Green Goo a La Mode Sunday, Oct 22 2006
nanotechnology and risks 10:04 am
On Nobel Intent, minimal genomes are being discussed. The organisms in question are endosymbionts, free-floating cells that take up residence inside of animal cells, forming a symbiotic relationship. Apparently some of these species have extremely tiny genomes:
[…] there’s a second paper on the endosymbiont in a related species, a psyllid, that makes the first genome look big. In this case, the bacterial genome has been whittled down into an extremely gene-rich 166 Kilobases with 182 genes. Over 97 percent of that genome codes for something; in fact, nearly a full percent of it codes for parts of two genes at once.
What do I take away from this? Well, aside from general scientific interest, I think that the successful existence of minimal genome organisms in nature shows us how low of a complexity threshold will be necessary to engineer green goo. That is, artificial variants of natural organisms with much greater physical performance, such that they will be capable of entirely displacing the original population. If other organisms are dependent on the displaced organism for food or some other reason, their disappearance could lead to catastrophic ecological collapse much more rapidly than scientifically questionable anthropogenic global warming.
In this Wired article on green goo:
In its report, published on July 8, the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration said the risks from green goo demand the most urgent foresight and caution. “With nanobiotech, researchers have the power to create completely new organisms that have never existed on Earth,” said the ETC release accompanying its report.
It’s a new one for some players. “I haven’t heard of this concern anywhere else, I mean anywhere else,” said Christine Peterson, president of the Foresight Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to accelerating the potential benefits and anticipating potential risks of nanotechnology. “I think it’s because people are already aware of the issues of biotech. I’m not sure there’s an additional issue here.”
Christine wants to avoid an irrational aversion to Drexlerian nanotechnology stemming from concerns about green goo, similar to the irrational aversion to nanotech brought about by the fear of free-floating grey goo. However, there is great warrant for fear in this case. Today, designing and manufacturing an artificial life form has already been done at least once - for an artificial virus. We have created life. I predict we will create artificial bacteria by 2010, not just by writing their genomes, but actually by building them from scratch. It will cost millions and maybe a dozen Ph.Ds, but the difficulty threshold will drop like a stone.
By 2020, creating cybernetic microorganisms capable of entirely displacing their biological equivalents will become feasible in a university lab, with minimal funding. Then the potential problems will begin. Artificial viruses, bacteria, photoplankton, algae, even krill or insects could quickly be produced in great numbers before the end of the second decade of this century, which would then go on to self-replicate beyond our control. This scenario is not only conceivable, but probable - it only takes one successful self-replicator to create a major hassle. If it’s a self-replicator that throws a wrench into human biology in particular, it could kill every person on earth in the time it takes to spread globally.
Because artificial organisms will have the potential for superior performance, they could spread much faster than natural species, while being capable of surviving in a much wider range of niches. Based on the principles of evolvable hardware, we can produce artificial organisms that evolve thousands or millions of times faster than their natural counterparts. Imagine an artificial chloroplast that jumps from cell to cell, plant to plant, continent to continent, rendering their hosts incapable of photosynthesis.
One of the only useful conceivable countermeasures would be to have obedient artificial microorganisms already fully distributed in the background environment - “blue goo” - so that we can instruct them to attack the green goo should it become a problem. Another would be successfully building Friendly AI, which could take care of the problem better than we ever could. A useful backup measure would be to launch self-sustaining space colonies, a la Lifeboat Foundation.

October 22nd, 2006 at 1:12 pm
The more I listen to notable transhumanists, the more worried I get. There seems to be this trend of the Friendly AI Oracle, or Overseer or some such notion.
It’s as if people think they’re building ‘God’. Who can make the hard decisions from then on. It’s one thing to want an AI partner, it’s another thing to want a master.
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:47 am
For an insight into what uncontrolled self-replicating nanotechnology might be like you need look no further than a cancer cell. Grey goo might be just as difficult to get rid of. However, I’m not sure that it would necessarily be easy to design an organism which could metabolise *anything*, since if this were possible I suspect nature would already have done it.
There are historical precedents for the introduction of foreign organisms into an unprepared ecosystem, and these can have devastating effects. In my opinion artificially engineered organisms will be one of the most significant existential threats this century, much bigger than current forms of terrorism or even nuclear threats. Many forms of genetic engineering will be beneficial, but the success of these technologies will also make it easy to create harmful organisms which can spread rapidly.
Unlike making a nuclear bomb doing genetic engineering won’t require expensive facilities and precision engineering. I think within 20 years it will become possible for anyone to do quite advanced genetic engineering in their back yard.
Incidentally I see genetic engineering and nanotechnology as really the same thing. Living cells are nano factories. Altering the genes just alters the instructions for building nanomachines.
October 23rd, 2006 at 6:39 am
Michael. I just don’t understand why you would call global warming scientifically questionable. It is, of course, but to be scientific is to be questionable. It’s clearly the strong scientific consensus.
At any rate, it’s fairly irrelevant.
October 23rd, 2006 at 11:34 am
Fear of Friendly AI and the partner/master issue - addressing this deserves a separate post.
Green goo could be way more adaptive, flexible, and deadly than cancer, maybe by a factor of 100 or 1000. Green goo may be the second largest existential threat this century, ahead of an arms race and behind unfriendly AI.
Michael - I mean that the alarmism over anthropogenic global warming is highly questionable. The linked article lets you know what I mean. Global warming is happening, but not as severely as the alarmists say, and its not as anthropogenic as the environmentalists want to believe.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:19 pm
it’s quite interesting that you use Lomborgs article to show how “scientifically questionable” global warming is. Lomborg is, after all, notorious for fabricating data, deliberate misinterpretating others research and for deliberately misleading use of statistical methods. From scientific point of view his book a big chunk of emmental cheese - full of holes.
I certainly don’t know what there is to learn from an article, where someone that has shown most spectacular talent in selectively discarding unwanted results bashes Gore for doing the same.
That you can only hope for quick emergence of our machine messiah? Not much hope to be seen in human mental process. And thus for actively working towards any end. Other than gaining personal gratification, that is.
Green goo or global warming - keeping people in developed countries afraid wont help people in developing countries. People that are afraid dont help other people. They buy guns and shelters.
October 23rd, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Nice blog, this is my first time posting here.
I don’t think that general AI would be needed to defend against a green goo attack. I think that a very powerful expert system specializing in finding the molecular structures of cures would be all that is needed. Such a system could use quantum computing elements to speed up the search through design space.
October 24th, 2006 at 11:55 am
Blue goo managed by A(G)I may be the best bet—specialized “defensive shields” in other words.
And as I’ve stressed in earlier posts, to the extent that Global Warming is a problem, adjusting the planet’s albedo by less than 1% will take care of it. And this can be done by known, off-the-shelf (so-to-speak) tech.
So it’s now, as it ever has been, a race between defensive (counter)measures & the possibility of nano-”goo” (of whatever “color”) disaster. Systematic development of “defensive shield” tech in general, and so-called “blue goo” in particular, would seem ultra-prudent. Coupled, of course, with continued advance toward friendly A(G)I…
October 29th, 2006 at 4:23 am
Who cares if global warming is anthropogenic or not?
I worked “nicely” before : http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=00037A5D-A938-150E-A93883414B7F0000&pageNumber=5&catID=2
October 30th, 2006 at 2:46 am
im seeing the end of the world all over the place. The future is starting to look bleak. I hope the human race can pull through.
November 5th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
I hope the human race can pull through.
Woody Allen says it all better:
Mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to extinction.
Let us pray we choose correctly.
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