theory
Biometric Theme Park
I'm not a big fan of biometrics. People aren't very good at security, so when they lose data which details your physiognomy, finger prints, (they're even talking ears now), etc., you can't go and change your prints like you would change a password. There are some very serious doubts as to the basic security and efficiency to biometric systems, as brought up at a recent Defcon. Well, that aside, except for the government, the organization I would least like to give my biodata to is Disney. Unfortunately, if you plan on visiting the Magical Kingdom anytime soon, be prepared to be scanned. Enjoy the happy, innocent, moderately priced entire family fun, first just put your hand in the box.World DNA database
Against a compulsory ID card containing biometric data? Well, how about a worldwide DNA database? Alec Jeffreys, pioneer of DNA fingerprinting, wants one. This stuff makes the NWO and TIA people seem pissant, and the people paranoid about them more paranoid. In the old days, kids, we worried about getting a barcode tattooed on us -- now it\'s cutting edge geek to get an RFID implant. Is a world DNA database a good idea? Scientifically speaking, hell yes -- but the keeper of the db would have to be godlike in objectivity and above temptation of misuse. Cynical, perhaps, of me not to believe in beneficial implementation.225,964,951-1
Feel any different, a certain sparkly electrical excitement in the air? Is it spring? Or is it that the largest Mersenne prime was recently discovered? 225,964,951-1 is 7,816,230 digits, over half a million digits larger than the previous largest known prime number, generated through GIMPS (Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search) a distributed computing project. Someone someday in the future of millions of CPU hours will be able to collect EFF's 100k prize for the discovery of a prime number with at least 10,000,000 decimal digits. Runner up gets a year supply of Rice-a-Roni. And if you're having trouble visualizing that many digits, you can get a poster.Nanofoundries, Who Needs Killbots
Organic solar cells could be grown on everything around us, creating self-powered appliances; your cellphone acts like a begonia, you should let it get some light. ... read more »Quantum dots, self-assembly, and Nanofear
"Researchers from the University of California at San Diego, US, have investigated the toxicity of semiconductor quantum dots to cells. Under certain conditions, quantum dots with a core of cadmium selenide (CdSe) proved to be acutely toxic."
The most common apocalyptic scenario related to nanotech has been that of 'grey goo', in which the world is overwhelmed by self-replicating nanomachines that cover the planet in a grey slime. It turns out the real consequences of current nanotech trends is much more down to earth, and much less Sci-Fi.
Part of the appeal of 'grey goo' as disaster is its use in Sci-Fi, and Michael Crichton's book Prey. It has panache. But this scenario assumes that assemblers and self-replication are not only possible but have been developed. At the moment, even though there are nanoproducts out there, self-replicating nanomachines are still theory. When IBM talks of self-assembled nanocrystal flash memory they aren't talking about self-replication, but about complexity and self-organization -- the way that nature tends to organize elements into patterns. In one recent instance, Researchers at Northwestern found that self-assembly happened when there were strong interactions between the polymer ends of the nanorods in very specific conditions. Although folks like Prince Charles are joining the ranks of those opposed to nanotech, they're doing so without really grasping the current tech or dangers. Having celebs talking about tech doesn't give the issues legitimacy.
While there is currently no imminent danger of a viral swarm of unseen nanomachines, there is a much older, more familiar threat, which is very real and very immediate. In a recent CNN story, researchers warn that such tiny particles are extremely toxic to biological organisms, able to penetrate as deeply as the nucleus of a cell. Likewise, researchers from the University of California at San Diego have found quantum dots, specifically used in bio tracking, to be toxic to live cells. So when we hear of the Utah-based Sequoia Pacific Research Co., spraying a proprietary 'nanostructured solution' on 1,400 acres in New Mexico in an attempt to stabilize soil after a fire, naturally one wonders if we are about to do the same things to the general environment that were done to the Hudson, ending up with a new sort of pervasive PCB. In the case of Sequoia Pacific the company claims the soil binder is biodegradable. But we just clearly don't know enough about the long term effects of nanosubstances. And certainly nonbiodegradable subtances shouldn't be sprayed anywhere in any quantity, since they build up in living matter over time. Nanoscale carbon, in particular, has potential to be the next asbestos -- but on a molecular level. Like asbestos, nanoscale carbon is both remarkable and can be very deadly.
Despite all of this, in a purely scientific sense, there are some wild, promising things happening in nanotech. Some of these are realistic, like using nanotubes for storage and computing or a 'ViriChip', a nanotech coated silicon chip that can detect viruses (confuse people with this phrase at parties, 'atomic force microscopy-immunosensor assay'). And some ideas are less realistic, but fantastically interesting, like Wil McCarthy's idea of programmable matter using quantum dots. A lot of this is still anchored in University labs. Yet, like the recent explosion of agri/biotech, there are companies just peeing themselves to get a hold of the next genetically designed corn, tasty soylent green, self-repairing liver (making those drinking binges much less troublesome), or incredibly powerful computing and storage technologies. And I can't trust those companies to take my well-being or the environment's well-being into consideration. Who possibly could trust them? I keep hearing Jack Welch in my head, over and over again telling Bill Moyers with a straight face that PCB's haven't been proven to do any harm.
It's gonna be about the PR. Companies that will sell us nanotech want us to believe them, want us to trust them, and want us to implicitly trust the tech. But according to today's WashingtonPost article, there are no EPA, FDA, or other federal safety standards for nanoproducts. So when you lather on that nanosubstance laced sunscreen, keep that in mind. We'll soon see if the Nanotech bill recently passed actually affords for any oversight.
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related links:
--Nanotech buckyballs kill fish (03-29-04)
--Nanotech linked to animal deaths (03-28-04)
--US Congress OKs nanotech bill: $3.7 billion creates network of university-based centers as well as 'preparedness' office
--BUSH ADMINISTRATION OKS REPORT MAKING NANO A TERROR WAR PRIORITY: heightened commitment to using nanotechnology to fight weapons of mass destruction
--No Small Matter! Nanotech Particles Penetrate Living Cells and Accumulate in Animal Organs
--For Science, Nanotech Poses Big Unknowns
--Nanotech: Dr. Merkle
--nanotechweb.org
--Researchers at Northwestern University, US, have used hybrid nanorods formed in an alumina template to self-assemble curved structures.
--Nanoletters
--Quantum dots could be toxic to cells
--Quantum Dots and Programmable Matter
--FAQ: Quantum Dots and Programmable Matter
--ON THE RECORD: NANOTECHNOLOGY (includes nice short glossary at the bottom)
--previous McGeek nano headlinesTyrell Corp
"Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell. More human than human is our motto."
A recent VillageVoice article talked about the meeting at Yale of the Transhumanists. This academically accepted movement got together to hash out some basics on augmentation, nanotech, bionics and cyborgs, and the possible rights given to an AI or AL. The Transhuman Movement has been around since 96, but it does amaze me that they were so late in coming to the table with these ideas since we've been dealing with these things, culturally, since Fritz Lang's Metropolis. With philosophers, and ethicists, suddenly taking up the mantle as professional thinkers for such things as future bioethics, the definition of 'human' in an increasingly dominated machine world, means they get to create for themselves an academic nomenclature, the largest function of their job. Of course I'm not sure they're aware that the ideas they are now grappling with have already been addressed, and for the most part resolved, by the greater populace through fiction and news hyperbole over at least the previous thirty years. That anyone is polarized over the issue of stem cell research means that the language on the issue is concrete enough to take a position on. That online communities like Everquest, Sims, etc., draw in not just a few fringe people but millions and millions of people is proof that our reality has already been acceptably 'augmented' and flexible. Implants, low-level bionics, most everything short of actual bio-connectivity (where you would wear a computer which has direct input to you) is all but old news. Cyborg existence and true AI and AL are also a bit in the distance. I don't think it takes much stretch to imagine this as a real possibility, and our story-telling aparatus has been acclimating us to this since Asimov's I Robot. 'Uploading', also keenly talked about by the Transhumanists has also been a frequent theme in sci-fi since the time of Neuromancer. Nanotech, upon which the Transhumanists believe so much of this tech will evolve, is currently getting a lot of news play -- and has been a hot topic for sci-fi in the last ten years in particular. The entire plot of X-Men 2 bases itself on the acceptance of mutant human beings, what the Transhumans think of as 'better' humans, and their place in society. And of course that idea was already prevalent in the original comics as far back as the first few issues. Samuel Delaney dealt very thoroughly with cyborgs, sexual ambiguity, willful augmentation and biotransformation in his novels going back to the sixties. His take, his specific philosophical take, was picked up by Kathy Acker's writing on the view of the human body. The late eighties sub-culture was very aware of this and Burrough's influence while it built up the Tribal and Body Modification trends exemplified by genesis p-orridge and ReSearch magazine. I don't even need to mention Philip K Dick, who also pioneered many of these topics in their infancy, and especially the moral and philosophical quandries behind 'what is reality' and 'what is it to be human' in a future world. The Italian Futurists of pre-WW1, while not as fluent in their writing, did apothosize the machine in what appears to be an ironic way -- ironic because so many of them were killed in a war by the machine-gun they so revered.
So what good is the Transhuman Movement? There are a couple of things they bring up which are interesting. First is the idea of 'Singularity', which is the idea that the exponential growth in tech and science will culminate in a steep curve where suddenly the pieces start falling together -- that a much broader nearly superhuman understanding of the universe comes about. This is partly important to nanotech and its theory of assemblers; that the growth of nanotech is dependant on the steep curve of assemblers being able to create more assemblers. Ray Kurzweil has quite a bit of excellent writing on his site that shows there are plenty of topics and permutations to explore. Another possible purpose for the Transhumanists is the concept of moral responsibility in the face of technology. While fiction, and culture can soak a populace with ideas, it's not always good at being moral -- and shouldn't be in my opinion. I would hope a consensus on (or at least acknowledging the existence of) an ethical policy by 'official cultural entities', i.e. academia, is important to lawmaking and general education. If goverment were at some time to use technology, oh I don't know, to lessen our privacy or demean our individuality (gosh, like that would ever happen) it is good to have educational institutions in opposition. What looked threatening for quite a while, especially in the early nineties, was that educational institutions didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it came to the ethics of technology. This has been changing rapidly, obviously. What really worries me about the ethical stance taken by the Transhumanists is the tone -- one of desperately desiring superiority and also full of neologism. There are shades of Gattaca and accusations by others of their logical end being eugenics. Everyone is aware of the appeal of new gadgets. Sometimes that appeal is so overwhelming you don't realize the gadget is, in fact, completely useless and a waste of time. This is what some of the Transhuman philosophy feels like to me, a stoic, that it is taking too much of what is already in sci-fi. It's hard to have your ethical stance taken seriously if you are always talking about ethics of the future. At some point you have to apply it to the here and now. So, in the end the Transhuman Movement appears to me to be losing their best possible purpose, which is current technological ethics as relates to the underlying philosophy of technology not whether or not 'Uploading' is tenable or even desirable. TNG already did that episode.
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fun things to sound geeky with:
extropic
transhuman movement
meme complex
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related links:
-- Cyborg Liberation Front
-- The Adaptable Human Body: Transhumanism and Bioethics in the 21st Century
-- Exploring the 'Singularity'
-- Should there be a limit placed on the integration of humans and computers and electronic technology?
-- Anders Sandberg's site
-- better humans
