- The Bad
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- No one disputes that there will be many positive benefits
from nanotech, but what about the bad? Is nanotech ultimately worth the
costs, like electricity and probably nuclear energy? Or is the price
too high, as in the case of asbestos and DDT?
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- If it is too high, we need to know now, not when it's
too late and already unleashed upon our world. (We believe that a wholesale
moratorium on nanotechnology research or products is likely to be both
premature and an overreaction; but that doesn't mean that there are no
negative effects that we can work to mitigate.) Here's a quick look at
some of the negative consequences predicted for nanotechnology:
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- * Health: Nanoparticles have been shown to be absorbed
in the livers of research animals and even cause brain damage in fish
exposed to them after just 48 hours. If they can be taken up by cells,
then they can enter our food chain through bacteria and pose a health
threat like mercury in fish, pesticides in vegetables or hormones in meat.
The increasingly-popular carbon nanotube (20x stronger and lighter than
steel) looks very much like an asbestos fiber what happens if they
get released into the air? Being carbon-based, they wouldn't set off
the usual alarms in our bodies, making them difficult to detect.
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- * Environmental: If nanomaterials really are as strong
as diamonds, how decomposable or persistent are they? Will they litter
our environment further or present another disposal problem like nuclear
waste or space litter? In the distant future, will self-replicating nanobots
necessary to create the trillions of nanoassemblers needed to build
any kind of product run amok, spreading as quickly as a virus, in
the infamous "gray goo" scenario?
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- * Privacy: As products shrink in size, eavesdropping
devices too can become invisible to the naked eye and more mobile, making
it easier to invade our privacy. Small enough to plant into our bodies,
mind-controlling nanodevices may be able to affect our thoughts by manipulating
brain-processes.
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- * Terrorism: Capabilities of terrorists go hand in
hand with military advances, so as weapons become more powerful and portable,
these devices can also be turned against us. Nanotech may create new,
unimaginable forms of torture disassembling a person at the molecular
level or worse. Radical groups could let loose nanodevices targeting
to kill anyone with a certain skin color or even a specific person.
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- * Society: With all the potential abuses of nanotech,
many experts advocate a strong system to regulate and monitor nanotech
developments. But because nanotech laboratories can be small and mobile,
surveillance needs to be practically everywhere devolving a free
society into a Big Brother scenario.
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- Also, what is the impact on the economy? If nations
can make anything they want, will they lose all incentive to trade? What
about morality should we be playing with god-like powers?
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- And there are many other possible impacts that people
are worried about.
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- (See our article _here_ http://www.nanoethics.org/nanoethics%200707/paper120505.html
for more discussion.) Given a laundry list of pros and cons, what bow?
Can we weigh the good versus bad to see whether we should move forward
with nanotech or not? The answer might not be that simple:
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- First of all, how do you even start comparing the good
against the bad? Is it an acceptable price to sacrifice 100 lives due
to harmful nanoparticles in the environment to have stain-resistant pants?
How about 1,000 lives for stronger, lighter, more efficient products?
What about 100,000 lives? What if nanotech saves 100,000 lives to make
up for those lost? How about saving 1,000,000 lives? Some people think
that it's morally wrong to knowingly sacrifice any lives people
aren't replaceable commodities or entries in an accounting ledger.
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- Even if we can agree to a formula to weigh the good
versus bad, can we accurately tally up both columns? Most likely not.
We can't see that far and have never been any good at predicting consequences
of new technology, at least in the long run. In 1876, Western Union dismissed
the telephone as useless with all its shortcomings as a serious means
of communication. In 1943, IBM's CEO predicted there would be a demand
for only five computers in the entire world.
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- (Follow this _link_ http://www.foresight.org/News/negativeComments.html
for more examples.)
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- For a serious discussion on advancing nanotech, we need
to do more than a risk-reward analysis. We have to consider broader reasons
for and against nanotech and carefully evaluate each. That's our mission
to open a productive dialogue that will help the nanotech industry
move forward responsibly
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- _http://www.nanoethics.org/bad.html_
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