Today, more people live in freedom than at any time in
history. Although poverty is still a serious worldwide
problem, more people are healthier and better fed than ever
before. And despite regional wars and terrorist attacks
(which have beset civilization for centuries), we have
managed to avoid destroying ourselves with full-scale
thermonuclear war.

But looming just over the horizon is a grave threat. It
is nanotechnology.

From the dawn of the nuclear age until the present day,
we have relied on two mechanisms to protect us from World
War III: the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD),
and the growing interdependence of nations.

However, in the very near future we may not be able to
count on these controls. The tenuous balance of MAD and the
worldwide network of commercial trade are both threatened by
the rise of advanced nanotechnology.

Fortunately, there are things we can do now before its
too late. We need to seek solutions that
could prevent a buildup to devastating war.

Lets begin by examining the problems in greater detail.

Imagine a world in which every society has the ability to
achieve self-sufficiency, making use of local materials to
manufacture valuable products when and where they are
needed. Imagine that the United States and other leading
industrial nations have ample access to clean, low-cost,
sustainable energy sources and no longer rely on expensive
imported oil. In such a scenario, will vanishing trade
imbalances and reduced competition lead to peace and
stability?

In todays world, even though each nation is politically
independent, they all rely to some degree on other nations
for trade or security, or both. No nationat least no nation
of even minimal significanceexists free from this
interdependence. But a proposed new form of manufacturing
making use of massively parallel, automated molecular
machine systems (molecular manufacturing), made
possible by advanced nanotechnology, has the potential to
change all that.

By building from the bottom up, with every molecule in
a desired position, huge increases in material strength,
durability, and flexibility can be attained. Rapid
prototyping, enabled by portable manufacturing appliances
that produce their own weight in high-quality output every
day, will revolutionize design and unleash innovation.

Better built, longer lasting, cleaner, safer, and smarter
products for the home, for communications, for medicine, for
transportation, and for industryall of that is just the
beginning. Add in widely available, inexpensive, renewable
energy; cheap, ready access to space flight; and remarkably
efficient greenhouses, which reduce our agricultural
footprint to a fraction of its current size while sharply
increasing output.

Sounds wonderful, right? Unfortunately, its not that
simple.

Molecular manufacturing will be a general-purpose and
dual-use technology. What that means is that it will not
only make benign products, but can create powerful weapons
as well. It promises miraculous benefits, but also dire
consequences.

When individual countries are able to provide their own
goods and services, without the need for import or export
trade, they will have less incentive to maintain good
relations with others. When economic security is no longer
an issue, the only remaining security concern will be
military.

This scenario contains all the elements for a terrible
new arms race. Every country possessing unrestricted
molecular manufacturing capability will have the ability to
design, test, and inexpensively stockpile huge numbers of
powerful weapons of any size. If nanotechnology development
is allowed to proliferate, we can expect that many countries
will achieve both economic independence and unprecedented
military prowess.

Will we then see a stable equilibrium, a tenuous balance
of power similar to the Mutually Assured Destruction of the
Cold War? Not likely. Nuclear weapons require massive
research efforts and industrial development, which can be
globally tracked with greater ease than nanotech arms
programs. Molecular manufacturing will enable quicker
weapons optimization due to cheap, rapid prototyping. Once a
design is approved, vast numbers of powerful new weapons
could be produced overnight. It will be nearly impossible to
know how much war-making capacity your enemy or your
neighbor might possess in the near future.

Unless molecular manufacturing capability is contained,
the number of nanotech-possessing nations in the world could
be much higher than todays number of nuclear nations,
increasing the chance of inflaming dangerous regional
conflicts that could spin out of control. Greater
uncertainty of the capabilities of the adversary could
foster cautionbut it also could increase the temptation for
preemptive strikes to prevent proliferation. Decreased
response time to an attack, and better-targeted destruction
of an enemy's visible resources, will make for highly
unstable conditions.

Worse still, this technology opens the door for the
development of rival groups within countries. We might see
repeated military coups, devastating civil wars, and
dissolution of nations into large numbers of hostile,
unpredictable, immensely powerful tribes. Another potential
scenario is radical transnational groups, bound by
religious, cultural, or ideological extremism, using
molecular manufacturing toward terrorist ends.

We also must consider the potential negative impacts of
advanced nanotechnology on our current socio-economic
structure.

Low-cost local manufacturing and duplication of designs
could lead to monetary upheaval, as major economic sectors
contract or even collapse. For example, the global steel
industry is worth over $700 billion. What will happen to the
millions of jobs associated with that industryand to the
capital supporting itwhen materials many times stronger
than steel can be produced quickly and cheaply wherever (and
whenever) they are needed?

Productive nanosystems could make storable solar power a
realistic and preferable alternative to traditional energy
sources. Around the world, individual energy consumers pay
over $600 billion a year for utility bills and fuel
supplies. Commercial and industrial uses drive the figures
higher still. When much of this spending can be permanently
replaced with off-grid solar energy, many more jobs will be
displaced.

The worldwide semiconductor industry produces annual
billings of over $150 billion. The U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics reports that the industry employs a domestic
workforce of nearly 300,000 people. Additionally, U.S.
retail distribution of electronics products amounts to
almost $300 billion annually. All of these areas will be
impacted significantly if customized electronics products
can be produced at home for about a dollar a pound, the
likely cost of raw materials. If any individual can make
products containing computing power a million times greater
than todays PCs, where will those jobs go?

Other nations will be affected as well. For example, the
Chinese government may welcome the advent of general-purpose
molecular manufacturing for several reasons, including its
potential to radically reduce poverty and reduce
catastrophic environmental problems. But at the same time,
China relies on foreign direct investment (FDI) of over $40
billion annually for much of its current economic strength.
When money to purchase Chinese manufactured goods stops
flowing in, economic turmoil could spark violent struggles.

Overall, its not a pretty picture. Without wise
planning, molecular manufacturing is likely to produce
severe economic disruption and social disorder, as well as a
perilously unstable new arms race that could lead to
devastating acts of war.

Approached with pessimism, nanotechnology appears far too
hazardous to be allowed to progress to anywhere near its
full potential. Its tempting to just say no, to urge that
we shut Pandoras Box and halt further development.

The possibility of technological relinquishment was made
famous by computer scientist Bill Joy in his April 2000
Wired Magazine article, Why the Future Doesnt Need
Us. Joy saw great danger to the continued existence of the
human race from nanotechnology (as well as from robotics and
genetics). He advocated an enforced global relinquishment of
so-called dangerous technologies, which essentially would
require an end to further development of almost all new
technology.

Although Joys call met with some support from
environmental activists and others, the consensus reaction
was largely skeptical of both the feasibility and the
advisability of such a shutdown. For one thing, it would be
almost impossible to prevent the development of molecular
manufacturing technology somewhere in the world. China,
Europe, and Japan all have thriving nanotechnology programs.
The rapid advance of enabling technologies such as
computing, biotechnology, 3D prototyping, MEMS, and
scanning-probe microscopy ensures that nanotechnology
research and development efforts will be both easier and
more cost-effective in the near future than they are today.

But perhaps the strongest argument against relinquishment
is the loss or delay of immense benefits. Molecular
manufacturing promises the ability to reduce stress on the
environment, alleviate most shortages, raise living
standards worldwide, and eradicate nearly all poverty,
starvation, and homelessness. Nanotechnology can greatly aid
in the provision of safe drinking water, effective
sanitation, and protection from many infectious diseases.
Clean, cheap, and efficient manufacturing; medical
breakthroughs; immensely powerful computers; renewable
energy; easier access to spaceall these gains are simply
too good to pass up. So, what is the answer? Can we find a
way to preserve peace, security, and liberty while still
enjoying prosperity and abundance?

It is a challenge of the highest order. The Center for
Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN), a
nonprofit think tank that I co-founded, has studied
these issues in depth for years now, and the clearest thing
we can say is that there is no simple solution.

We are convinced, however, that two choices are
untenable. The first, as discussed above, is relinquishment;
which is impractical and probably impossible. The second bad
choice is to just wait and see, or take a laissez-faire
attitude. Our analysis suggests that, if maintained, this
approach leads directly to potentially catastrophic
instability.

Other solutions will be required. New mechanisms must be
found to replace Mutually Assured Destruction and economic
interdependence, the historic safeguards on which we can no
longer rely.

CRN has begun the critical work of looking for solutions,
producing research papers proposing tentative answers. We
have developed a catalog of thirty in-depth studies that
should be performed as soon as possible (listed on our
website). But much more needs to be done, more than any
organization can accomplish alone.

The disruptive and destabilizing implications of advanced
nanotechnology must not be underestimated. At the same time,
the near miraculous benefits cannot be forfeited. To save
our way of life and usher in an even brighter tomorrow, it
will be necessary to develop and implement comprehensive,
balanced plans for responsible management of this
transformative technology.