Evolution? Or Revolution?

In an online news story, James Murday, from the Nanoscale Science Engineering and Technology Subcommittee of the US National Science and Technology Council, says:

Nanoscience is going to impact both commercial and military uses. From a security and defense perspective, the United States prides itself and wants to be ahead of the technology.

He adds:

It is an evolutionary technology. . . It is not likely it will open up a revolutionary new weapons system, but it is important that we pay attention to the implications so the United States doesn’t become blindsighted.

We’d say he is twice right and once wrong. Nanoscience and nanotechnology will indeed have both commercial and military impacts; that’s why nanotech is referred to as dual-use. Murday is also right about the risk of being blindsided if the implications are ignored.

Where he is wrong is in doubting that nanotechnology “will open up a revolutionary new weapons system.” It will.

For the first two or three generations, nanoscale technologies will progress at an evolutionary pace, bringing significant but incremental advances. But with the advent of molecular manufacturing (in what is considered the fourth generation of nanotechnology), the smooth upward slope of technical development will result in a sudden acceleration of impacts leading to revolutionary and disruptive change.

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Mike Treder is a fellow of the IEET, and the Executive Director of the non-profit Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, an organization working to raise awareness of the issues presented by advanced nanotechnology.