phypawl@cs.buffalo.edu (06/27/89)
I'm new to nanotech and I'm fascinated by the idea, but I'd like to know more technical details. Since Nature has demonstrated to us that nanotechnology is possible, I would think that there are labs that are studying nanotechnology. Who is conducting the research? How far is it advanced? By nanotechnology I mean even something as primitive as a solution of DNA mixed with some organelles and some kind of replication being performed that does not occur naturally. Any success at synthesising the information capabilities of life would be a step towards nanotechno- logy. This is an interesting topic in itself: when does nanotechnology start? Another question: what is the computing power of, say, a ribosome, in bps? It seems that Nature has already developed the ultimate computer and now all we have to struggle for is to harness this technology. Let me end with a philosophical note. The possibility of nanotechnology has lead many to speculate about its effect on future human evolution and the survival of homo sapiens. Personaly I believe that nanotechnology will be a destructive force. With the present state of human affairs unchanged, nanotechnological devices will become competitors for humans, rather than their tools. Maybe not for all humans, but the few (both in the East and West) that 'run' society will find it tempting to replace their unruly subordinates by some more 'perfect' devices. Also that the impoverished people in some distant country will be 'awarded' nanotech- nology by its developers is, to me, a utopia. At least with the present way that living creatures interact. Our greatest discovery is that bio- logical progress is achieved through competition of antagonistic forces. This does not cease to be true with the emergence of advanced informa- tion processing capabilities. The intrinsic hostility is not due to our bad will, but is an invariant of existence. Maybe this reasoning is wrong. It is a very difficult business to predict the impact of technology on civilization. But if nanotechnology will bring to an end the homo sapiens, then it will not be by some accident, but by evolutionary necessity. Jerzy Pawlowski [Current progress towards nanotechnology is primarily in the areas of molecular biology, surface physics, computational chemistry, and areas of conventional organic chemistry. The research is going on everywhere. Little of this is explicitly aimed at "nanotechnology" but that is where it is leading. I don't really believe in Drexler's "leading force" as overwhelmingly likely. My impression is more that in a decade or two, we will begin to see nanotechnology "bustin' out all over" because there are so many paths to it and so many people pursuing them. Under these conditions, it is as unlikely that *no* nanotechnologist helps out underdeveloped countries as that all of them did. As to being surpassed on the evolutionary scale, there are still plenty of cockroaches:^). Seriously, have a look at Moravec's "Mind Children" for some thoughtful speculation on that score. --JoSH]