From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Sun Nov 24 2002 - 14:16:57 MST
Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain, E.R.) is coming out
tomorrow with his new novel Prey, based on a deadly nanotech "swarm"
that gets out of control and starts eating people. I think this link
to amazon.com goes through the extropy.org affiliate program, so if you
want to order it this will send a few pennies to a good cause while not
costing you anything:
"One swarm of nanoparticles has escaped the lab and is now evolving
quickly-adapting to desert conditions, feeding off mammalian flesh
(including human), reproducing and learning mimicry - leading to the
novel's shocking, downbeat ending."
This doesn't sound good. The last thing we need now is a book and
movie (film rights have been sold to Fox) that presents nanotech as a
flesh-eating monster technology. Bill Joy's jeremiad was bad enough
but that has mostly died down, cooler heads have prevailed, and I think
there is general understanding that his concept of "relinquishment" is
not an option. I even heard that Joy himself is backing down somewhat.
But Crichton will have much more influence in the popular culture and in
setting people's expecations for this technology. For many people this
will be their first exposure to nanotech, that it runs out of control
and eats people and takes over the world or something.
Crichton also has an article in today's Sunday-supplement Parade
magazine about nanotech. This is obviously timed to promote his book
and he takes a slightly more balanced approach, although he does mention
the dangers many times. A single quote from Drexler is highlighted:
"'There are many people, including myself, who are queasy about the
consequences of this technology,' says expert K. Eric Drexler."
This link to the article will obviously work only for a while, but in the
future it may be available from the archives:
http://www.parade.com/current/coverstory/index.html. It's curious
that while this is called the "coverstory", actually the cover has two
stars from the TV series 24 highlighting the latest high-tech gadgets.
Then there is a box mentioning Crichton's article, which itself has
a very fancy painting of some rather vicious-looking nanomachines.
Maybe the nanotech article turned out to be too downbeat or threatening
for this holiday season issue.
Hal
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