?
|
| Studies should begin
immediately. |
The situation is
extremely urgent. The stakes are unprecedented, and the world is unprepared.
The basic findings of these studies should be verified as rapidly as
possible (months, not years). Policy preparation and planning for
implementation, likely including a crash development program, should begin
immediately. |
