Coming soon! Nanotech on your desktop
Within 15 years, desktop nanofactories could pump out anything from a new car to a novel nanoweapon, says a technology commentator.
And he warns that society needs to start preparing for this brave new world.
Mike Treder from the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) in New York says advanced nanotechnology, like these nanofactories, could help solve world poverty but it could also wreak economic and social chaos.
"It's the biggest challenge we've ever faced as a species," says Treder, who has been addressing scientists in Australia this week.
CRN is a non-profit organisation advised among others by the so-called father of nanotechnology, Dr Eric Drexler.
The organisation says it aims to raise awareness about the benefits and dangers of molecular manufacturing, the precise assembly of products atom-by-atom.
While molecular manufacturing is not yet a reality, Treder says researchers are already working on building molecular-scale machines that could eventually move atoms around to make products.
And he says that in less than 15 years, nanoscale factories could be making consumer products from cups and chairs to cars and house bricks.
Raw materials like carbon would be pumped into the nanofactory, where atoms would be rearranged to make products according to programs downloaded from the internet, says Treder.
Treder says such desktop nanofactories could help reduce poverty and starvation in developing nations, and provide tremendous medical benefits. But society needs to guard against its potential risks.
In particular, he says CRN is concerned that these desktop nanofactories would lead to a nano "arms race" in which hard-to-detect nanoweapons could be designed, manufactured and tested much quicker than they are today.
"Imagine a suitcase filled with billions of toxin-carrying flying robots that could be released anywhere to target a population," he says.
"You could make a suitcase full of these things overnight for a few dollars."
The mass production of consumer goods by private desktop factories could also trigger social chaos due to economic disruption, says Treder.
"If I can make my own car at home for a couple of hundred dollars with a design downloaded from the internet that means I'm not a customer of the auto dealer down the road."
Waste from such easy manufacturing, or nanolitter, is another issue that needs to be thought about, he says. As is the prospect of nanospam.
"If someone could send you a product online that you don't want but they just make it pump out of your nanofactory, how are we going to prevent that?"
Experts are generally sceptical that desktop factories could exist so soon but welcome Treder's discussion of impacts of nanotechnology on society.
Dr Peter Binks of Nanotechnology Victoria, a sponsor for Treder's tour, says his organisation does not "yet buy into the idea" of the desktop factory.
"But we don't dismiss it either," he says. "We think there are a large number of technical hurdles to be overcome."
William Price, professor of nanotechnology at the University of Western Sydney says desktop factories may be possible but technical issues will mean this will not be within 15 years.
Professor Chennupati Jagadish of the Australian Research Council Nanotechnology Network, which is also a sponsor for the tour, thinks Treder's views are imaginative and futuristic.
"Expecting those sorts of machines in 15 years is probably too optimistic," he says, estimating they would be more like 30 or 40 years away, if at all.
And it's this challenge that makes Professor Ned Seeman, of New York University, who is involved in self-assembling arrays of DNA machines, sceptical of Treder's claims.
"I think this suggestion is wildly optimistic," he says. "Most of the basic principles have not been demonstrated, much less in a 'desktop' context."
But even he is not willing to rule the technology out completely.
"One hundred years from now anything is possible."