1986 through 2016: Thirty Years of Nanotechnology and Foresight
page 1 | page 2 | page 3
Securing a future worth having by advancing understanding of emerging revolutionary technologies
Promoting understanding, building community, clarifying vision
Publications & meetings
Foresight has been working since 1986 to advance understanding of the vision of emerging technologies painted in Engines. Initial efforts were directed to building a community of those wanting to bring forth an open future of liberty, diversity, and peace through advancing beneficial emerging technologies. Community building progressed through a series of newsletters and briefing documents begun the following year and continued for two decades. One part of that process was the publication in 1991 of a second book on nanotechnology: Unbounding the Future: the Nanotechnology Revolution, by Eric Drexler and Chris Peterson, with Gayle Pergamit. William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York. The book is available on Foresight's web site in its entirety and combines basic explanations of nanotechnology with a diverse set of scenarios to illustrate possibilities in easily understandable terms.
These writings were supplemented through presentations and symposiums. One of the earliest of these was held at MIT in January 1987. Another was held in Seattle in February 1989, and is documented in proceedings available free online. This was an eclectic gathering of members of the public interested in nanotechnology, the principals of Foresight Institute, a few scientists (Prof. Nadrian Seeman of NYU introduced DNA nanotechnology here), and those interested in hypermedia information systems (inspired by the "Network of Knowledge" chapter of Engines).
Such efforts set the stage for the First Foresight Conference on Nanotechnology, held in Palo Alto in October, 1989, which brought together scientists in a number of fields considered to be on the path to advanced nanotechnology (control of solid state structure, imaging and positioning atoms, protein design, molecular modeling, molecular electronics) and in related fields. A second technical conference (Toward Molecular Control) followed in November, 1991. As with the first conference, this was an invitation-only event to bring together top researchers and provide participants with the information and contacts needed to make progress toward molecular control, especially to make contact with potential research collaborators outside their own field.
Foresight's third conference, the First General Conference on Nanotechnology held in November of 1992, changed focus. A broader community of entrepreneurs, policymakers, students, and investors was gathered from three continents to learn about the development status and potential of molecular nanotechnology.
o further promote these new technological goals, the proceedings of both the first technical conference and the First General Conference were published in book form:
- Nanotechnology: Research and Perspectives. Edited by BC Crandall and James Lewis (1992, MIT Press, hardbound) ISBN 0-262-03195-7. 381 + ix pages. Read more …
- Prospects in Nanotechnology: Toward Molecular Manufacturing. Edited by Markus Krummenacker and James Lewis (Hardbound, xviii + 297 pages. Includes bibliographic references and index. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto, and Singapore. 1995) Read more …
Seventeen technical conferences followed, from "Computer-Aided Design of Molecular Systems" held in October of 1993 to "The Integration Conference" held in February 2014. The 1993 conference was preceded by a day-long tutorial, and the conference proceedings were published as a special issue of the journal Nanotechnology, published by the Institute of Physics. The practice of preceding the conference with a day of tutorials to facilitate researchers becoming familiar with other fields that might become relevant to their fields through pursuit of the common goal of atomically precise manufacturing became a common practice for Foresight Technical Conferences during the following decade. Conferences also often included arrangements to publish full papers developed from conference presentations in a special journal issue. More recently, conference formats have evolved to consider all conference presentations confidential to encourage speakers to present and discuss unpublished results.
The First General Conference on Nanotechnology was followed by a series of Gatherings and Vision Weekends designed for Senior Associates, members who made a five-year commitment to support Foresight. These annual events were small, intense meetings designed to give Senior Associates the information and contacts needed to further their goals involving nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing: technical, academic, personal, and business goals.
One early Senior Associate Gathering, held in November of 1995, tackled accomplishing real work during the meeting. "Areas to be tackled include nanotechnology technical development paths, uploading all Foresight nanotechnology information onto the World Wide Web (with new links), Web enhancement back links and filtering, computer security issues (important for safe development of nanotechnology), building a nanotechnology database, and analysis of nanotechnology-oriented fiction."
The Gathering for May of 1999 was billed as a "Group Genius" Weekend, Foresight's 1st Brainstorming-Planning-Actionfest & NanoSchmoozathon" for "200 of the most forward-looking minds on the planet — leaders and visionaries in emerging technologies, freedom, and dynamic change". (Event wrap-up) This was Foresight's first experiment with the "Design Shop" process for group genius (see below). The vision weekend held in November of 2007 focused on NanoBioInfoCognoSocioPhysical technologies & how to benefit from them all. The November 2008 vision weekend "Convergence08" continued the "Unconference" theme and covered the convergence of Nanotech, Biotech, Cogitech, and Infotech.
Prizes
One result of the First General Conference on Nanotechnology was the establishment of the Foresight Institute Feynman Prizes given to researchers whose recent work have most advanced the achievement of Feynman's goal for nanotechnology: the construction of atomically-precise products through the use of molecular machine systems. The first Feynman Prize was awarded at the Third Foresight Research Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology: Computer-Aided Design of Molecular Systems. It was funded by Foresight members Marc Arnold and Ted Kaehler and awarded to Charles Musgrave, a Ph.D. candidate in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, for his work on modeling a hydrogen abstraction tool useful in nanotechnology. The first Feynman Prize awarded was thus for an accomplishment in theoretical science.
The second Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology was awarded in 1995 during the fourth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology to Nadrian C. Seeman, Ph.D., chemistry professor at New York University, for developing ways to construct three-dimensional structures, including cubes and more complex polyhedra, from synthesized DNA molecules. The second Feynman Prize awarded was thus for an accomplishment in experimental science, work that also founded the field of structural DNA nanotechnology. Separate Feynman Prizes for both Theory and Experiment have been awarded every year since 1997, the most recent being the 2016 prizes awarded October 1, 2016, at Foresight's workshop Artificial Intelligence For Scientific Progress: Bringing Digital Control to Physical Matter
The as of yet unclaimed $250,000 incentive Feynman Grand Prize was established in 1996 and will be awarded to the first team who designs, constructs, and demonstrates both a functional nano-scale robotic arm and a functional nano-scale computing device with specified features. Funds for the Feynman Grand Prize were donated by two entrepreneurs associated with Foresight Institute: James R. Von Ehr II, formerly founder of Altsys Corporation, and vice president at Macromedia, and currently CEO and Founder of Zyvex Labs and Founder and Chairman of the Board of Zyvex Technologies; Marc Arnold, chief executive officer of Angel Technologies, a St. Louis-based wireless telecommunication company.
Over the past 30 years Foresight has awarded prizes in three additional categories. The Foresight Distinguished Student Award was established in 1997 and is given to a college undergraduate or graduate student whose work is notable in the field of nanotechnology. It has been awarded 15 times from 1997 through 2016. The Foresight Prize in Communication recognizes outstanding journalistic or other communication endeavors that lead to a better public understanding of advanced nanotechnology. It was awarded eight times from 2000 through 2007. The Foresight Institute Government Prize was awarded once, so far, in 2005 to a government official who has used the influence of their office to advance beneficial nanotechnology and encourage the funding of molecular nanotechnology research.
Lectures by Foresight principals from the past 15 years are listed here and here. Starting in 2005, Foresight instituted a weekly email newsletter, which has continued on a monthly basis since 2010. To report progress along various paths toward atomically precise manufacturing and other Foresight goals, Foresight established a blog Nanodot in May of 2000. The first post reported "Coding a Transhuman AI 2.0a published". This paper "discusses how to build a general intelligence, along with the specific issues associated with creating a self-modifying or "seed" AI (one that can understand and rewrite its own source code)." The most recent "Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognizes molecular machines" reports that Sir J. Fraser Stoddart, winner of the 2007 Foresight Feynman Prize for Experiment, shares the 2016 Chemistry Nobel Prize for the design and synthesis of molecular machines. This happened 9 years after he was awarded Foresight Institute’s Feynman Prize in 2007.
Skepticism and Opposition
As early as November of 1987 Foresight was already defending its conception of nanotechnology. A British trade journal reported funding for nanotechnology in Britain, defined as "the manufacture and measurement of devices and products where dimensions or tolerances are in the range 0.1 to 100 nm...". This definition was much broader than manufacturing with atomic precision as envisioned by Feynman and Drexler. This broader definition was basically the definition that would be adopted by the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) a decade later. During the intervening decade progress in a number of technologies, including a 1988 milestone in de novo protein engineering, and in 1989 using a scanning tunneling microscope to arrange 35 xenon atoms into the IBM logo, eventually led to the US NNI and similar programs in other countries.
How the desires of other researchers in nanoscale technologies to share in the new funding opportunities sparked by the Feynman-Drexler vision of nanotechnology combined with concerns about dangers of advanced nanotechnology to push the Feynman-Drexler view of advanced nanotechnology out of the US NNI is described by Drexler in a 2004 publication (abstract, PDF). Another paper published in 2004 and written by Chris Phoenix and Eric Drexler described why autonomous self-replicating nanomachines (i.e., assemblers) were not necessary to implement advanced nanotechnology, and why nanofactories were both more useful and inherently safer (abstract, PDF). A 2003 debate on the NNI between Drexler and Nobel laureate chemist Richard Smalley was covered by Foresight Update. Additional discussion of the debate is here, here, and here.
As interest in nanotechnology grew in the years following Foresight's founding, disputes over just what nanotechnology entailed also grew. Following the arguments he put forth in Engines about hypertext publishing systems, Drexler called in June 1995 for the enhancement of the then rapidly spreading World Wide Web (WWW) to provide the added functionality necessary for a true hypertext publishing system for conducting public technical arguments. This call for enhancing the WWW came just a few months after a column (February, 1995) in which Drexler discussed progress during the first decade of Foresight's existence in the technology itself and also in understanding the technology.
An important part of Foresight's early work was correcting public and media misunderstanding of nanotechnology of the sort that Foresight was advocating. A prominent example of that effort arose from an article that Scientific American published in April of 1996 about the 4th Foresight Conference on molecular nanotechnology, which had been held the previous November, in which the writer questioned work in molecular nanotechnology without offering any technical criticism of the work. This article elicited a response from Foresight and ignited an extended debate (overview) that in the end provided a concrete instance of the value of WWW discussions as had been anticipated in Drexler's article on "Hypertext Publishing and the Evolution of Knowledge". Other exchanges in the discussion of the feasibility of molecular manufacturing are listed here.
While defending the feasibility of molecular manufacturing and exploring paths from current research to that goal, Foresight also worked with the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing from June 2000 through April 2006 to assemble guidelines for responsible development of nanotechnology. Foresight has also addressed policy questions through a series of white papers and policy briefs.
Although Foresight's primary concern has always been the attainment and consequences of atomically precise manufacturing, Foresight has also been concerned to see that near term progress in incremental nanotechnology is used to the best advantage to meet critical human needs: the Foresight Nanotechnology Challenges. From 2005 through 2008 a weekly news digest followed progress in the application of incremental nanotechnology to progress in clean energy, clean water, improving health and longevity, healing and preserving the environment, maximizing productivity of agriculture, making information technology available to all, and enabling space development.
page 1 | page 2 | page 3
|