Nanotech dangers

Some of you might have heard about the "dangers" of nanotech (grey goo, etc) such as those depicted by the novel Prey and questioned by ethicists, etc.

I was reading this article: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3483/ and wanted to ask you what you all thought about nanotechnology: it's benefits, problems, etc.

(Personally I think Nanotechnology is a revolutionary technology but caution should certainly be used. However, capitalism only cares about making profits quickly thus why we could have such problems occurring. I also liked the concept of a nanotech swarm robots like in the novel Prey )

Some of you might have heard about the "dangers" of nanotech (grey goo, etc) such as those depicted by the novel Prey and questioned by ethicists, etc.

I was reading this article: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3483/ and wanted to ask you what you all thought about nanotechnology: it's benefits, problems, etc.

While I'm no expert by any means, I consider nanotech one of the most promising aspects of possible future progress, especially nanobots moving around and fixing problems in a human system could act as a powerful addition to our white blood cells, indeed! You are, of course, also right about the economic anarchy of capitalism being a huge danger here, and this applies to all technology developed under it. Clearly, the questions raised in the article should be answered before applying the technology on a large scale:

How will we monitor, regulate, test and label nanotech?
How will nanoparticles affect workers with higher exposures?
Will the nanoparticles kill good bacteria in fish, wildlife and us?
Promote antibiotic resistance?
Will they bio-accumulate?
Trigger disease or tumors?
What will happen to the nanoparticles when the material into which they are incorporated is junked?

I also liked the concept of a nanotech swarm robots like in the novel Prey

Haven't read that one, but I can recommend another funny novel which touches the issue, By the light of the moon by Dean Koontz.

I'm not overly worried about the world being consumed by a vast glob of grey goo, any more than I'm worried about some mutant strain of virus or bacteria replicating to point where vast swarms of them scour the earth.

Treat nanotech somewhat like you would bacteriological agents, and you won't go too far wrong. Also, due to the very small size of an individual foglet, such swarms would be very vulnerable to heat, radiation, and chemical weapons. They would also have a hard time eating through anything metallic, as it takes more energy to seperate a metallic atom from another than can be reasonably carried by a nanobot.

Thanks for the replies. I hope I didn't sound too "primmie" for mentioning the fact that there could be possible dangers if we didn't handle it with care.

I really find Nanotech to be a very promising technology and would like to hear what kind of applications can be found for it(The possibilities seem limitless for this one). Although I'm not good in math so I'm unable to get a job working with such technology.

All of the obvious practical problems aside (including the very serious problem that workable nanotech might not even be possible for QED reaons), I don't think there's any real doubt that nanotechnology offers the solutions to virtually every question in modern medicine, as well as in numerous other fields.

Insofar as dangers, I think the risk of nanobots "going out of control" has been vastly overstated, mainly for dramatic reasons. The fact is, merely operating at a microscropic level does not embue a device with any special potency, and indeed, makes it far more vulnerable to all sorts of countermeasures.

There is no reason that a nano-machine of any design would be more dangerous than a macro-machine of similar purpose; and since the creation of nano-machines requires nanotechnological competence, it would be a simple matter to create a nanotechnological solution.

The real danger of a "grey goo" phenomena comes not out of nanotech per se, but out of any von neumannesque self-replicator.

It doesn't matter if a replicator is the size of an atom or a house; if it's programmed to and capable of effectively reconstituting matter around it into a functional repicant of itself, it could start causing a problem very quickly. Exponential growth means that size really doesn't matter in cases like this.

The grey goo problem applies to all areas of artificial life and artificial intelligence, not just nanobots.

Let us fantasize further. The control and eradication of nanobots gone wild will probably require different strategies than, say, the Terminator.

Nanotechnology could have real potential, from chucking some grey goo down the sink to de-clog the drain to repairing broken wies in hard to reach places. I'm no expert but from what I understand this is truly a field we should explore