| Study #20 |
What
effect will molecular manufacturing have on military and government
capability and planning, considering the implications of arms races and
unbalanced development? |
| |
It has been
predicted that a sufficiently advanced and general-purpose molecular
manufacturing (MM) technology could have a significant destabilizing effect.
This must be explored. |
| Subquestion |
How quickly
can new weapons be invented, designed and deployed? |
| Preliminary answer |
Very quickly. (See
the previous few studies.) |
| Subquestion |
What new
theatres or contexts for conflict will be created? (Outer space, cyberspace,
underground, other?) |
| Preliminary answer |
It will become
quite important to be able to detect very small devices—perhaps even
sub-microscopic devices. Outer space will become much easier to reach.
Millionfold increases in computer power will create new opportunities.
Extremely large-scale sensor networks, backed by large-scale computers, may
make some environments (such as the ocean) less opaque. Living organisms
(especially humans) are high-value and perhaps high-resource targets, and
may require advanced engineering to monitor and protect without excessive
disruption. Data-mining from massive sensor arrays and human transaction
monitoring may be crucial; this will probably be limited more by software
than by hardware. The sensor networks themselves, and disrupting or hiding
from them, may be a focus of conflict, but one that is likely to be won by
the sensors (see David Brin,
The Transparent Society). |
| Subquestion |
To what
extent will portable manufacturing allow forces to be autonomous of supply? |
| Preliminary answer |
Manufacturing of
just about anything from clothing to missiles should be feasible with only
raw materials. Advances in thermal depolymerization technology may allow
conversion of local plant matter into feedstock with a relatively small
(man-portable) chemical plant. |
| Subquestion |
To what
extent will advanced technology allow forces to be remotely or autonomously
controlled? |
| Preliminary answer |
Any algorithm that
can be run on a supercomputer today will be able to run onboard even a
bullet or insect-format robot. This implies rather good image recognition.
Also, the ability to field as many UAV or smart dust relays as desired will
allow very high-bandwidth networking. Improved robotics, displays, and
sensory or even neural interfaces can greatly enhance telepresence. |
| Subquestion |
What impacts
will human augmentation (including direct brain interface) have? |
| Preliminary answer |
Unknown at this
time, but probably includes significantly improved reaction time,
situational awareness, telepresence, teleoperation of robots, fully
immersive VR, and enhanced memory/cognition. |
| Subquestion |
What impacts
will advanced data gathering and data processing have? |
| Preliminary answer |
A full-coverage
sensor network with full storage seems plausible. This would give the
ability to see and hear anything from any angle at any time in the present
or past (after the network was installed, of course). Image processing
should allow tracking of people through time. Data mining based on image
processing should allow connections to be found and highlighted (for
example, full speech-to-text conversion of all conversations, followed by
text searching to determine where the other end of a phone call went). |
| |
This could greatly
surpass DARPA's TIA, and enable DARPA's
LifeLog: "an electronic diary to help the individual more accurately
recall and use his or her past experiences to be more effective in current
or future tasks." |
| Subquestion |
To what
extent will rapidly advancing technology reduce the enemy's predictability? |
| Preliminary answer |
If a full sensor
network can be installed, the enemy may be come extremely predictable.
However, in the absence of direct sensing, the speed with which new products
and new types of weapons can be conceptualized, developed, and deployed
argues that it will be very hard to know what the enemy's capability is or
will be. |
| Subquestion |
How quickly
and effectively can new doctrine be invented or adapted to new capabilities
on either side? |
| Preliminary answer |
This is an
institutional question. Note that a failure of human institutions will tempt
the development of automated or adaptive threat detection and response,
comparable to automated computer virus characterization. Note further that
such automated response systems could be extremely dangerous. |
| Subquestion |
Will offense
or defense be fundamentally stronger? |
| Preliminary answer |
Since this
question must be answered for each possible class of weapon, and since MM
makes many new classes of weapon possible, it appears that offense will
probably win. However, this analysis is shallow; and because of the crucial
importance of this question, it should be studied carefully. |
| Subquestion |
How well can
military targets be protected? |
| Preliminary answer |
Military targets
can be dispersed, miniaturized, hardened with advanced materials, and
rebuilt quickly. The main vulnerability will be people, which again argues
for automation. |
| Subquestion |
How well can
civilian targets be protected? |
| Preliminary answer |
Billions of
toxin-carrying insectoid nanobots could fit in a small packing crate.
Orbital or UAV-based weapons can be deployed on a large scale. It looks like
civilians and civilian property may not be defensible without major
lifestyle changes. It's possible that a comprehensive shield could protect
against some forms of attack, possibly including nano-scale robots, but
long-range high-energy weapons may require impractical amounts of shielding.
|
| |
The alternative
is to prevent the deployment of such weapons in the first place, but this
would be quite difficult to achieve by any means. A control-freak approach
would be hugely oppressive (for the protected civilians as well as
non-citizens) and may not be sustainable, and an effective policy-based
approach will be difficult to design. |
| Subquestion |
Is an arms race
likely to be unstable? |
| Preliminary answer |
Yes. The nuclear
arms race was stable for several reasons. In virtually every way, the
nano-arms race will be the opposite. |
| Nuclear weapons
are hard to design, hard to build, require easily monitored testing, do
indiscriminate and lasting damage, do not rapidly become obsolete, have
almost no peaceful use, and are universally abhorred. Nano capability will
be easy to build (given a nanofactory), will allow easily concealable
testing, will be relatively easy to control and deactivate, would become
obsolete very rapidly, almost every design is dual-use, and peaceful and
non-lethal (police) use will be common. Nukes are easier to stockpile than
to use; nano weapons are the opposite. |
| |
Also, as
Mark Gubrud pointed out, a deployed rapid-response net would be
unstable. (A hair-trigger complex system eventually will suffer a false
alarm.) One observer has argued that immune systems are not generally
unstable, and humans should be able to do even better. We disagree on three
counts. First, humans aren't close to understanding the immune system yet,
and we may have to design military systems before we do understand it.
Second, what's needed is not very comparable to a biological immune system,
so we'll be doing a lot of new engineering that'll be hard either to test or
to analyze. Third, the instability that Gubrud analyzed is not from one
defensive system reacting to disorganized and localized threats—it's from
two defensive systems reacting to each other. The closest analogy from
immunology would be graft-vs-host disease, which is a great example of
instability. |
| Subquestion |
How hard will it
be to recover from a nanotech gap? |
| Preliminary answer |
At the point
where a nanofactory or equivalent system is developed, even a few months
difference could be unrecoverable. The more advanced side would have access
to vastly better computers, and the technology would advance as rapidly as
their creativity allowed. There is no obvious plateau in capability that
would allow a laggard to catch up. Also, the advanced side would be in a
much better position to thwart development in its opponents, with or without
all-out war. |
| Subquestion |
Could a non-nano
power defend itself against a nano power? |
| Preliminary answer |
No. And even a
nuclear power might not be able to deter a nano power: aerospace superiority
(with rapid prototyping and cheap manufacturing) could make it much easier
to build an effective missile shield. |
| Subquestion |
How could
governments use molecular manufacturing in their own countries? |
| Preliminary answer |
This deserves a
whole study of its own. Abusive and oppressive governments could become far
worse. Any country could modernize (and militarize) very fast, depending on
how much expertise it can buy or train locally. MM could enhance national
character, for example: Americans could become more independent / off-grid
(which could reduce vulnerability to terrorism); others could become more
socially linked through high-bandwidth connection and data-sharing; there'll
be plenty of opportunity for both laziness and productivity. |
| Conclusion |
Military practice and planning will have to change a lot. An unstable
arms race looks like a definite possibility. Substantial innovation will be
required to even begin to protect civilians. Development of molecular
manufacturing may have a crucial impact on national strength.
|
| Other studies |
1.
Is
mechanically guided chemistry a viable basis for a manufacturing technology?
2. To what extent is molecular manufacturing counterintuitive and
underappreciated in a way that causes underestimation of its importance?
3. What is
the performance and potential of diamondoid machine-phase chemical
manufacturing and products?
4. What is the performance and potential of biological programmable
manufacturing and products?
5. What is the performance and potential of nucleic acid
manufacturing and products?
6. What other chemistries and options should be studied?
7. What
applicable sensing, manipulation, and fabrication tools exist?
8. What will be required to develop diamondoid machine-phase chemical
manufacturing and products?
9. What will be required to develop biological programmable
manufacturing and products?
10. What will be required to develop nucleic acid manufacturing and
products?
11. How rapidly will the cost of development decrease?
12. How could an effective development program be structured?
13. What is
the probable capability of the manufacturing system?
14. How capable will the products be?
15. What will the products cost?
16. How rapidly could products be designed?
17. Which
of today's products will the system make more accessible or cheaper?
18. What new products will the system make accessible?
19. What impact will the system have on production and distribution?
21. What effect will this have on macro- and microeconomics?
22. How can proliferation and use of nanofactories and their products
be limited?
23. What effect will this have on policing?
24. What beneficial or desirable effects could this have?
25. What effect could this have on civil rights and liberties?
26. What are the disaster/disruption scenarios?
27. What effect could this have on geopolitics?
28. What policies toward development of molecular manufacturing does
all this suggest?
29. What policies toward administration of
molecular manufacturing does all this suggest?
30. How can appropriate policy be made and implemented?
|
| Studies should begin
immediately. |
The situation is
extremely urgent. The stakes are unprecedented, and the world is unprepared.
The basic findings of these studies should be verified as rapidly as
possible (months, not years). Policy preparation and planning for
implementation, likely including a crash development program, should begin
immediately. |
