Volume 4, Issue 1 
May 2009


Cryonic Enabling Technology and the Bioweapons Risk

Douglas Mulhall

Page 3 of 3

I recently asked one of the coordinators of the NAS study what progress there had been on the report's recommendations. She wrote me a very nice e-mail and explained these points: The first recommendation (support the free and open exchange of information in the scientific community and elsewhere), is being actively considered, but nothing has been done yet. One the second point, (broaden the threat spectrum) she believed that many of the academic institutions have become much more aware of this -- the threat. I agree with her, there has been discussion in a number of these groups; at least the awareness is growing. However, the contradictions inherent in this, as I explained earlier, are pretty self-evident.

Number one, dictatorships do not play by the rules. In terms of transparency, you can just forget about it. They are investing literally hundreds of billions of dollars in these technologies.

The second thing is that national security and scientific openness simply do not mix. They never have and never will until the concept of national security fundamentally changes, which it does not seem to have done yet. National security means secrecy in many cases.

Thirdly, companies do not like to be open or share information. The intellectual property regime that we have in place right now demands that secrecy be undertaken until you have a de facto invention. Mad scientists in their garages usually aren’t very open and do not want to talk about what they're doing, although some of them have a compulsive need to talk about it.

Finally, and I think most profoundly, technology outpaces regulation. It does not matter if you have an invention such as the "dot" in the “.com” or nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are a good example because there were literally hundreds of them tested in the atmosphere and all of us have plutonium in us as a result before they figured out that this really was not a very good idea. Again, that was a slow-moving failure whose regulatory regime would be completely ineffective for fast moving backyard nanoweapons, because if you have that same failure with a nanotechnology, for example an engineered virus, the first open air tests could really be catastrophic. You have to figure out a different type of threat spectrum analysis before you can really get anywhere with this. This is just a restating of the points that I made earlier.

In that context, cryonic-enabled life extension will not help us if it relies on such volatile technologies. What I mean by "help us" is it will not help all of us. It will not move civilization forward if billions of us are wiped out by a bio-catastrophe. It could help a few elite people who think that is actually a good way to go and, of course, that is a severe risk. (Author’s Note: Martine Rothblatt addresses this concern in her own presentation. She identifies existing stable technologies that can be used to develop cryonics without risking new volatile technologies. However, the question remains: will the scientific community limit itself to such stable technologies?) If we are hoping to move civilization itself forward with cryonic enabled life extension, we really face these very severe risks. It's clear from that, the only chance we have to manage the risk is a globalized management regime. The current weapons control mechanisms won't work for advanced NanoBiotech. Moreover, there is no sense of urgency, so it is very difficult to get things done.

Looking at these overall challenges, the question arises: Who is talking about this? Well, there are many people talking about it. The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology [14], the Foresight Nanotech Institute [15] and the Singularity Institute [16] for Artificial Intelligence are all discussing it, but there really is not much action. It is a bit of talking to your navel type of thing, and there is not a broad discussion, even though you see the occasional television special relating to this. Regulatory regimes are occasionally focusing on things like nanoparticles but not self-assembling mechanisms. The regulatory regime is completely incapable of handling these types of risks.

The question is: Has anybody proposed anything new? The answer is yes, Dr. Rothblatt did years ago. She did it at the first Terasem Geoethical Workshop in 2005. The strategy that Dr. Rothblatt pointed out was called Alternative Models for Managing Self-Replicating Nanotechnology applied to land, sea, and space based scenarios in which self-replicating nanotechnology is necessary.

The core concept is an international institution called INTERET, and that is for International Replicating Technology: an international treaty with a difference. The basic difference between this concept and others is that unlike other treaty organizations in the world today, this one would have control over intellectual property and, to a degree, over the very basic research that is going on. For example, Dr. Rothblatt pointed out that labs could be set up under auspices of the Treaty organization and would actually compete with each other, so you would still have competition. It would not be a monopoly in that sense of the word. The main point is, to sign up you have to enforce the INTERET Self-Replicating exclusively nationally. The question is: Would this work? That of course involves many details that would have to be worked out.

I have to tell you honestly, having looked at the last several years since Dr. Rothblatt first made this proposal, I haven't seen anything better come up. I've seen some of the best brains in the world lecturing in front of thousands of people talking about these risks, and I have not heard any reasonable way of overcoming the types of risks that have been discussed here in this presentation. Given these risks, not only do we have to have a management mechanism like this, but we have to have technological contingencies for catastrophic failure.

That means developing protection mechanisms that the individual can use to protect themselves against engineered viruses. That would include, for example, things such as exoskeletons, viral self- protection systems, and super immune systems. That is the topic of another lecture. However, suffice it to say that in order to move forward with this, we need some concrete steps.

The first one is that I strongly suggest everybody read Dr. Rothblatt's presentation. There has to be some form of mechanism in some group to establish a strategy to get it adopted in the globalized community. Whether that mechanism is Terasem, or The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, or some other organization, I do not know, but we have to decide. We have to get at this now, because if we wait until the self-replicator is invented, and that is very close now, it will be too late.

We have to set up a mechanism to distribute the outline of a strategy to every government, every bioweapons treaty organization, and every nanotech organization as a proposal. Now that is a huge chunk to bite off, and it requires leadership, infrastructure support and organization. I have yet to see anybody take this and run with it, and I think it's time that someone did. I would throw the gauntlet down to Terasem and say: I think this is something that Terasem has to focus on or have another organization make this their exclusive focus. Developing an international treaty regime like this is just huge.

 

Footnotes

[14] The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) - a non-profit research and advocacy think tank concerned with the major societal and environmental implications of advanced nanotechnology. We are a modern, networked, virtual organization -- with no "brick and mortar" -- a collection of more than 100 volunteers, over 1000 interested followers, and a small team of primary coordinators. We are also independent, with no direct affiliation to any government, business, or academic organization.
http://www.crnano.org/about_us.htm  September 26, 2008 12:00PM EST

[15] Foresight Nanotech Institute - the leading think tank and public interest institute on nanotechnology. Founded in 1986, Foresight was the first organization to educate society about the benefits and risks of nanotechnology. At that time, nanotechnology was a little-known concept. Today, with the basic framework of public understanding in place; we are refocusing our efforts on guiding nanotechnology research, public policy and education to address the critical challenges facing humanity.
http://www.foresight.org/  September 26, 2008 12:06PM EST

[16] Singularity Institute - In the coming decades, humanity will likely create a powerful artificial intelligence. The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI) exists to confront this urgent challenge, both the opportunity and the risk.
http://singinst.org/aboutus/ourmission  September 26, 2008 12:09PM EST

 

Bio

bio picDouglas Mulhall is a leading nanotechnology journalist, an award winning documentary filmmaker and broadcast executive, but also directs research in ecology and strategic development for precise molecular medicine. His landmark book, Our Molecular Future, describes powerful new tools to save the globalized economy from "nature's time bombs." He has lectured to the Institute of Medicine, USEPA and various other organizations on the risks and benefits of advanced technologies. His work on the topic has been published in the Dekker Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

 

 

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