Open Source Nanotechnology 60
dschl writes "There is a draft article linked from NanoTechnology Magazine about Open Sourcing Nanotechnology Research and Development. It is written by a sociologist, and covers some interesting issues including patent pooling, open source licensing for intelluctual property in Nanotech, and increased safety by using an open source model. "
Hmm... (Score:2)
And it's a good thing... (Score:3)
Perhaps this "open source" nanotechnology policy should be enforced. The only way to ensure nobody grabs for power using nanotech is to make sure everyone has it...
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
Story made for Slashdot (Score:4)
hmm...maybe next we'll get "RIAA sues nanotech firm for distrubuting music for free using nanobots"
open source nanotech? sounds dangerous to me. (Score:5)
Bruce
An Open Source Nanotechnology pioneer (Score:1)
If this Nanotechnology is GPL'ed (Score:2)
Open sourcing nano might be dangerous (Score:3)
Imagine biological warfare, etc. Engineering viruses using tiny particles.
The reason that Open Source workse so well for Linux and Apache is that you cannot hurt anyone with Linux and Apache, so even if some militant terrorist organization sets up a Linux box and strats serving up pages, the dangers are few and indirect.
Having nano go open source might be a bigger problem. I think the chances of a corporation turning it to "evil" uses are much slimmer than terrorists doing so given unrestricted access.
Not yet... (Score:3)
I don't see this happening with nanotech for a while. Not only are there very few pieces of machinery that can be used to construct things on a nano scale, but they're already booked with other projects.
Sure some of these projects could be distributed under open source, but there's a fundamental difference between releasing something under GPL and having a culture that can actually make use of it. Otherwise, it's not much different than public-betaware only an elite can use...
Kevin Fox
It's good to see the humanities represented (Score:3)
Sure, the scientists developing nanotech are qualified to make the technical decisions necessary to achieve their goals: building better technology -- it's what they do, and it's what they get paid for. But as we've learned from the atomic revolution of the mid 20th century, we can't leave these important decisions to scientists alone. They may not intend to produce monsters, but their focus on development without regard to consequences makes them often ill-suited to decide how to go about doing so. It's why managers and ethics boards exist, and it's good to see some fresh academic blood here.
Broken links? (Score:1)
Here are the correct ones:
NanoTechnology Magazine [ksc.co.th]
Open Sourcing Nanotechnology Research and Development [planet-hawaii.com]
HTH.
What of the truely dangerous components? (Score:2)
Not yet, but maybe not as far off as you think (Score:2)
OTOH, it also seems to me that the roots of open source had been around for quite some time (in the form of a somewhat less formalized hacker ethic), even when the tools of the trade were only available to a few. Then came minis, and micros, and open-architecture PC's, and BSD...
I'll bet that we'll probably see something similar happen with nanotech - at first, it'll be corporations and universities, but the knowledge will spread (mainly from the universities), the technology will get cheaper (maybe something like the 3D ice-printer mentioned in yesterday's article working on nanoscale and in polymers), and as more people can afford the gear, more people will start tinkering.
Thinking about applying open source principles now, though, is probably a Good Thing: It might get the early nanotech hackers thinking in that direction, and accelerate the growth of an open nanodesign culture far faster than it took for the open software culture to gestate.
Of course, cheap nanotech construction could be a bad thing - the lessons of ARMM loom large here. I suppose we'll see...
OK,
- B
This is for MODELING (Score:4)
But.. (Score:3)
Yeah, only steam engines aren't small enough to sneak up on your, slip into your bloodstream, and hack your cells to death. This technology scares me simply because we are moving far too fast without considering the risks.
Why should we not be open-sourcing this? Because you are only accellerating the time it takes some rogue with cash to either grey-goo the planet or take out everyone with a certain eye color just for fun. This is no trivial matter. It WILL happen in this century.
Eggs all in one basket (Score:1)
Grey Goo (Score:1)
The best way to do this is to make them self-reproducing. The one slight problem with this is that when you have a microscobic devive that will reproduce, it is possible to lose control of it. If this happens, they reproduce like bacteria, except there isn't penicillin.
The ultimate conclusion is that they are numbered in the trillions, and the earth is overcome with Grey Goo. [everything2.com]
Beware of nanotechnology.
Prepare for it. [singinst.org]
Pessimists see optimists' minds as three-quarters empty.
it seems to me... (Score:2)
how would you construct a closed-source nanotech device? could you do so by making it self-destruct upon contact with the atmosphere (not very useful)? but wouldn't any copy-protection built into your nanotech devices suffer from the problem of being able to be disassembled by other nanotech devices, or by the same machinery that built them?
GAIN EVERLASTING LIFE [alexchiu.com]
Gray Bull (Score:4)
Nanotechnology, as it is currently designed (and in very few cases, implemented), is incapable of self-replication. The von Neumann "Universal Constructor [zyvex.com]" is sufficiently distant from present technology as to remain essentially fictitious. Additionally, the von Neumann model relies on both an independant instruction-control system (microcumputer or otherwise), and a supply of prefabricated components. Want to stop a von Neumann? Stop making parts.
The Drexler architecture, using chemical rather than mechanical manipulators, is closer to modern theory, as it mimics the effects of current biotechnology and organic chemical manufacturing, but still relies on an independant instruction-control system.
In both cases, the instruction-control system (referred to in the link above as a "universal computer") must be capable of infinitely variable tasks for the device to be useful. It must have the instruction set necessary to create another example of itself, and any instructions required by its target manufacturing process. It only requires sufficient memory to replicate, as any manufacturing process can be broken down sufficiently to use subprocesses infinitely simpler than self-replication
Regardless, the "universal computer" is unnecessary to the end goal of nanorobotics. A localized instruction-broadcast system can direct the nanorobots in any tasks relevant to their location, and would prevent any manufacturing, self-replicative or otherwise, while out of range of this signal.
"Don't worry, be nano." :)
-c.
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nano-robots (Score:1)
Nothing new (Score:2)
Re:But.. (Score:2)
For a time several centuries ago, it was fashionable for wives to "murder" their husbands by poisoning -- and you think women's lib is a recent innovation! Poisons do everything you describe. Anyone with an umbrella tipped with ricin can "sneak up on you, slip into your bloodstream, and hack your cells to death", as the umbrella assasins of the 19th century did in England. But why go to all that trouble, when you can just set a few fires and kill people that way? It's easy enough to target select racial or national groups if that's what you're doing; do your arson in their neighborhoods. And it's dirt cheap.
Re:Gray Bull (Score:1)
I think another useful lesson to apply to the Gray Goo debate is the fact that there already exists a self-replicating, motile machine capable of surviving in diverse environments and feeding off a variety of chemicals: bacteria.
While I understand that they do have some limitations due to the materials involved (water, DNA), I'll bet we'll find that (barring the application of some new physical principle) nanomachines are limited in practice by some of the same problems of environmental suitability and resource procurement as bacteria, as well as functional limitations of how much processing power you can really put in a nanite. The Real Grey Goo would need so many features, I bet it would rapidly balloon past the millimeter scale...
Of course, that goes out the window if you nanites to mutate. That's a whole different ball of goo...
OK,
- B
sort of interesting... (Score:1)
back on topic...about 2 weeks ago, some of my peers went on a field trip to the nanofabrication and nanotechnology labs at Penn State University, and from all the stuff they saw and showed me, it was pretty darned cool. They did all sorts of things there...but I thought the coolest thing was the way they would coat metals and such by shooting streams of electrons at a chunk of metal...such as gold....and the microbits of gold would then cover the object in like...1/100000 of an inch layers...this nanotechnology and fabrication stuff is neato.
Re:Open sourcing nano might be dangerous (Score:1)
Re:Open sourcing nano might be dangerous (Score:1)
Re:But.. (Score:3)
Of course, atomic weapons are one of those fields that's just about as "closed source" as you can get. Admitttedly the things have been around for half a century now, so nukes aren't as secret as they used to be. Still, one could argue that the reason we haven't had to worry about nuclear weapons is that the few nations that have had them have generally worked pretty hard to make sure no one else acquired them.
Re:Open sourcing nano might be dangerous (Score:1)
No, nanotech tools are quite cheap (Score:2)
You're way off the mark. You can buy a posh commercial SPM for 50K dollars, and you can build a poor-man's equivalent for 2-5K.
Nanotech is basically kitchen-table technology, and it's only got a "K" after its price at all because we're still in the research phase and so calibrated instrumentation is needed. That's the reason for the "high" prices, which are of course actually peanuts in commercial terms and easily affordable by Ferrari-owning hobbiests.
You, me, and potatoes are full of nanomachines. Cost is not going to be a problem.
Re:Story made for Slashdot (Score:3)
Re:Eggs all in one basket (Score:2)
Re:Grey Goo (Score:1)
Some damage has been done already (Score:3)
On a related note, patent-related lawsuits between major players nearly destroyed the scanning probe microscope industry a few years ago and is probably holding back advances. Digital Instruments has a patent on "digital feedback SPM" and went around suing SPM companies that had an A/D card somewhere in their feedback loop.
Scanning probe microscopes are important in some nanotech research, so patent fights are already hurting nanotech.
I've seen patents on nanotech dating to 1989, and I didn't look very hard. The irony is that much nanotech research is government-funded, but the Universities will then sell the patents to companies and thus deprive the taxpayer of the benefits of research that the taxpayer paid for. I think it's an outrage!
Open source nanotech? The SALVATION of the world! (Score:3)
You read the Jargon File? I am reminded of the blue goo versus gray goo.
For those of you who aren't aware of the two, the Gray Goo is evil stuff, skews the world to pollution and toxic waste... while Blue Goo is anti-gray, restoring the Natural Order of Things. It produces oxygen, replants the rainforest, scrubs sulfur oxides out of the atmosphere, recreates extinct species, cleans the oceans...
I think that OS Hardware and Nano in particular is the best way of making sure that there IS a Blue Goo which can overcome closed, corporate Gray.
Re:open source nanotech? sounds dangerous to me. (Score:1)
Re:Open sourcing nano might be dangerous (Score:1)
Even though Soviet Union was able to steal the atomic bomb plans, because it was a large country that had to fear retribution it never used the bomb against the US.
Making such nano technology open source removes the "entry barrier" into the field, and therefore is dangerous.
You've GOT to be kidding. (Score:2)
You're KIDDING, right?
Bill Clinton.
Mummar Kqudhafi.
Joe Stalin.
Adolph Hitler.
I could go on, and on, and on...
A whole new meaning. (Score:1)
Brings a whole new meaning to "writing a virus", doesn't it?
Re:And it's a good thing... (Score:1)
Re:Not yet... (Score:1)
Open Source the Nanotech, not just the dev tools! (Score:2)
Nanorobots, open source: it's all goo (Score:2)
BLUE GOO: Nanomachines used as protection against grey goo and other destructive nanomachines, possibly even used for law-enforcement (nanarchy). According to the entry in the Jargon File, it is sometimes used to denote any form of benign nanotechnology in the environment.
RED GOO: Deliberately designed and released destructive nanotechnology, as opposed to accidentally created grey goo.
KHAKI GOO: Military nanotechnology; see grey goo.
GREEN GOO: Nanomachines or bio-engineered organisms used for population control of humans, either by governments or eco-terrorist groups. Would most probably work by sterilizing people through otherwise harmless infections. See Nick Szabo's essay Green Goo -- Life in the Era of Humane Genocide.
GOLDEN GOO: Another member of the grey goo family of nanotechnology disaster scenarios. The idea is to use nanomachines to filter gold from seawater. If this process got out of control we would get piles of golden goo (the "Wizard's Apprentice Problem"). This scenario demonstrates the need of keeping populations of self-replicating machines under control; it is much more likely than grey goo, but also more manageable. [Originated on sci.nanotech 1996]
PINK GOO (humorous) Humans (in analogy with grey goo). "Pink Goo to refer to Old Testament apes who see their purpose as being fruitful and multiplying, filling up of the cosmos with lots more such apes, unmodified." [Eric Watt Forste August 1997]
http://www.transhumanism.com/lexicon/ [transhumanism.com]
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Re:Eggs all in one basket (Score:1)
Re:Story made for Slashdot (Score:2)
Jon Katz sues Amazon.com over single-click geek profiling software.
hmmm...do we really want... (Score:1)
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Re:Open sourcing nano might be dangerous (Score:2)
Imagine if the government decided to use nanotech to "rehabilitate" those with "un-American" thinking patterns... Forget Cyberpatrol and NetNanny, you can censor people's minds with nanotech... If one person or group has nanotech, everyone has to have it, or that person or group gains essentially limitless power.
If everyone is capable of looking after their own needs, what role will governments play? Will we need them, or will they cease to be a necessary evil?
Open Source = Some Good (Score:1)
Re:Story made for Slashdot (Score:2)
Re:Eggs all in one basket (Score:2)
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No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
Re:But.. (Score:1)
But... if you've already got benign nanites in your bloodstream, then they can fend off the hostile ones. With self replicating nano, you could be injected at birth and be 'immunized'. And if someone releases something that can defeat the defenses, then you could get an 'update' to be protected against the latest bug. Remember, the technology for mass scale destruction has been around for quite a while, nukes, gasses, etc. Nano is just one more thing, I would be more worried about some terrorist using conventional technology, there's plenty of it on the market.
Re:it seems to me... (Score:1)
Just because you can, doesnt mean you should
~matt~
~matt~
0
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Re:But.. (Score:1)
True, but with that other stuff you have to AIM it. With nanobots you could just type in the attack profile and dump a bucket of em into some stream.
Thanks, here's the direct URL (Score:1)
Thanks for the comments. Here is a direct link to my article: Open Sourcing Nanotechnology [ksc.co.th]
Re:Eggs all in one basket (Score:2)
As far as I can tell, there's no fundamental physical problem with our current state of material science which would prevent us from creating small colonies scattered through the solar system - except for the massive resource requirements it would take to get everything going in the beginning.
Are you referring to the use of nanotechnology to reduce this initial cost?
Re:Open sourcing nano might be dangerous (Score:1)
Re:hmmm...do we really want... (Score:1)
Agree. Nanotech develop tools for everyone is quite scary.
For eg. a nano replicator could make exact copies of anything. Not just counterfit or forgery but EXACT copies.
Money, id cards etc would be useless.
All money tranfers will have to be made with credit cards/cash card each transaction verified by the bank. That is if the bank is still there and not converted to Greygoo but some nanoscript kiddie.
Biometrics for all id'ing. But who says a nano replicator cannot replicate an eye or a whole person?
Weapons - I don't want to go into that subject. I think I'll just go home now. Happy that we still live in a non nanotech world.
Cheers
Re:It's good to see the humanities represented (Score:1)
Um.. I will vehemently disagree with you, Ma'am. I will point out the letter from Einstein, et. al., to the political powers-that-were during the development of the A-bomb. They (the Manhattan Project scientists) were _quite_ aware of the possible consequences, far more so than the politicos (I will recommend a perusal of the SF literature of pre-WWII for references, but Lester del Rey's _Nerves_ comes to mind just off the top of my head). Science is all too often silent, but that is for political reasons (e.g., they'll lose funding, be arrested, etc.) rather than from ignorance. And, all too often, when science warns, it is ignored.
Most of the time it is, in fact, the political/legal/commercial/military establishments that have been in abysmal ignorance (in fact, a good deal of the time in the cases of the legal/commercial establisments the ignorance has not only been abysmal but _deliberate_) of the wider consequences of science and technology. Napster is a lovely example of this. It caught the commercial/legal worlds _flatfooted_, but the folks who have been actually working with the technology wouldn't have noticed anything unusual or unexpected about it at all, simply because it was as natural as an oak growing from an acorn. But, I forget, this country (and, to a lesser extent, this culture) gets its ideas about how technology works from the heirs of Gene Roddenberry, which is like getting one's ideas about how relationships work from "The Young and The Restless". -sigh- No, Fernando, one doesn't come up with a new framistan just be "retuning the left-handed cyclic pollinator circuits in the holodeck projectors". It's a shade more involved than that.
Just my $0.02...
Re:Open Source = Some Good (Score:1)
Input Early, Input often (Score:1)
Re:You've GOT to be kidding. (Score:1)
These people will refrain from using mass destruction technology for the fear of having it used against them in retaliation. A small group of terrorists that is fanatical enough to be willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause will not fear such retaliation, and there is therefore nothing to stop them from using such technology were they to have access to it.
Even a government you do not trust is a better repository of such knoweledge than a small group independent whose ideas you agree with.