Foresight Update 1
page 3
A publication of the Foresight Institute
 Opportunities
for Action
Immediate Needs
Many of the letters we've received ask "How can I
help?" Enabling many people to cooperate in preparing for
future technologies is the purpose of our Institute. At this
early stage the question of how to help breaks into two parts:
(1) How can I help FI get rolling? and (2) What role can I play
once the startup stage is over and the organization is in action?
As a first step, please fill out your questionnaire and return it
with a contribution. We need to know who you are before we can
see how you can best help. Elsewhere in this issue you'll see a
call for an executive director: ask yourself whether you know
anyone who matches that description or comes close. Don't worry
if the person is not yet interested in (or even aware of) our
goals--a good candidate would be the sort of person likely to
become interested. Please send us any suggestions you may have.
We'll need an executive director and staff before we can use the
volunteers clamoring to help.
Another obvious step: make your initial contribution substantial.
Many of you wrote to us as a result of reading Engines of Creation.
Look at it again to remind yourself of what it says about the
awesome opportunities and dangers ahead. Look at the newspapers
to remind yourself of how little awareness people have of our
situation, and how little is being done to prepare. Then ask how
much you can spare to help inform people and begin preparations,
to help us arrive, alive and free, in a future worth living in.
In these early days, your contribution could make a real
difference.
If you have special skills in nonprofit law, accounting, or
fundraising, please emphasize this on your questionnaire. If you
have extensive experience with leading nonprofit organizations,
we may need your advice, your contacts, and your skills.
While FI is getting started, there are actions you can take on
your own. Those in academia can incorporate our shared goals and
concerns into curricula covering the choices offered by
nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and other advanced
technologies, and the potential of new social technologies like
hypertext and fact forums that will help us prepare. This can be
done in many subjects, from technical courses to ethics seminars.
We can spread these ideas by word-of-mouth and by writing
letters-to-the-editor and articles for various publications.
These can rebut media coverage that paints an unrealistic picture
of future technology. They can point out the need for fact forums
and hypertext-based social software to help society make more
intelligent decisions. Letters can suggest new perspectives to
the writers and editors who shape the news. When you write such
letters or articles, please send us a copy, especially if they
are published.
Once FI is moving
We plan to make social software a reality, and adapt it to the
needs of a diverse, decentralized family of organizations. We'll
need software developers for everything from large systems to
simple user tools.
Right now FI is focusing on nanotechnology because it is a new
and powerful idea. We will encourage special interest groups to
examine the prospects and issues raised by artificial
intelligence, life extension, space, and other key topics. These
may spin off to form separate but cooperating groups. We'll need
help from those concerned with all these topics.
We'll be sponsoring lectures and conferences, and we'll want to
start having experimental fact forums, either online or in
person. We'll need organizational help for these, ranging from
arranging for a lecture by a touring FI speaker to running a
nationwide fact forum involving quarrelsome experts.
Within FI we'll need help in editing and producing documents,
since position papers and other writings will be our main output.
Graphics skills will be welcome. Audio-visual skills will be
needed to produce FI's audio and videotapes (we've already
received requests for these.)
Finally, although the need for political action is far off, it
will eventually be crucial. FI doesn't plan to handle this; as
with many functions, it will be handled by one or more loosely
affiliated groups. Political activists will then play a vital
role.
One final request: please be patient with our delay in responding
to your offers of help. It may take weeks or even months. Be
assured that we're doing our best to get FI to the point where it
can take advantage of its greatest resource: you and others with
a concern for shaping the future.
Letters
The Foresight Institute has received hundreds of letters
from across the US, Canada, and Europe requesting information on
our activities. Herewith some excerpts:
I have found Eric Drexler's Engines
of Creation to be the most profoundly exciting and
challenging book that I have ever read. As a PhD molecular
biologist, currently with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center here in Seattle, I intend to follow more closely research
in protein engineering from the standpoint of potential relevance
to these future developments. I would be most interested in news
of ongoing developments in nanotechnology.
James B. Lewis, PhD Seattle, WA
. . . Because I have a background in both artificial intelligence
and biochemistry, I can easily see that Drexler's vision is very
possible. I have often casually wondered if it would be possible
to design novel enzymes and hormones, but I never explored the
possibilities with the depth that Drexler has . . . I definitely
want to keep in touch with the developments Drexler predicts.
Please add me to the list.
Allen Alger Jacksonville, FL
I have recently finished reading Engines
of Creation by K. Eric Drexler. I am excited by the
prospects that this technology provides. It just so happens that
I am currently exploring opportunities for postdoctoral research
and I am interested to know if you maintain a list of
investigators or laboratories in which research on molecular
electronics, protein design and related fields is underway . . .
.
Mark S. Boguski, PhD Washington University School of Medicine St.
Louis, MO
. . . I am fascinated by [nanotechnology] for a variety of
reasons as a professional archaeologist with an interest in
cultural evolution, as an avocational writer, and as a witness to
and participant in the wonders you describe. It is clear that the
effects of this predicted revolution will be more far-reaching
than any since the rise of human intelligence. . . .
Robert J. Hommon Honolulu, HI
I would like to keep in touch with developments involved with
nanotechnology, as briefly outlined in Eric Drexler's book Engines of Creation.
I am particularly interested in the concrete contemporary actions
required to start us moving faster. . . .
Marvin McConoughey Corvallis, OR
. . . Have there been any efforts to organize a "Fact
Forum" on the true dangers versus myths about the AIDS
(Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) disease? It seems a
worthwhile project.
Michael Anzis Irvine, CA
. . . The challenge of establishing an "air tight"
system for preventing a disastrous outcome to the development of
nanotechnology is huge. You've broken a lot of ground in
formulating conceptual approaches, but in the end sealed
assemblies, burned technology bridges, public agency agreements
on all levels, and every other measure reasonable in a free
society may not suffice. As time passes, an assessment of how the
technology develops may expose so many loopholes that the
probability of disaster will be regarded as substantial. Then, it
may take something in the nature of sanctuaries or refuges in
which the development of countermeasures can proceed, if needed,
prior to penetration of whatever barriers are provided . . . .
It's the sort of thing the military will no doubt do, but with
what effectiveness? And, to the benefit of whom?. . . .
Fred and Linda Chamberlain South Lake Tahoe, CA
. . . I've been an active L5er [space development advocate] and
an experimental longevity volunteer for years. It's clear now
that I'll need to direct much of my free energies to help with
the transition to nanotechnology if we are to survive and
flourish. Please keep me informed.
Phillip Jones Seattle, WA
Of all the books I have ever read, none were as stimulating as
Mr. Drexler's Engines of
Creation. Gerard O'Neill's 2081, while interesting, is
pretty tame next to this. And 2081 did not leave me asking
"What can I do?" This I hope to discover with your help
now . . .
Mark Fischer Fairfax, VA
It is impossible for me to communicate my feelings of
exhilaration and hope after reading Engines of Creation.
Please do add me to your mailing list.
John L. Quel Bellevue, WA
I have just finished reading your book myself, and it's one of
the most important books I've read in the past few years. It has
changed, and is continuing to change, a lot of my most basic
beliefs. . . Would you please put me on your list for the
Foresight Institute--I would be interested in helping out
somehow. . .
Pete Wakeman
Nanotechnology
Symposium at MIT
Hundreds of members of the MIT community were introduced to
the concept of nanotechnology at a Symposium held on January 20.
Sponsored by the Departments of Applied Biological Sciences,
Materials Science and Engineering, Political Science, and the
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the event was organized by
the MIT Nanotechnology Study Group. Entitled "Exploring
Nanotechnology," the Symposium's all-day format enabled
participants to probe technical, political, economic, and social
aspects of the technology.
The first presentation, "Overview of Nanotechnology,"
was given by Eric Drexler, a
Visiting Scholar at Stanford University and Research Affiliate
with MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab. Drexler made the basic
case for technical feasibility, sketched several possible
development paths, and outlined some applications.
In "Materials Science and Protein Engineering," Dr.
Kevin Ulmer summarized the state-of-the-art in protein design.
Protein engineering is seen as one development path or
"enabling technology" for nanotechnology. Ulmer is
pursuing this path, currently as the Director of the Center for
Advanced Research in Biotechnology.
Next the technical basis was explored in a panel discussion by
Ulmer, Drexler, and professor Henry Smith of
MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering. There was general
agreement that the technology was feasible in principle, so the
discussion centered around the likely length and difficulty of
the development path will be.
After an argumentative lunch break, the symposium reconvened for
a colorful talk on "Economic Implications" by professor
David Friedman,
an economist at the University of Chicago Law School. Friedman
examined the naïve and not-so-naïve arguments for Luddism, the
position that new technologies are harmful. He argued that given
that events proceed on the basis of well-defined property rights
and voluntary action, and if one ignores externalities and
assumes that different people value wealth similarly, new
technologies are guaranteed to have net benefits. Friedman also
explored the question of what commodities and services would
still be valuable in a world with advanced nanotechnology.
In "Society, Technology, and Policy," professor Arthur
Kantrowitz of Dartmouth College explored whether
nanotechnology should be developed in the open (e.g. in
university labs) or in secret (e.g. in classified government
labs). Advocating openness, he pointed out its value in
minimizing corruption and speeding progress. In this way, the
"weapon of openness" can enable open democracies to
maximize their military strength while increasing public control
of that strength. He argued that secrecy should be used very
sparingly, and that secrets cannot be kept for a long time in any
case.
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| Minksy observed that quantum
mechanics makes systems in some ways more
predictable, by putting them into distinct states
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Next professor Marvin
Minsky of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab spoke on
"Thought and Intelligence." As usual, Minsky's talk was
impossible to summarize. His remarks ranged from the nature of
intelligence to the observation that quantum mechanics makes
systems in some ways more predictable, by putting them into
distinct states.
In a talk entitled "Medical and Life Extension
Applications," Eric Drexler considered the use of advanced
nanotechnology to diagnose and repair damage at the cellular
level. Devices designed to carry out this function--combining the
abilities of assemblers, disassemblers, and nanocomputers--he
terms cell repair machines. These devices could be made far
smaller than a cell.
Drexler also addressed the controversial question of timing and
abruptness of the nanotechnology breakthroughs. He pointed out
that it would be risky to ignore either slow or fast scenarios.
Abrupt or quick scenarios demand attention even if one doesn't
think them likely.
In a final panel discussion, Kantrowitz, Minsky, Drexler, and
Friedman discussed the "downside" of nanotechnology,
including destabilizing military applications of replicating
assemblers. Various destabilizing, dangerous scenarios were
sketched, which Minsky found pursuasive while Friedman did not.
Kantrowitz pointed out that these problems would be lessened by a
policy of openness on our part. Again the abruptness issue came
up: Drexler's point here was that an abrupt scenario is not so
unlikely that it is safe or prudent for us to ignore its
possibility. (He has promised to write an essay on this subject
for the Foresight Institute.) After extensive informal
discussions with members of the audience, the speakers and NSG
members departed to enjoy a well-earned Chinese dinner.
Two follow-up discussions were held later in the week to help
those new to nanotechnology consolidate their knowledge. These
were well-attended--despite abominable weather--and participants
got a chance to pursue more advanced topics.
A side benefit of the Symposium was that attendee Claudio Gatti,
a reporter for the Italian newsmagazine Europeo,
interviewed Eric Drexler for a four-page article on
nanotechnology which appeared in the February issue. The article
also featured the work of Dr. Ulmer of CARB and Dr. Forrest
Carter of the Naval Research Lab.
The Symposium was thoroughly recorded on audio and videotape, and
the MIT NSG is exploring the possibility of transcribing the
audio portion to produce a Proceedings publication. Inquiries can
be directed to: Christopher Fry, MIT AI Lab Room 702, 545
Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139.
The MIT NSG formed in January 1985 after Eric Drexler presented a
lecture series on nanotechnology. (A similar group is forming at
Berkeley.) The Foresight Institute would like to thank all the
NSG members who helped with the Symposium, with a special round
of applause for organizers Chris Fry of the AI Lab and David
Forrest of the Materials Science Department.
From Foresight Update 1,
originally published 15 June 1987.
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