Nanotechnology and Trust
June 30th, 2008
Views: 597
Posted by ChrisG at 9:14 am
Getting products containing the largely untested fruits of nanotechnology onto the market is proving extremely lucrative, especially in the States, where it seems everyone wants in on the deeply sexy nanosilver toothpaste market.
For the uninitiated, nanotechnology involves the manipulation of structures on a scale of 1 to several hundred billionths of a metre. At this scale, the physical properties of materials tend to differ from their bulk equivalents, and this difference could be either quantitative (e.g. enhanced tensile strength or conductivity) or qualitative (e.g. an inert material could become explosive). Hence one of the big issues in debates over the potential risks of nanotech: are nanoscale versions of bulk compounds or materials “substantially equivalent” in terms of their properties to their macroscale counterparts? At the moment, there is little consensus over whether the properties of nanomaterials could be reliably predicted in some general way, without having to test every individual compound produced.
And as there is little toxicological data on the likely effects of the different nanomaterials on human health (although studies have raised e.g. concerns about the carcinogenic properties of carbon nanotubes in the free, dispersed form they take in research labs and could potentially take after the products they’re used in are disposed of) or on the environment (e.g. the potential harm tiny particles of synthetic materials could do to soil microbes), the current state of the nanotech-enabled marketplace opens up a curious gap between two realities of choice: the increased rate of appearance of variants of similar products to pick from, and the increased inability of consumers to choose nano- or non nanoproducts. As there is currently no specific body of regulation anywhere in the world for nanotechnological products, there is no requirement of labelling products which contain nanomaterials. In such a situation, an unknown but suspected set of risks is imposed without consent.
The likely consequence of this is that companies are, very shortly, going to find themselves having difficulties marketing untested nanomaterials, as public concerns coalesce about another set of technological risks that, yet again, are being borne without consultation or the possibility of resiling from the position of assumed consent. Nanosilver, used for its enhanced antimicrobial properties in the above-mentioned toothpastes, but also in clothing (so that your basic human need to wear your socks for more than two days at a time can finally be met…) may well become the first focus of such criticism.
In this transcript from NPR’s Living on Earth programme, some of the potential risks of releasing unknown (and potentially undetectable) amounts of nanosilver into waste water are run through. A spokesman for a company who until recently produced a teddy bear impregnated with nanosilver (an anti-microbial bear, therefore safe for “kids with allergies”, apparently – wooo!) expresses the hope that “controversy” now rather than later would be good for businesses using nanotech, given that talking about risk now rather than later is the best way to “have the truth come out”.
But this misses the point somewhat: the technology is already out in the world; the urge to beat attract venture capital, plug untested materials into existing products and sell as many units as possible before regulation bites has already won out. If people decide nanotech cannot be trusted, it’s looking back at the first few years of its appearance on the market that will get them to that conclusion. The failure of the nanotech boosters to provide reasons for people to trust them will ensure that people do not trust them.
I’m sure you’ve already seen it, but I can recall the massive impact that Bill Joy’s “Why the future doesn’t need us” had on me when I first encountered it several years ago. Worth checking out on the off-chance you missed it.
Thanks Jim – yes, I have seen it. I think Joy’s viewpoint reflected its time, in that it shared a lot of the same assumptions about the technology held by its boosters, particularly in the US – e.g. that nanoassemblers will (eventually) work just as people like Drexler say they will, and that this will produce a revolutionary convergence between nano and other techs. If you don’t believe these assumptions (and there’s little reason to, really), then the uncertainties surrounding the technology appear very different.
The situation is much more likely to be the familiar one in which a new tech vastly undershoots the potential originally envisaged for it, makes a lot of money by adding small modifications to existing products, comes up with a few interesting new applications, and drives a steamroller through a lot of non-technological institutions, such as intellectual property law.
That’s where the ‘revolutionary’ stuff will happen, with all sorts of big unintended consequences.
Actually, I think there’s room for both views. After all, why stick with one doomsday scenario when you can embrace two simultaneously, eh?
Your scenario where nano (or gm) technologies insidiously weave themselves into the very fabric of our societies, right into the food we eat, is already well underway and I suspect there’s little we can do — short of the revolutionary — to prevent it. I’ve read a number of people suggest that the silver lining to be found on the cloud of peak oil will be a rapid deceleration of this kind of development.
Of course, the unintended consequences we may face in twenty years will already have been set in motion today. So damage limitation may be the best we can expect.
On the other hand, there’s a view that a period of radical economic upheaval might see scientific research and investment focus even more keenly on the sort of esoteric fields that could give rise to the visions of Kurzweil or Drexler.
When you boil it all down, Joy’s basic concern was that we might develop a machine or organism (or combination of the two) which would out-compete us for the resources we need to survive. I honestly don’t know how far-fatched an idea that is, but I do recall reading science-fiction as a kid and mentally consigning “cloning” to the “time travel / never happen” category.
Whether it’s a voracious super-locust engineered to be nigh indestructable through a combination of genetics and nanotech armour, or a swarm of self-replicating robots, the unintended consequences of corporate research into non-fossil-based pesticides will be, almost by definition, hard to predict.
So if our nanotech toothpaste hasn’t given us all brain cancer within 20 years, then the gray goo could still get us!