Yet some of the best scientists, and best science-fiction-by-scientists writers have been totally blindsided by Nanotechnology. Everyone agrees that it will happen. Some are rather astounded that events which were expected to happen (by 1995 estimates) in roughly 2015-2020 are happening now. This is causing a bad case of Future Shock even among the best science-fiction-writing scientists. One Dr Vernor Vinge (a professor of communications in California and a pioneer of the internet and winner of Hugo and Nebula awards for SF) calls this blind spot "the Singularity", a place beyond which no visionary can pretend to see. Before the concept of nanotechnology emerged, any visionary could extrapolate from our recent technological progress, and forecast into the future to a depth of five -- or ten, to 200 -- centuries. Now with the concept of nanotechnology, we can at best acurately forecast for roughly ten to twenty years.

What is Nanotechnology? First, let's examine Microtechnology. This is at the scale of one-millionth of a meter. There is a microbe called the "euglena", which gets around by spinning a whiplike "flagellum", which as it turns out is powered by a tiny electric motor, complete with rotors, stators, driveshaft and bearings. This is at the lower edge of Microscale, and at the large end of Nanoscale. Nanoscale is the scale of only-billionth of a meter. Something assembles that euglena's flagellum motor; complex proteins and enzymes are what assemble other complex proteins to make that tiny motor. Driven by a program written in DNA, tiny parts are gathered from the environment. cut and folded into shape, and a Microscale motor is produced. With nanotechnology, rather than complex very-large molecules such as proteins doing the work, complex midsize-molecules do the work -- assembling tiny electric motors, gearboxes, and manipulator arms, which can be assembled into other more complex assemblies[1].

Nanotechnology is not far away. The atomic force microscope and the scanning tunneling microscope do not use light to examine nanoscale objects. Instead, they literally feel the atoms they image. And what touches to feel can also push. It has been almost ten years since IBM pushed 36 xenon atoms on a low-temperature substrate to write the company logo. People worldwide have been pushing much more complex little devices together. Some of the results that we saw perhaps two years ago were exceptional. And since that time, almost no information other than that generated by hobbyists such as myself has reached the public. Many of us strongly suspect that probably exceptional advances are being made.

We are also strongly concerned that whoever makes these exceptional advances will unquestionably have forces at their disposal next to which which nuclear energy itself pales to near-insignificance. A single functioning assembler nano-robot programmed to replicate itself, and which passes on that same programming to self-replicate, could reduce the mass of this planet into copies of itself within no more than ten days. The same single "nanobot", programmed to replicate twice, pass on programming to do the same as it does, and then acquire carbon atoms and stack them into lattice formations would, if unlimited, as quickly convert all biological material into diamond. (Similar horrors are exceptionally easy to imagine, but we won't dwell on that.) If, however, it was designed to replicate a certain number of copies, and then to assume a specific role in a complex task parcelled out between all of the copies, it could fabricate absolutely anything described in sufficient detail. This is the process of "matter compilation", as opposed to traditional cycles of extraction, refinement, machining and distribution. Things are literally assembled atom-by-atom into basic building blocks or simple machines, from which more complex structures may be built if desired. The only limit is generating a sufficiently detailed design, and generating software[ 2] which directs the assemblers to reproduce that design.

The impact of such technology on traditional manufacturing will be profound, quite possibly incalculably so. "Sources" which harvest seawater for elements both rare and mundane will replace all mines, petroleum, and other traditional extraction and refinement technologies. Electrical power generation and distribution will almost certainly become a thing of the past, as will communications infrastructures and most of their dependent technology, and the manufacturers of that technology. Staple foods such as raw starches, sugars, carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, enzymes, and vitamins will be produced on demand from raw source materials. It will unquestionably be possible for very large buildings to be grown on demand from materials such as diamond. Diamond, a very symmetrical crystalline form of the extremely-common pure carbon is considered possibly the simplest and most trivial of mass substances potentially produced by nanotech assembler robots. It is also the strongest substance known to man.

Probably the only industries that will in any way survive in recognizable forms will be those of governance, entertainment, and information. The point to be made here is that no matter what you've invested in, other than nanotech itself, your investments will quite possibly become as utterly worthless as an investment in buggy-whips, made in 1890, would be worthless on the day that the Model T Ford rolled off of the assembly line. Traditional forms of investment and indeed all present economic systems will probably cease to exist in any recognizable form. Entire economic sectors will be entirely eradicated except where maintained by hobbyists or museum keepers. Society as we know it is expected to disintegrate entirely, and it is totally unknown in what directions any subsequent societies may go -- all we know is that if nanotech is not used to eradicate the biosphere through intent or accident, ultimately there will probably be no poverty anywhere, at least basic shelter, energy, and nutritional needs will be available to all.

Yesterday's announcement of single-molecule transistors being linked up to form logic gates indicates that we have crossed a certain threshhold of our flight into a future of nanotechnical revolution. It is every bit as significant as the nuking of Hiroshima. Hiroshima and Nagasaki announced to the world that there was an appalling new source of explosive energy, possibly to be harnessed for peaceful uses, certainly available for warfare. *But that energy had been available for at least a year -- delivering it to target in useful form (in this case explosive) was the sticking point.* By the time the technology was publicized, several working models had been demonstrated and the next generation was already being engineered and the basic theory behind that next generation was well-refined within the proprietary research/development community.

The single major holdback in development of programmable nanotech assembler robots has been demonstrated technically to no longer exist. The holdback has been that we formerly had no way to direct assemblers to perform certain tasks in a computer-like programmable way. This is no longer the case. We can use brute-force methods such as scanning tunneling microscopes and atomic force microscopes[3] to create the basic units of assemblers and now we can direct them. I expect to hear of a bootstrapping ("pull one's self up by the bootstraps")[4] protocol being successfully used by molecular computers based on the design publicised yesterday, to operate an assembler nanobot, within no more than 18 months. I expect such an assembler nanobot to be used to build molecular logic computers which can operate itself to produce more complex molecular logic computers and assembler nanobots within no more than a month after that. I expect that the first fabricated diamond will be produced within that same month, within no more than two more months. I expect that a large complexly "milled" diamond will be that first product, and it will probably be compiled as a complex working machine such as an engine or motor with molecular logic controller, and I am fairly confident that when this is publicised it will also be publicized that a working assembly line has been making several per day, would anyone like to buy one, at a low low price.

If one ignores the R&D expenses, this production line could be operating at essentially zero cost, outside of raw materials, which could possibly be anything containing carbon, including waste biomass, untreated sewage, tailings piles, etc. Products made will be limited only by the ability of designers to instruct the assembly nanobots. There will be absolutely no immediate business competition whatsoever. Until someone can either steal or replicate the technology applied, even if a comparable product could be made, the price would be astronomical. (Remember, we are talking about -- as an example -- an electric motor cast entirely out of diamond with embedded trace elements[5] for the windings.) All manufacturers of competing product are out of business overnight, able to compete at all only because of production capacity of the assemblers of the new product. All businesses either feeding from those competitors go out of business or turn elsewhere, all businesses formerly buying from those competitors get on the waiting list for the new, much better and much cheaper, product line.

You will certainly not want to count on living off of investments in stocks of companies which now have no possible future, not even in bankruptcy with outstanding stock being collected at one cent on the dollar: those businesses are now utterly worthless.

Note that while nanotech has been sufficiently deployed at this point in time to completely disrupt an entire industrial sector worldwide, it has not yet been deployed sufficiently to produce a livelihood for those displaced from the marketplace by its introduction. Having money is going to be even more essential, and it will probably be most advisable to have that money available as ready cash in the form of semi-rare industrially-essential metals. A pound of yttrium might turn out to be considerably more valuable than sole ownership of all shares of General Motors.

You may wish to further educate yourself so as to better position your resources so that you might have some remaining outside of the time window ranging from roughly 18 months from now, to about five eyars from now at the outside. Consider retaining a very good technology-investments broker.

GENERAL NOTES:

See 	http://earthops.org/nanotech.html
	http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT6/Papers/index.html
	http://www.foresight.org/


FOOTNOTES:

.1. http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT6/Papers/Montemagno/index.html

.2. http://science.nas.nasa.gov/Groups/Nanotechnology/publications/MGMS_EC1/NanoDesign/paper.html

.3. http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT6/Papers/Devasia/index.html

.4. http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT6/Papers/Hogg/index.html

.5. http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT6/Papers/Fritzsche/index.html