"Ron_Fischer.mvenvos"@XEROX.COM (06/13/89)
"Keith_J._Emanuel.HENR801c"@xerox.com writes: > I was just thinking that one could have your nanoassemblers >cranking out perfect $100.00 bills, or bearer bonds for that matter. Indeed, one of the interesting things about assemblers is that they make the value of unique physical objects as ephemeral as information. Currently the difference between information and physical objects is that when an object is sold its gone. When informatoin is sold you still "have" it. With nanotech this no longer holds true for objects, since you can easily keep the information needed to reproduce a perfect copy. We're facing enormous problems today trying to define informational property rights in the emerging information marketplaces (entertainment is the largest). What will happen when you can create an object from information is difficult to imagine. Perhaps the way we buy information today will bear on this. One of the convulsions our society has had in trying to define informational property rights was the CD copy protection scheme that CBS attempted to legally mandate as part of consumer DAT hardware. Several specific frequencies were "cut out" of the audio spectrum on the disk. A digital filter arrangement detected this and could shut down a DAT recorder's input section when it was detected. To draw this into nanotech I've speculated that it would make an interesting high tech spy story where a primitve molecular materials processing facility was trying to hide the origins of its material by introducing errors (analogous to cutting out frequencies). Of course, if the errors were perfectly regular at the atomic scale one would be immediately suspicious (randomness could be introduced). Commercial dis/assemblers might follow such a route, detecting patterns of innocuous embedded molecules as copy protection. Assemblers are likely to be complex devices, at least as much as a DAT recorder, thus it may be possible to bury such a protection scheme in the guts of a standard commercial assembler in such a wayt that the "shade tree molecular engineer" can't remove it... easily. In "Blade Runner" Deckard identifies the genetic engineer who created an artificial snake using such embedded "version and author" codes. In most objects there would be alot of room to hide such info. With assemblers its likely that the way we buy physical objects will begin to resemble the way we currently buy information. [As a side note: I see am emerging tendency toward turning over the value of information by devaluing the media that contains it. Thus, VHS tapes will become less valuable as 8mm HiBand emerges (perhaps) or CDs become less valuable as DAT emerges. The consumer's recourse, without taking the option of ignorance, is to demand some kind of upward compatibility. E.g. if DAT comes along I want the RIGHT to move my old CDs onto DAT. I think that this is legally OK right now, since one can make an indefinate number of "personal use copies." Of course, the information merchants (at least in the computer software business) no longer sell you the data, they "license" it to you with all manner of restriction.] In Brand's "The Media Lab" there is a comment that consumers will pay for "quality of the originating source," hence the popularity of subscription services, the Honda automobile, etc. ["Superproducts" in Toffler's "Future Shock"]. Perhaps in future we can "subscribe" to various databases of music, images, information, etc. and license (permanently?) full ACCESS to any items we wish. These would then be availible in different media (CD, DAT) for a small copying fee, produced on your local DAT or writable CD player, or perhaps picked up at a local mom & pop duplication shop. Finally, (with nano tech) this might follow for physical objects, subscribe to a publisher that ensures quality to an acceptable level, license the design for the object, then pay a local "nano machine shop" to make copies whenever you like. You could probably buy right to make plain copies, or right to make modified versions. Finally, a standard contract for distribution/resale of modified versions would be excellent. It seems odd writing the paragraph above, which brings home the idea that in either physical objects like cars and planes or information objects like records and CDs, there is an information component on the one hand and an implementation component (matter) on the other. Or put another way, information (design) is a precursor to any physical experience. Something about this feels wrong however, perhaps at the quantum level this idea (implementation = information) breaks so badly that the overall idea is foolish? I'll stop here. (ron)
trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead) (06/14/89)
In article <8906130724.AA21679@athos.rutgers.edu> "Ron_Fischer.mvenvos"@XEROX.COM writes: >Finally, (with nano tech) this might follow for physical objects, subscribe >to a publisher that ensures quality to an acceptable level, license the >design for the object, then pay a local "nano machine shop" to make copies >whenever you like. Ah, but here is the rub - what do you use to ``pay'' for the subscription? Raw Materials? Energy? Information? I would venture to guess that these resources, with nanotechnology, become essentially infinite and free. Therefore, what is the currency of a nano- society? I think it will be _prestige_ or _craftsmanship_. In other words, your ability to obtain things (cars, houses, starships, etc) will depend solely on your ability to convince the person who has designed the desired object that you are deserving of it, by proving that you have made a contribution to society on either a micro or macro-scale, or by convincing the creator that you have a good use for it. And, in turn, the creator's prestige depends on not only what he creates, but how wisely he chooses who gets to use it. For example, lets say you want a Starship. There are lots of starship designs out there based on old (last year?) technology that do .9c, and these designs, because they are obsolete, are essentially in the public domain because it isn't worth the creator's time to oversee them. On the other hand, that brand spanking .999c design is much more attractive to you, so much so that it is worth your time to try and convince the designer that you should have one. Wierd? I think in many ways it parallels the prestige-markets that appear in many college computer labs. -- Robert J Woodhead, Biar Games, Inc. !uunet!biar!trebor | trebor@biar.UUCP ``The worst thing about being a vampire is that you can't go to matinees and save money anymore.''
landman@SUN.COM (Howard A. Landman) (06/14/89)
In article <8906130724.AA21679@athos.rutgers.edu> "Ron_Fischer.mvenvos"@XEROX.COM writes: >In "Blade Runner" Deckard identifies >the genetic engineer who created an artificial snake using such embedded >"version and author" codes. In most objects there would be alot of room to >hide such info. I wouldn't exactly turn to "Blade Runner" for accurate technical ideas. Consider that the identifying marks are found on a scale from the snake. Consider that snakes don't HAVE scales; just skin that's folded up in a scaly manner. Only fishes have true scales. Regardless, I think this sort of ID may already be used. I seem to remember an article on genetic engineering where the company inserted a special sequence of DNA which included its name or initials encoded into the base pairs, along with the sequence that actually did the job. Since the initialization of RNA transcription happens only at certain sites, it's fairly easy to bury DNA that has no meaning as protein in a longer sequence, and be sure that it won't express itself. Still it will be replicated, and can be tested for using a radioactively labelled complementary strand. You can bet some patent-violation suit in the near future will take advantage of such technology (unless it's all settled out of court). Howard A. Landman landman@sun.com