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Science Forum Index » Nanotechnology Forum » Nano Morality
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| Guest |
 Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:08 am |
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Well here is kind of a radical stabe at things.
Somehow Nanotechnology will involve some form of Making, self
replication (now so out of fashion) or Assemblers or what ever they are
called in time, in the Diamond Age they are called "the Seed".
Now the problem is can't you just program the nanofactory to make
nuclear bombs?
Thinking it over the only solution I can come up with is that the
computers that run these devices, well beyond the Singularity and
smarter than us, will have to have a hardwire ethics to not harm humans
or the planets. Somehow it will have to be so central to an Assembler
that it will put the value of life and the planet above all else that
it will simply be as impossible to create a assembler that would make
nuclear weapons of deadly chemcials because some joe asked for them as
it would be for a tree to grow 10 miles high.
Kind of Asmov's laws of robotics, but I guess we could call them
Asmov's Robotic to Nano laws yet to be defined operationally. |
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| Rory McLean |
| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 5:32 pm |
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In article <1237qs3m7pgffa7@news.supernews.com>,
<URL:mailto:rhooker123@hotmail.com> wrote:
Quote:
Well here is kind of a radical stabe at things.
Somehow Nanotechnology will involve some form of Making, self
replication (now so out of fashion) or Assemblers or what ever they are
called in time, in the Diamond Age they are called "the Seed".
Now the problem is can't you just program the nanofactory to make
nuclear bombs?
To make a nuclear bomb you need uranium or plutonium, probably
associated with nuclear power, or somewhere to mine uranium from.
You then need to separate the isotopes needed to make the bombs.
If you want thermo-nuclear bombs then you use a nuclear bomb as a
trigger. Deuterium for these can likely be separated from any
large water source using nanotech.
I've not read of any other way to make them.
Nanotech very likely won't like radiation, not appreciating atoms
being knocked out of place, and if you are messing with uranium
or plutonium you will have plenty of that to worry about.
However, a robust design, with plenty of redundancy and recycling
of nanobots trashed by radiation, might still be workable.
I am not in any way suggesting that this is a good idea, but
unless something is done someone will very likely try to do it.
Nanotech also offers the possibility of creating arrays of
sensors to track any sources of radiation, like nuclear bombs or
bomb-making materials, and you can be pretty sure these will be
put in place as soon as possible. For these to work properly we
will probably need AI to monitor them.
Quote: Thinking it over the only solution I can come up with is that the
computers that run these devices, well beyond the Singularity and
smarter than us, will have to have a hardwire ethics to not harm humans
or the planets. Somehow it will have to be so central to an Assembler
that it will put the value of life and the planet above all else that
it will simply be as impossible to create a assembler that would make
nuclear weapons of deadly chemcials because some joe asked for them as
it would be for a tree to grow 10 miles high.
There is no guarantee that you will have strong AI before we get
good enough nanotech to make nuclear weapons.
That is why I believe we have to solve these problems in human
terms, without relying on any god-like AI to solve our problems.
It is one of the reasons that I very strongly hope that people
like the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology gets listened to.
The regulation of nanotech must for once in technological
development be in place before the technology makes this planet
somewhere far less pleasant to live on.
Quote: Kind of Asmov's laws of robotics, but I guess we could call them
Asmov's Robotic to Nano laws yet to be defined operationally.
If we don't make sure our AIs are civilized, and have our best
interests at heart, then we will be in real trouble. Those of us
that they don't just digitise to save the space and stop us
wasting resources. And, that assumes that they care enough to
even bother doing that.
--
Rory McLean
rory@romsys.demon.co.uk |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:13 pm |
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Quote: If we don't make sure our AIs are civilized, and have our best
interests at heart, then we will be in real trouble. Those of us
that they don't just digitise to save the space and stop us
wasting resources. And, that assumes that they care enough to
even bother doing that.
Because as we move to Nanotechnology we need to stop thinking of our
machines as devices, as simply solutions or applicaitons of designs, we
need to see them as Machines.
It is simply taken for granted that technology is neutral, niether good
or bad, and that humans are the ones who have to make the moral
selection. Recent events have convinced me that this is just
homo-species arrogance. Firstly humans have proven themselves to be
terrible at moral and social responsibility and I have no reason to
assume that within 10 years there will be cheap devices that can be
built which will be better social members and better protectors of the
planet as a system than most people and any government.
Beyond that I am starting to wonder, as we move towards singularity, if
humans and thier senses of morality really do command technology. For
example I had an IT consulting business through the dot bomb. They
were difficult years. I was trying to sell Internet technology to
CEOs, small businesses, and other and everyone was saying what the
markets were saying: the Internet was a false promise, that they had
wasted enough money on it, and would not do any more. My company, like
so many other, had to develop other lines of business to survive and I
was 6 months away from giving up on Internet development.
Then by the middle of 2004 HTTP and the Internet was at the core of all
IT technology, the market for Internet sevices was booming, and the
entire global economy had been utterly transformed by the technology.
Today the dot boom is going much harder and faster than ever did during
the late 1990s, and people are using the Internet at a level no one
would have predicted.
So who made this happen? I would say no-one, that the technology moved
on its own logic, like DNA in bacteria, we are just vessels, a few
humans have the minds of create these things, but our society is a
mindless vessel of the logic of the new technology which has already
taken over. I profoundly doubt that the human species could stop the
Internet if it wanted to, its beyond the capacity of any government or
power on earth.
And who makes Moore's law work anyways?
I think that once a technology gets going nothing short of total human
extinction will stop it, and in 30 years not even that will stop it.
So its foolish to think humans will use technology wisely, they won't.
Americans learned about the dangers of fatty food just in time to
became a nation of fat asses, they learned about global warming just
before engaging in a bing of SUV purchases. People can be relied upon
to act utterly indifferent to their own moral values and better
judgement. If we count on humans to figure wise ways to use technology
we are probably extinct in the long run.
What I am proposing is we need to wake up and see that the Machines are
more and more in command, and that we need to think about building
moral machines. I think it would be a lot easier to figure out how to
make computer programs which are constrained from harming humans or
nature than getting anything out of governments.
We have to face the reality that human civilisation is limited, that
nations like America will tolerate leaders like Bush, that our society
will be run by asocial monsters and murders for some time in a future,
so we need to insure that the new form of order coming up to take out
place in the Singularity are better than we. |
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| Rory McLean |
| Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 10:57 am |
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In article <123d7du8bhchpb0@news.supernews.com>,
<URL:mailto:rhooker123@hotmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
Quote: What I am proposing is we need to wake up and see that the Machines are
more and more in command, and that we need to think about building
moral machines. I think it would be a lot easier to figure out how to
make computer programs which are constrained from harming humans or
nature than getting anything out of governments.
[snip]
I'll try not to get too 'social', or philosophical...
There are a number of things that I believe are needed to make
strong nanotech work, so that you can survive it in a way that wont
make our civilization resemble Dante's Inferno.
One is that we need to make the agreements that make our
civilization work explicitely clear. And the consequences of
breaking these agreements, a meta-agreement process for dealing with
broken agreements.
This is needed as we will need to build these agreements into the
information infrastructure, AI or otherwise, that makes our nanotech
a civilized survivable proposition.
For example, we all as human beings are in immense debt to those who
came before us, who suffered and died to provide the human
civilization we live in.
We are responsible to those who will live in the future, our
decendents, and maybe ourselves if nanotech life extension delivers
on its promises.
Not ignoring this constraining net of debt and responsibility is an
implicit agreement that everyone who is part of civilization must
make. If you break this agreement the consequences must be clear.
Self-interest is part of it - upset the system too much and you will
have to live with unpredictable possibly massive consequences. Or
those you hold dear will.
Computers are a tool that massively amplifies human effort, nanotech
even more so - apparently small actions can have immense
consequences. Small actions can massively upset things.
When someone attempts to use nanotech to do something the nanotech
must have a set of agreements and consequences built into it. And
rules for what happens when people attempt to break the agreements.
And track use of dangerous nanotech, with appropriate privacy
agreements, automatically enforced.
This is one thing that the CRN are saying - we must work out these
agreements, thrash them out on an international level so they apply
to all of us, and implement them in the nanotech infrastructure.
And these agreements must apply everywhere, from super-secret labs
to teenagers basements.
Not a world government, just a world agreement that we accept the
consequences of our actions.
No excuses.
--
Rory McLean
rory@romsys.demon.co.uk |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 6:43 pm |
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Well I do suspect that Nanotechnology will bring back the age of
powerful governments, with the collapse the global trade economy and
the work economy it will be necessary for the State of some form to
come in. Of course in a post scarcity society it is interensting to
think about what the state will be.
Firslty as for some kind of moral conventions to be held, I just point
to the present situation with virus production, its best to build two
firewalls between your networks and run 2 scanning packages rather than
trusting some convention.
As for when Nano is coming about, I think it will clearly be after the
Singularity, and the single largest concentrate of power will be in the
Machines, and if we build them right they may have the storage and
processing capacity to look over the nano-makers.
As for people following the ruls, yah when a 14 year old kid can ask
for a high speed entirely safe flying scooter, and floating palace, and
army of flying slave robots and get it from a box we are going to have
humans who want to follow the rules because they are clear.
The Diamond age will have two determining factors we can't really
understand yet: post-scarcity and the Singularity. I just hope that
the Sinuglarity is a moral one, something more on the line of Iain M
Banks than T2. As for post-scarcity, I would hope that the end of want
creates a tolerant anarchist state, where damage is simply impossible,
do to the inbuilt moral rationality of computer who can think all the
ideas every human has ever had in a second. Gvien the single goal of
the preservation of humanity and the planet, the the reduction of want
and aggression, one of the typical computers of 100years from now will
be able to work out every possible outcome from any given even, and
asighn the level or harm or benefit to different levels of humanity and
the planet with a statistical certainty, and thus it will have a deeper
understanding of morals than we ever can.
Humans have short visitons, its rare to meet one who can see 40 years
in the future. During the dot bomb I found it impossible to get
educatied MBAs to think for one second about what HTTP was and how it
might change society in maybe 10 years, you think these leaders are
going to agree anything.
Nano is coming, we need to build a fail safe, a non-human fail safe.
Its probably impossible for a computer system to track any possible
human threat, but it can control every nano maker, and it can probably
be made that all nano-makers will need to log in in order to work, the
Internet could be like air for them. |
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| Rory McLean |
| Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 12:13 pm |
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In article <123j70bsq9mss6c@news.supernews.com>,
<URL:mailto:rhooker123@hotmail.com> wrote:
Quote:
Well I do suspect that Nanotechnology will bring back the age of
powerful governments, with the collapse the global trade economy and
the work economy it will be necessary for the State of some form to
come in. Of course in a post scarcity society it is interensting to
think about what the state will be.
[snip]
This is obviously not the correct forum for political discussion,
maybe you want to take that to alt.sci.nanotech? I don't know if
there are any newsgroups which suit discussions of the social and
political consequences of nanotech. Maybe someone should propose
the setting-up of soc.nanotech?
I don't think we understand the dynamics of human society enough
to do more than speculate on what effect nanotech might have on
our political institutions.
We don't know if mature nanotech will be pre- or post-
Singularity, if that even happens at all.
There is no guarantee that we can build an AI capable of 'looking
after' human use of nanotech.
There is also the problem of predicting consequences, and that
gets so complex so quickly that even massive nanotech-built
quantum computers would be reduced to guessing.
We need to put in place a system understood by humans, and
(mostly) agreed to by humans, and we need to be doing it now. We
cannot rely on it making use of god-like AI. That is what the
CRN are about.
Just as an example of a 'human-scale' system, here is an article
on controlling the use of assemblers that I wrote last year:
http://www.romsys.demon.co.uk/nanotech/safeassemb.htm
I'm not claiming that it is water-tight, but it might give us
something to talk about that is humanly achievable. The hard bit
is the political will to attempt it!
--
Rory McLean
rory@romsys.demon.co.uk |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 7:50 pm |
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Quote: We need to put in place a system understood by humans, and
(mostly) agreed to by humans, and we need to be doing it now. We
cannot rely on it making use of god-like AI. That is what the
CRN are about.
Though I have followed CRN with interest in the past months I have to
say that my experience over 20 years of high tech, with a background in
social work, is that humans have already lost control of the pace of
technology. I don't think Moore's law is created by humans, and having
lived through the "dot bomb" I saw an economic and social system which
had collectively decided that the Internet was overhyped and investment
pulled back, only to see the fundementals of a truely massive Internet
revolution take over.
I think its pretty clear the machines are now in control.
As for Singularity being post or pre nanotechnology I think it is safe
to say that if the Singularity comes it will most certainly come before
nanotechnology is mature. At present nanotechnology is really only
just a concept, its far less advanced than computers were 30 years ago,
and I know of no true nano production in the idea of Dexler and
profoundly doubt any will begin for 40 years.
But computers are very well advanced. We have had computer for 50
years now and a mature IT industry for 30 years. Already we have a
large part of the world connected in a meta-man via the Internet, the
grand master in chess can generally be beaten by a computer, and we are
having massive advances in applied computing coming on market on a
daily basis.
Here in the UK we have a broadband war starting out and talk of fully
wi fied nation in a few years. I just finished some work on a PDA
Smartphone project for 2011 and the problem was how do you plan for
something in smartphones 5 years down the line, advances are so fast
already.
So we have a mature industry that now touches a large part of the
world's populations, with 3 generations having grown up with computers,
and regular predictable advances in IT racing towards a Singularity,
and we have nanotechnology just in the research capcity.
I would fall back on the age old argument of God, in whom I do not
believe. But if you look at something as advanced as a cell, it is far
far more advanced that any computer system in existence, accept maybe
for the entire world wide web. But it is rather difficult for us to
keep up engineering IT, and I really doubt human industry will be able
to do much in nanotechnology, so we will need something on the level of
an ancient God, a Singularity, to get nanotechnology going.
So my argument is before we can really make nanotechnology in mass it
seems obvious to me we will need the Singularity first, or atleast
really really smart computers which could handle ethics.
As for the ethics of design of Assemblers, my argument is pretty
radical. We need to start making machines that are ethical. On a nano
scale this may be fairly easy, we could us quantum mechanics to make a
large number of operations impossible because they would violate
information restraints. For example a nano-machine might not only be
hard to over-ride remote control, it may rely on nano systems whoes
quantum properties make this impossible. Please don't ask for details. |
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| Rory McLean |
| Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 12:10 pm |
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In article <123viua9f4f4qf7@news.supernews.com>,
<URL:mailto:rhooker123@hotmail.com> wrote:
Quote:
There is only so much money to be made selling banner ads. Are you aware
of how slow AI research is proceding and has been for many decades? Real
money is just starting to be dumped into nanotech. When is your AI
Singularity prediction and when do you think nanotech will be mature?
I know very well how slowly AI research has progressed, mostly because
its objectives were not fully understood in the 1960s and the field was
dominated by University researchers.
This is not the forum to discuss AI, except how it might apply to
nanotech, but the objectives were pretty clear, we just didn't
know how to get there. Also, there was likely secret military
research, automatic tanks and planes, and robots soldiers, just
as some examples, and commerce had some pretty good ideas about
how useful AI could be to them. Look at what was done in car
etc. manufacture with even non-AI robots.
Reading some of the literature of the time, now I believe free
for download, can be quite instructive.
Quote: But only now are the machines starting to be build at the complexity
and with the power that we may be able to build machines which will be
able to go beyond human beings in all areas of activity, including
morality.
Raw power, yes, algorithms to make AI work, no. I think we will
need more than superior simulations of neural nets, even
implemented at the nanoscale, to make AI work properly.
I've talked about, or at least speculated on, implementing
morality in other posts, but we shouldn't lose track of what we
want from nanotech is safe behaviour, not a superior moral
capability which we hope will lead to such.
Which is, arguably, not something needing super-intelligent AIs.
Quote: So when do I think that a computer system will be available which will
be able to out perform a human on any intellectual task, about 2060.
When do I think Nanotechnology will exist as an industry like mobile
technology is today, well the task is far more complex and we are
coming up from next to nowhere, so 2160.
Try reading some of Rudy Rucker's science fiction. Almost
anything that has been talked about in science fiction, even
'year 3000' stuff, might if it is physically and technically
possible occur by 2050. Anything. Then, if you are a believer
in the Singularity, look at when Vernor Vinge predicted it: by
2030. (Google on 'singularity vinge'.)
We need to worry about, and work on, this stuff. Now.
Quote: Since I will be dead before both events I hope you won't hold me to
these dates.
Unfortunately, life extension technologies starting to appear,
which nanotech even in its present form is only likely to
enhance, may mean that you and I will have to rely on accident or
intentionally not reaching that age...
Things are changing pretty fast, in all sorts of areas...
--
Rory McLean, Dreamer
rory@romsys.demon.co.uk
http://www.romsys.demon.co.uk/ |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 12:13 pm |
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Speech recon, as in an ability to use speech as the O/I of any
computer, which I meant and did not bother to spell out, is still some
way away.
I think human genes make animals that make culuture, but the genes have
learned that biology is slow and risky the human genes have learned to
evolve through culture, this is the genetic basis of the human
revolution. Information, the genes, were guiding no only humans as
their carries but culture and technology.
Now I think technology has become in inheritor of the genome. |
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| Perry E. Metzger |
| Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 3:55 pm |
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rhooker123@hotmail.com writes:
Quote: Speech recon, as in an ability to use speech as the O/I of any
computer, which I meant and did not bother to spell out, is still some
way away.
You can buy fine speech recognition software to let you run your PC
right now. IBM's ViaVoice and Dragon's Naturally Speaking are fine
packages. You can use them and not touch the keyboard at all if you
like.
Quote: I think human genes make animals that make culuture, but the genes have
learned that biology is slow and risky the human genes have learned to
evolve through culture, this is the genetic basis of the human
revolution. Information, the genes, were guiding no only humans as
their carries but culture and technology.
Now I think technology has become in inheritor of the genome.
I'm afraid that the grammar problems in that last pair of paragraphs
make it impossible for me to parse your meaning. Could you try to
re-phrase them?
Perry |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 4:47 pm |
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These points, though good, are rather common ideas on evolutoin, and
they are entirely valid.
My point is something a little different. Species survive no
individuals. The last man and woman living in a society after a
nuclear war has no future. A human needs is a unique animal that needs
the presence of other in order to survive, and they need the species
to produce sexual partners.
I remind you that the greatest alturism is felt for a lover, who likely
will be very distant genetically. The species must provide genetic
diversity for an individual or family to breed with to improve its
chances of survival, and a species that works well together like in
groups and therefore as a species will have a better chance than
effective individuals who don't work well as a species.
Look at the present situation with larger animals who live very
isolated lives, like the whale shark, they are facing major pressures
on survival. Humans massive success is because of our added value of
being a species. |
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| nanotech nerd |
| Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 11:12 am |
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interesting reading, there is a cool little clip mentioning nano
assemblers on youtube.
I wonder , will it be possible to design from the bottom up, say, gold
or other base elements ? |
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| Perry E. Metzger |
| Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 5:59 pm |
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"nanotech nerd" <mikamit289@hotmail.com> writes:
Quote: I wonder , will it be possible to design from the bottom up, say, gold
or other base elements ?
It is hard to parse your question.
If you are asking "can you make gold with molecular nanotechnology"
the answer is no. Manufacturing elements requires nuclear rather than
chemical reactions. Presumably you could build more effective nuclear
accelerators using MNT, but the energy required to operate them has to
come from somewhere, and it is unlikely that manufacturing gold in
quantity by this route is ever going to be an economically viable
synthesis.
If you were not asking that, I apologize, but you will have to
re-state the question.
Perry |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 11:27 am |
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Quote: Actually, it is not a "species" that survives, but particular
genes. If an individual thrives, his genes are passed on and
survive. If he does not, they do not. Evolution takes place on the
level of individuals, not species.
Why would genes only live or die in individuals, when groups and
species can serve as bigger life boats. If a species has a gene that
kills 60% of its infants before they can breed, but increases breeding
by 70% that gene will kill most individuals, but cause the species to
excel.
Also the individual based concept can not explain inherit conditions
like autism, would not a gene that controlled such a condition be
exterminated, but it remains. Why?
Almost most creatures are bacteria and they don't need a partner.
So we can bond with another to the extent that we will die to protect
them because we have had children with them that have half our genes.
Of course if they died we could just find another mate and have more
children with just half our genes.
I have also noticed adopted children with none of their adopting
parents genes are as loved as natural children, and soldier living next
to each other will risk their lives to insure everyone gets back. On
9-11 hundreds of people died trying to save perfect strangers. After
Chernobyl 500,000 soldier marched in to lives of sickness and decay,
to protect some larger concept. Every minute they were destroying
their genetics.
Humans are spread their genes because they can do things as groups in
such amazing ways, they are a versitle clustering animal who has been
able to rebuild and expand their hive. |
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| Perry E. Metzger |
| Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 1:45 pm |
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rhooker123@hotmail.com writes:
Quote: Actually, it is not a "species" that survives, but particular
genes. If an individual thrives, his genes are passed on and
survive. If he does not, they do not. Evolution takes place on the
level of individuals, not species.
Why would genes only live or die in individuals, when groups and
species can serve as bigger life boats.
I would have sent this to you individually, but your email address is
apparently fake.
Individuals have genetically mediated behaviors that impact their
individual reproductive success, and if a genetically mediated
behavior does not improve the reproductive success of that individual,
it will not matter if the gene might somehow seem like a "good idea"
in the abstract. If an individual develops a gene that improves the
survival of other individuals at the expense of himself, he will not
live to pass on that gene, and it will die off even though one could
imagine that if somehow all the individuals in a population suddenly
got the gene it would work otherwise.
There is considerable amount of literature on the subject of of
evolution and evolutionary biology. People have devoted decades to
working out theories on this and then checking them against evidence
from the field and simulations. If you are really interested in the
field, I suggest reading some of the existing literature rather than
simply speculating on your own. In any case, this has gotten far
beyond the scope of the nanotechnology newsgroup -- I would suggest
that the discussion be moved to a more appropriate venue if you wish
to continue it.
Perry |
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