Accelerating Future

CRN is the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, a non-profit acting to raise awareness of the benefits and dangers of molecular nanotechnology. CRN is composed of Mike Treder (pictured above), Executive Director of CRN, and Chris Phoenix, Director of Research. Mike and Chris are aided by a prestigious advisory board and dozens of volunteers and supporters.

Nanotechnology is a hypothesized future manufacturing technology which would employ tremendous numbers of tiny robotic arms working together to construct human-scale products. This would come about via planar assembly, where each tiny nanorobot (consisting of perhaps a few million atoms) manufactures a tiny piece of the product, adding it to a main body bit by bit, until something macro-scale is created (for example, a laptop). For a visual example, see the film Productive Nanosystems: from Molecules to Superproducts (warning: file is 86.1MB in size).

How can we make huge numbers of nanorobotic arms? We’d need a reprogrammable nanorobotic arm capable of self-replicating using readily available materials. This will be difficult - at the macro-scale, we’ve made limited progress with such robotic arms. But if we could create such a self-replicator successfully, then we could instruct it to produce many trillions of copies of itself, and then reprogram those copies to work together to make human-sized products. A full “nanofactory” would require quite a bit of internal complexity. As listed by Eric Drexler, parts required would include:

a casing to protect its interior from air, moisture, and dirt

inlets for liquid feedstocks to supply molecules for processing

molecular sorting mechanisms to purify inputs

alignment and binding mechanisms to organize streams of molecules

mechanosynthetic devices to process inputs into reactive tools

mechanosynthetic devices to apply tools to workpieces

mill-style mechanisms to join workpieces into larger blocks

programmable mechanisms to join blocks into complex products

a port to deliver finished products while protecting the interior space

motors to drive moving parts

computers to control material flows and assembly mechanisms

stored data and programs to direct the computers

data communication channels to coordination actions

electrical systems to distribute power

a cooling system to dissipate waste heat

a structural framework to support the casing and internal components

How can we possibly build and control robotic arms and other components at this miniscule scale? Using molecular dynamics, we have accurately modeled tiny motors, shafts, gears, bearings, and more. Scientists have already constructed DNA “walkers”, “nanocars”, molecular circuits, and other basic nanodevices. But putting these components together into something as complex as a nanofactory will take work. Chris Phoenix, Director of Research for CRN, has described some ideas “Design of a Primitive Nanofactory”, a breakthrough paper in the field.

Because of scaling laws, nanofactories will be tremendously productive. Large products, like automobiles, will be fabricated over the course of days or even hours. Large products, like buildings and aircraft carriers, will be built in weeks rather than years. Here is a visual explanation:

© 2004 Eric Drexler.

Smaller robotic arms move faster than larger arms. A product constructed by many tiny arms working together will be built much faster than a product constructed by a single, large robotic arm. This is the advantage of greatly improving the functionality per kilogram of tool. Another advantage of nanotech is atomic precision - you can put each atom exactly where you want it. For example, you can cheaply place carbon atoms in a 3-dimensional matrix of covalent bonds. This is called diamond. Because nanomachines would need to be very rigid to operate effectively, most preliminary designs call for diamond. The first nanofactories will likely be capable of building only diamond products, which will be quite effective for many purposes. These nanofactories will probably be desktop-sized, and theoretically capable of manufacturing their own weight in product in a few hours. (The main limitation is heat dissipation.)

Once you have a reprogrammable nanofactory that builds diamondoid products, you are in business. The blueprints for many common products will be reworked to accommodate all-diamondoid designs, which will be radically more effective than the originals. Stronger, more durable, and so on. This will be of particular interest in military applications, and therein lies the risk. A nanotechnological arms race could lead to our collective demise, or the creation of a global dictatorship. The technological advantage conferred by a successful implementation of nanotechnology would be massive. This technological advantage could be used to greatly expand human freedom or to limit it.

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology explains these incredibly complex issues in very clear terms. Safe Utilization of Advanced Nanotechnology is a good place to start. For further exploration, there is the CRN blog, “Thirty Essential Nanotechnology Studies”, and Wise-Nano, a collaborative wiki project. Tens or hundreds of thousands of people have had their awareness of the risks and benefits of nanotechnology increased in the past three years due to the actions of CRN. This will increase the probability that the technology is wisely administrated and distributed when it arrives. If you find CRN’s work valuable, consider donating.

Why do I consider CRN a worthier cause than SENS? The safe implementation of molecular nanotechnology (forecasted to occur between 2010 and 2030) would throw our entire technological and scientific base so far into the future that the quick and effective implementation of SENS would only qualify as a minor subcategory of the potential benefits. Other benefits would include extremely cheap energy, personal transport, manufacturing capabilities, pure water, massively improved agriculture, computing, communications technology… and the list goes on. Conversely, the malicious application of advanced nanotechnology could lead to wars with millions or even billions of deaths. It would be very anticlimactic to see a sophisticated implementation of SENS one year and its subsequent outlawing by a global dictatorship (a very real possibility) the next year.

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Above is a screenshot of the Transhumanist Frappr I created recently. 126 members so far, which gives it a turnout better than the Frapprs created by some of the more popular blogs. There’s also a Singularity Institute Frappr for those so inclined. This is a great tool, and it’s quite disappointing that it was created only in 2005 rather than, say, 2000. If you identify as a transhumanist, please go ahead and add yourself!

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Working from first principles in Bayesian probability theory and Shannon’s theory of communication, two Southern California researchers have developed a mathematical theory of surprise - and how the brain perceives novelty, importance, or noteworthiness. Pierre Baldi of UC Irvine and Laurent Itti of the University of Southern California developed the theory working with agents in a digital environment, and confirmed their findings with eye-tracking experiments using human subjects viewing dynamic stimuli in a variety of contexts.

The theory was so successful that Baldi and Itti were recently awarded a $600,000 NSF grant to test its validity further.

Itti hails from a computational neuroscience lab which seeks not only to model the human brain (specifically, how it delegates attention), but develop mathematically optimal algorithms with problem-solving applications in “automatic target detection in cluttered natural scenes, video compression, autonomous robotic nagivation on land or under water, or animation of virtual agents”. The result are algorithms that give a better bang-for-your-bit on certain attention tasks than the human brain does. Applied to vision compression, the attention delegation model was able to cut filesize in half by preserving only the information in the video judged to be salient.

Bayesian probability theory may be used in a context-independent way to judge the extent to which an incoming piece of information forces a rational agent to change his or her beliefs. Applied to attention studies, Bayesian models showed superior performance to artificially constructed models of salience or computations of Shannon entropy.

The ambitious goal of the project is to develop a model that naturally breaks down a pure information stream (like the sequence of bits comprising a video file) into “feature channels” which isolate salient features in the information such as color or shape. This has obvious applications in machine vision and other areas.

The researchers state: “At the foundation of our model is a simple theory which describes a principled approach to computing surprise in data streams. While surprise is not a new concept it had lacked a formal definition, broad enough to capture the intuitive meaning of the term, yet quantitative and computable… Beyond vision, computable surprise could guide the development of data mining, as it can in principle be applied to any type of data, including visual, auditory or text.”

In news articles the theory is portrayed as a model of human brain activity, but in actuality it goes beyond being a model. By working from first principles, the theory offers a recipe for attention-delegation that surpasses the capabilities of the human brain. Early applications might be the integration of “computable surprise” algorithms into a heads-up-display for soldiers on the field. Scanning a cluttered scene more rapidly than a human would be capable, such a system could alert the soldier to potential threats in advance of their noticing independently. Further applications would be in advanced Artificial Intelligence capable of formulating plans and accomplishing real-world goals.

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Recently, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN), one of the world’s leading nanotech policy think-tanks, released their 34th newsletter. CRN is a nanotech policy organization that deserves much more attention than the hundreds (if not thousands) of “nanotechnology” organizations worldwide. The reason is that for the vast majority of organizations, “nanotechnology” means any product that incorporates nanoscale components, or in some cases, just plain old microtechnology. This is not what the word was coined to mean. “Nanotechnology” a term originally coined by MIT Ph.D Eric Drexler, refers to productive machine systems made from nanoscale components. Productive machine systems on the nanoscale will drastically revolutionize every sphere of human affairs within months of their introduction, whereas conventional products (paint, sunscreen, textiles, etc.) incorporating nanoscale components bulk-fabricated using macroscale machine systems are interesting, but not world-changing.

CRN maintains a strict focus on the former form of nanotechnology (sometimes called “MNT” or “molecular nanotechnology” to distinguish it from other technologies given the name “nanotechnology”), making it a uniquely relevant source of nanotech information relative to most other nanotech organizations.

This month, CRN mentioned three important events in the nanotech research community. First, researchers at Northwestern University experimented with a new form of sensing and applying force to tiny samples. Though we aren’t there yet, a fast and very precise nanoscale fabrication tool could throw open the door to productive nanosystems, if someone could come up with a viable design for a self-replicating nanoscale assembler. Second, CRN notes the online publication of “Design and Analysis of a Molecular Tool for Carbon Transfer in Mechanosynthesis” (pdf), authored by the father of nanotechnology himself, K. Eric Drexler, in participation with Damian G. Allis. This paper is another step towards the kind of precise nanoscale fabrication tool mentioned above. Lastly, CRN notes the online publication of Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines by Robert Freitas Jr. and Ralph Merkle, two long-time pioneers in the field of nanotechnology. KSRM is the most comprehensive overview of physical (not software) self-replicating systems yet published.

The main body of the newsletter discusses CRN’s recent and upcoming public activity. Director of Research Chris Phoenix will visit San Francisco, Michigan, and Seattle to attend three conferences in a one-month period(!) This is a strong sign that despite his unique technical ability to accelerate the arrival of molecular nanotechnology, he chooses to spend a considerable amount of time attending and speaking at conferences, spreading the message (among others) that our current regulations and institutions are insufficient to address the coming challenges.

The newsletter finishes with an excellent feature essay, “Early Applications of Molecular Manufacturing”, which discusses some of the initial “limitations” (if you care to call them that, because any MNT-fabbed product will be vastly superior to its predecessor) of molecular manufacturing. Product domains surveyed include transportation, recreation, medical care, basic needs, the environment, and military nanotechnology. A fascinating essay which includes several never-before-discussed insights on nanotechnology’s likely early applications.

You can sign up for CRN’s monthly newsletter here.

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The self-sampling assumption (SSA) is a philosophical tool which follows from basic principles. It suggests that we should reason as if we are typical observers in a suitable reference class. The SSA is part of a larger class of phenomena known as observer selection effects.

For example, say you’re participating in a psychology experiment where there is a reward for guessing the correct answer to a given problem posed to you by an experimenter. The scenario is this - you join 99 other people in front of a large building. All 100 persons, including yourself, are blindfolded and equipped with noise-cancelling headphones. You are all led inside the building. The 100 persons are split into two different groups. 95 persons are led into room A, 5 persons are led into room B (everyone is informed this). Without removing the blindfold or headphones, it is your task to guess whether you have been led into room A or B. If you guess correctly, you are rewarded $100, otherwise nothing. Given no other information, which room should you assume you were led into? A, of course, at odds of 19:1.

The self-sampling assumption suggests that we should assume we are typical observers out of the class of all observers. (Or, more accurately, that the observer-moment we are experiencing is a typical example selected from the class of all observer-moments.) It is possible that our specific situation is an exotic or rare one, but relatively unlikely. It’s possible that there is a planet somewhere with a quadrillion intelligent observers living on it, but if so, we have to ask ourselves: why were we born on this planet, rather than that one? The probability of any given observer being born on the planet with a quadrillion observers is much higher than being born on the planet with so much fewer persons.

Many thinkers’ first reflex is to challenge the idea of the self-sampling assumption, because it can lead to counterintuitive conclusions. Many may feel uncomfortable with the idea that we can get so much theoretical firepower from a method largely independent from empirical testing. But it seems like observer selection effects are just something we just have to deal with - justifying their existence requires far fewer assumptions than those required by many other beliefs people frequently argue for.

Perhaps the most unsettling conclusions followed by this line of reasoning are those represented by the Doomsday Argument. If we are typical persons, then it’s likely we were born at a time where most persons are born. In other words, the height of our civilization is likely to be occurring right now. If there are many generations in the future, then why weren’t we born then…?

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Google has announced that it will contribute a certain percentage of its stock value (approximately $1B, judged by stock prices today) and annual profits to humanitarian causes over the next 20 years via the Google Foundation. This is a level of charitable giving similar to that of other big technology companies such as Cisco Systems, Intel, and eBay. But I hope that Google’s unique, hands-on approach to such activity will cause its humanitarian investments to yield a greater return-per-dollar than that of other companies. Their central focii are global poverty, energy, and the environment.

Google Grants is also offering in-kind donations of advertising space for non-profit organizations in the US. If you are involved in the non-profit sector, you should check to see if your organization is eligible. I’ve just applied for my organization, the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

Also of interest is that Google seems to be working on a payment service, Google Accounts, ostensibly meant to challenge Paypal.

I am hopeful that over the coming years, employees within Google will think in greater detail about the ultimate consequences and potential of Artificial General Intelligence, leading them to support risk-mediation organizations such as the Singularity Institute. Of particular interest is that Ray Kurzweil recently gave a talk at Google to promote his new book, The Singularity is Near. There is also the observation that Google has internally been using prediction markets to create consensus estimates on the probability of given events, demonstrating a serious interest in the future. Will the Singularity Institute be getting more attention from Google and similar progressive companies in coming years? We aren’t counting on it, but it sure would be nice!

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People have been talking about the extraterrestrials again. The former Canadian minister of defense is arguing for public hearings on “exopolitics” and a “Decade of Contact”, delegating public monies to education regarding our unearthly bretheren. Meanwhile, a particle physicist at the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is worried that alien signals received by SETI could contain viruses bent on taking over the world’s computer networks.

The latter speculation is original thinking, I must admit. Thinking “outside the box” in this way is helpful in recognizing and addressing genuine future risks, even though I think this particular concern is off-base. It’s also consoling that the mainstream media is willing to cover it, because some of the most truly serious risks to our well-being as a civilization will indeed sound “fringe” before they make headlines (nuclear weapons, chimera virii, others you haven’t heard of).

But there are no aliens. Not around here, anyway. Why not? Because if there were, they’d already be here by now.

Radio has been in use for almost a hundred years. The Earth is surrounded by a sphere of intense electromagnetic activity almost 200 light years in diameter. It only gets more intense as time elapses. Short of bending space, there is no way we can ever take that information back. It’s on its way out to the cosmos, in every direction at the speed of light.

You can’t miss it. Natural phenomena, like supernovae and the cosmic microwave background radiation, have a characteristic signature that could never be confused with the orderly pulses of language and images. Information-theoretically, apples and oranges.

Radio is easy to invent, once you get to a certain stage as a civilization. You can’t afford not to invent it. Harnessing electromagnetic waves to facilitate near-light-speed communication among the members of a civilization is as natural as constructing shelter or combating disease.

The Milky Way galaxy is about ten billion years old. Yet it’s only a hundred thousand light years across. That’s a ratio of a hundred thousand to one. If there were aliens about, we’d be bathed in radio signals continuously. Maybe they showed up so recently that their radio waves haven’t hit us yet? Implausible. If life were to evolve in this galaxy, it would have done so already, and they’d be blasting us with their television dramas.

Perhaps alien civilizations have evolved to a medium of communication beyond electromagnetism? That could be the case, but then they’d be colonizing other worlds. Even moving at a tenth of the speed of light, saturating the galaxy with their presence would only take a mere million years, tops. But where are they?

Our solar system is appealing. We have a stable, mild star capable of providing billions of exawatts of free power to any alien race interested enough to set up shop here. There is no reason to pass us up. But our neighborhood is silent.

An advanced extraterrestrial civilization couldn’t be missed. Life is constructed to flourish and reproduce. At no point will it collectively say, “we’ve had enough”. Individual beings must explore, travel, and consume. Barring dictatorial control forbidding space travel, it’s bound to happen. Not as a trickle, but a flood. Once a form of travel becomes technologically feasible, it becomes progressively easier until millions can do it.

The fact of the matter is simply that life is rare. Scientists believe there are a multitude of universes in existence, probably an infinite number. Presumably there are also an infinite number of intelligent civilizations. They are just separated by vast distances. The Self-Sampling Assumption compels us to treat ourselves as typical observers. If we’re typical, then typical intelligent civilizations are separated by such vast distances that for most practical purposes they are alone.

The lack of alien presence is also evidence that FTL (faster-than-light) travel is impossible. Either that, or we are the only intelligent species with a civilization in the universe. (Or, faster-than-light travel exists, but is sufficiently weak that it only permits travel at a few times the speed of light - unlikely.)

The popular obsession with aliens and UFOs closely reflects the obsession with fairies in the early 1800s, and the fixation on angels and demons before that, and beliefs in the presence of spirits throughout history. We just want to believe it because the possibility is so exciting. This article from The Onion does a great job poking fun at this human tendency. Also see this Tech Central Station article (”Internet Killed the Alien Star”) on how the Internet has helped us realize that alien visitation is make-believe.

If we want to witness bizarre new forms of life, or different types of intelligence, we’ll just have to create it. You might say that creating it isn’t the same thing as discovering, but this concern can be sidestepped by creating new forms of intelligence randomly, or constructing forms of intelligence that give rise to further forms in an unpredictable fashion. Both will happen, we just have to stick it out until the technology is here. You’ll get your aliens soon, star-gazers!

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