From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Sat Jul 26 2003 - 12:07:36 MDT
On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 08:15:28AM -0600, estropico wrote:
>
> Bill Joy, Prince Charles, Etc Group... and now Greenpeace. Looks like a storm
> gathering, to me...
Did you read the actual links? The smalltimes.com only mentions worry about
nano-pollution specifically. As for Greenpeace's actual report, I haven't
read the whole thing (72 pages) but I zoomed in around the "concerns"
sections. They're skeptical even of the possibility of grey goo or strong AI.
Their specific concerns are about nanopollution, nano-divide (the usual
rich/poor thing), and autonomous but not fully intelligent machines, e.g.
weapons. We could call this "concern about premature removal of humans from
the decision making process, plus worries about liability."
They don't seem to call for blanket bans, or even immediate heavy regulation,
just concern. All in all what I read seemed moderate. One could criticize
their assumption that the poor countries will never develop, and argue about
whether strong AI is possible, but the nano-pollution concerns seem apropos.
Asbestos like effects, high-surface area particles absorbing toxic substances
and carrying them around, etc. I see nothing Luddite in wanting to see more
research there.
Hmm, just thought to read the foreword. That takes a bit more aggressive
stance, favorably citing the EU moving toward "no data, no market", i.e. if
you haven't studied the toxicology of your new substance you can't sell them.
That still doesn't seem unreasonable. And there's concern about AI making it
easier for people to spied on, whether by corporations or governments.
I also note that if companies in general committed to taking back their own
products, taking responsibility for their new products, rather than expecting
consumers to fill up landfills and water tables, a lot of environmental
concerns might go away.
Damien Broderick wrote:
> Checked their biblio. No refs to Drexler, Bradbury, Sandberg, Broderick,
> and only one to Freitas, his grey goo paper. We're not getting through.
Their references aren't complete, since they mention Kurzweil in the text but
not in the references. The text also refers to Foresight Institute
(positively) and Zyvex. Otherwise they focus more on near-term and obviously
plausible developments and concerns, not stuff a lot of actual researchers
themselves find implausible.
-xx- Damien X-)
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