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Nanotech Scenario Series

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Three Systems of Action:
A Proposed Application for Effective
Administration of Molecular Nanotechnology

by Chris Phoenix and Mike Treder

Introduction

Within the next few decades, and perhaps sooner, a new type of manufacturing will be made possible by molecular nanotechnology (MNT). Considering its enormous potential for profound social, environmental, economic, and military impacts, MNT has received insufficient attention in ethical and policy discussions. The first section of this paper provides a brief introduction to MNT, in order to establish the need for increased policy attention. The second section describes three different approaches to policymaking, each based on a different system of action, or set of principles, used for solving various kinds of problems. The third section demonstrates that MNT, as a flexible general purpose technology, will require a flexible approach to policymaking that encompasses all three systems of action. The fourth section presents specific recommendations and possibilities for accomplishing this difficult balance between incompatible policy styles.
 

MOLECULAR NANOTECHNOLOGY

“The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom. It is not an attempt to violate any laws; it is something, in principle, that can be done; but in practice, it has not been done because we are too big.”¹ With these words, in 1959, Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman introduced the concepts that would eventually be known as nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology has several meanings and covers many diverse fields. The U.S. National Science Foundation defines it as: “Research and technology development at the atomic, molecular or macromolecular levels, in the length scale of approximately 1 - 100 nanometer range, to provide a fundamental understanding of phenomena and materials at the nanoscale and to create and use structures, devices and systems that have novel properties and functions because of their small and/or intermediate size.”² By this definition, some kinds of nanotechnology exist already. Computer manufacturers are exploring new types of circuits built with individual molecules, and other technologies too numerous to list are being developed or already in use. Current products of nanoscale technology include powders, films, and chemicals. Computer parts and sensors may be only a few years away. But this type of nanotechnology simply produces specialized materials and components, one innovation at a time. Nanoscale technology is not general purpose.

Molecular nanotechnology (MNT) is different. The field was initially defined by popular and even fictional portrayals. Often misunderstood or overlooked in discussions of nanotechnology, it is nevertheless a field of active and serious study. [See APPENDIX] Starting with the publication of Nanosystems by Eric Drexler in 1992, a coherent and reliable picture has been built over the last decade of a plausible—and possibly imminent—manufacturing system: a limited molecular nanotechnology (LMNT) based on programmable, mechanically guided carbon-lattice chemistry workstations. Such a manufacturing system could make a wide variety of functional molecular shapes, large enough to have stable properties but small enough to make dinosaurs out of today's cutting-edge products.

From the beginning, MNT was claimed to be dangerously transformative. It was forewarned that once a general purpose nanoscale manufacturing capability was developed, a flood of diverse and powerful products would appear almost overnight. Distributed, cheap, clean manufacturing would upset many aspects of the economy. Manufacturing systems would be able to duplicate themselves speedily, leading to extremely low capital costs. Such claims seemed fantastic, and this perception has perhaps contributed to the poor reputation of the field. However, work over the past decade has made it clear that many of the initial warnings were justified.

Advances in conventional manufacturing are happening continually: parts are getting smaller and more precise, robots are doing more of the fabrication and assembly, inventories are shrinking while speed increases, and industrial processes are producing less waste. The natural destination of these trends is a completely automated manufacturing system that can rapidly build products with atomic precision directly from raw materials, while making use of every molecule. In the normal course of innovation, this might take many decades or even centuries to achieve. However, MNT appears to provide a shortcut: by mixing digital control with chemistry, a mechanochemical system could do for manufacturing what computers have done for information processing.

In studying the social impacts of MNT, it is important to know when it might be developed. If it were to be delayed by many decades, its capabilities would not be revolutionary. There is good reason to believe, however, that it could be developed much sooner—possibly within a single decade.³ This would be cause for grave concern. Certainly, improved manufacturing is desirable for a wide variety of reasons. But it’s also true that MNT—even in its limited form—would be able to create products so advanced as to destabilize many social and political institutions. Given the immense power and resources that an LMNT capability would provide, we cannot afford to merely hope that no nation will realize this for the next thirty years; we must assume that somewhere in the world an LMNT development project will be started as soon as the cost falls within a large nation's budget.

The barriers to an LMNT project may already be surprisingly low. Mechanochemistry has been demonstrated on a silicon lattice. New nanoscale sensing and manipulation technologies are being developed at a rapid pace. The main technical barriers are the lack of a detailed design, and the need for a better understanding of the laboratory techniques required to build the first molecular fabricator. Both of these problems should be solvable with sufficient resources. In the bigger picture, the main institutional barrier is a widespread belief that MNT is not worth pursuing at this time. Even if this belief does not shift soon in the United States or Europe, other nations may be quicker to recognize the potential and more politically able to fund an LMNT program.

Recent work by the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology has demonstrated that development of even a primitive mechanochemical fabrication ability could be followed rapidly by development of an integrated, automated, self-contained, human-scale factory.⁴ Such a sudden increase in advanced manufacturing capability could have substantial military as well as economic advantages for the nation or bloc that controls it. This greatly increases the incentive for rapid and early development of MNT.

A full exploration of the possible societal impacts of nanotechnology is beyond the scope of this paper. But regardless of the form they take, it seems certain that these impacts will be extensive. Our purpose here is to examine the types of institutions that will best be suited for administering MNT, to avoid the dangers and maximize the benefits.
 

THREE SYSTEMS OF ACTION

Rise of the Information System

The invention of writing allowed information to be stored for later use, and even copied verbatim. The printing press made the copying process much easier, giving many more people access to the information. Computers, with networks and word processors, have reached another level.⁹ The cost of copying most information is now essentially zero. Using computers, a person can write a book, email it to friends and colleagues, and put it on a website for the whole world to see. The same can be done for recipes, music, and drawings. With training, that person could even write a better word processing program so that friends—or the whole world—will find it easier to write books. There are programs to help write that word processing program, and there are people working to improve those programs. The whole system can be improved exponentially, as long as people are willing to “give away” their work. It may seem strange at first, but many people will do just that.

Numerous organizations have developed to create, promote, distribute, and use information that is freely copyable. A computer operating system called Linux¹⁰, a competitor to Microsoft Windows, is a good example of this. Linux is perhaps the most famous product of the Open Source software movement. It has no owner in the traditional sense: anyone who wants to can obtain a copy for free and use it on as many computers as they like.¹¹ The creators of Linux—thousands of programmers worldwide—are quite happy with this state of affairs. They do not want to sell the software; they simply want their name to be included in the credits. As more people use it, the authors gain bragging rights among their fellow programmers, and they also know that they have made the world a better place by saving money for each user. Microsoft operating systems cost hundreds of dollars. The Linux operating system is absolutely free. Thousands of Linux programmers work without pay to make this possible.

If this mindset sounds implausible, consider this story of how it actually worked. A hacker (originally the word meant simply a good programmer) named Peter Samson wrote a program to make primitive computers play music—and then gave it away. “Samson proudly presented the music compiler to DEC to distribute to anyone who wanted it. He was proud that other people would be using his program. The team that worked on the new assembler felt likewise. .... They felt honored when DEC asked for the program so it could offer it to other PDP-1 owners. .... As for royalties, wasn't software more like a gift to the world, something that was reward in itself? The idea was to make a computer more usable, to make it more exciting to users... When you wrote a fine program you were building a community, not churning out a product.”¹²

In a system where information can be copied perfectly at low cost, it is tempting to treat all information that way. Steven Levy asserts that the experience of working with an early computer at MIT led to the “hacker ethic”, one tenet of which was, “All information should be free.” More recently, this has mutated into the slogan, “Information wants to be free.” In a sense, this is true: some kinds of information are designed to entice us to copy them. Songwriters try to make their tunes “catchy”. Programmers try to make their programs useful. The most successful information almost seems to “want” people to copy it.¹³

A backlash has been building against the free copying of information, with Digital Rights Management,¹⁴ the Digital Millennium Copyright Act¹⁵ (in the U.S.), and network snooping and lawsuits aiming to curtail most illegal copying—and some legal copying as well. Although there are some partnerships between Commercial and Information entities (such as between the Red Hat software company and the Linux project), there are many problems yet to be resolved before Information principles can find its proper place in society. Molecular nanotechnology will exacerbate these problems, by making Information actions relevant not only to information but to physical products. Additionally, the sudden advances in manufacturing and product capability will create substantial security issues, possibly equivalent to or even greater than nuclear weapons, and economic changes comparable to the Industrial Revolution but far more rapid. Better methods of inter-group collaboration will need to be developed, and quickly.

Interactions Between the Three Systems of Action

Trust is important in commerce, even between competing companies; by contrast, competing Guardian organizations frequently are enemies and cannot afford to trust each other. It is obvious that the principles of these organizations are different: buying products is appropriate, while buying pardons is not. What is less obvious at first is that these systems are actually incompatible. Many centuries of development have created distinct traditions and expectations for each kind of task. There are strong reasons why sets of principles should not be mixed, and why each system should be applied only to the tasks it is suited for. History has shown what happens when this advice is ignored: as discussed below, the failure of the Soviet economy is one example.

Guardian and Commercial systems have learned to coexist, and even to benefit each other. A healthy flow of commerce needs Guardian organizations to minimize the problems of theft, fraud, and piracy. Guardian organizations don't actually need Commercial organizations, but without commerce the system reverts to something like feudalism: warlords fighting to maintain and extend their land, and peasants engaged in heavily-taxed zero-sum farming when they're not being drafted for cannon fodder. Without organized force, trade and wealth are impossible; without commerce, society stagnates. However, it is very important that the two systems of action be embodied in different organizations.

As Jacobs points out, when government takes control of commerce, the problems of Soviet Communism may arise: severe lack of competition, innovation, and incentive. When commerce takes control of government, the result may reflect the worst abuses of notorious “company towns”, where workers can become indistinguishable from slaves. It is also likely that consumers will suffer from higher prices, unchecked deception, and lack of competition. If the systems are mixed, you might get something like the Mafia: engaged in both commerce and force, willing to destroy in order to advance its goals, with no financial checks and balances on its financial activities and few legal checks on its forcible (criminal) activities. Another common result of mixing principles is a government where everything is for sale—you can literally get away with murder if you know whom to bribe.

This understanding provides a broad foundation for public policy. To solve problems related to the minimizing of harm (theft, invasion), an organization following the Guardian system is best. To solve problems related to maximizing wealth (trade, invention), an organization with Commercial principles is preferable. And an organization that mixes the two systems—for example, one that makes laws but is subject to financial influence—is likely to be dangerous, or at least counterproductive. It's also worth noting that a large Commercial monopoly may take on Guardian characteristics—using deceptive or unfair business practices, threatening legal action to harm competitors, and buying favorable laws. If the government is willing to be bought, consumers and citizens will have no protection and unethical conditions will multiply. “Free market” must not be implemented to the extent that Commercial entities are allowed to engage in Guardian behavior.

As the copying of information becomes cheaper, Information principles and actions become increasingly significant. When thousands of copies can be made at negligible cost, the concept of ownership becomes fuzzy and leads to ethical problems. Almost everyone would agree that the purchaser of a music CD has every right to copy the tunes to her computer and listen at her desk (note that U.S. copyright law contains a concept of “space-shifting”¹⁶). But should that person be able to copy “her” tunes to her friend's computer and let him listen as well? If so, then what's wrong with putting the tunes in a file-sharing network like Napster so that everyone can enjoy them? At some point, the principle of free copying collides with the principle of commercial rights. Napster was shut down after a lengthy legal battle. Despite the wishes of many computer programmers, hobbyists, and users of information, the new Information system cannot take over the world. But it can, and should, lead to cheaper or even free access to some forms of information. The ongoing struggle between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and music sharers is evidence that policy issues have not been satisfactorily resolved.¹⁷

The Danger of Monstrous Hybrids

One of the most important concepts in Jacobs' theory is that of “Monstrous moral hybrids”, which are created when an organization tries to adopt inappropriate principles, or systems of action. A government that took bribes would certainly qualify, as would a government that tried to regulate all commerce by force and central planning. Both problems arise from a Guardian entity involving itself too much with money. Even a subtle mixture can have distinctly bad effects. Jacobs gives the example of a police department that tried to make itself more efficient by giving bonuses to police officers for making arrests. Note that “Be efficient” is a Commercial and not a Guardian principle, and Guardians are supposed to “Shun trading.” The result was predictable in hindsight: many false arrests were made in order to get the bonuses. The Mafia engages in trade and force both, using loyalty, greed, and coercion as motivators. Most people outside of the Mafia would agree that it is monstrous.

Applying a consistent system of action to the wrong situation can be as bad as mixing and matching principles for convenience. Commerce stagnates if it is centrally regulated; conversely, mercenaries do not make trustworthy or effective soldiers. Information principles, when applied to other people's private property, result in actions that are indistinguishable from theft. Organizations should not try to extend their influence to situations that fall outside their ability to address appropriately. Table 2 gives some indication of which kinds of issues are best addressed by which systems.

Table 2: Characteristics of Systems

A corollary of the dictum that systems of action must not be mixed is that no single organization should be expected to solve all problems. We should not expect a government to give non-citizens the same privileges as citizens. A corporation should not be expected to do business with people who have no money. Information creators should not be expected to decide whether or how to restrict their work or the information they produce. This is probably unwelcome news; it is strongly tempting to make any powerful organization responsible for anything it touches. However, to do this would create unhealthy, inefficient, or even tragic situations: e.g., a state forced to violate its own security; a corporation forced to waste money; a creator prevented from creating. To force an organization to adopt alien principles (or to solve alien problems) is to force it to act unethically. Unfortunately, this means that many organizations will create problems that they are not equipped to solve, and almost all organizations will confront problems that they cannot address.

Since any single organization can only deal with a fraction of the possible problems, the solution is to have organizations of each type working together, keeping each other in check, and letting solutions to problems emerge from their interaction. Governments and commercial entities have had many centuries to learn how to work together. Information principles are somewhat newer, since they only became widespread with the availability of cheap computers and the Internet.

The Internet investing bubble of the 1990’s, typified by the phrase “Information Economy”, is a clear result of attempting to mix two systems of action. Companies that tried to make money via the Internet in the Information Economy were doomed from the start. One after another, they found that they could get a large number of users as long as the “customers” were not paying them any money; the customer base grew exponentially, as might be expected in an unlimited-sum system. Yet when the companies began charging fees, most of the users went elsewhere. We may suspect that many of these users felt that charging fees for what had been a free service was unethical. In terms of Information principles, it is in fact improper to charge fees. The companies that succeeded, such as Amazon.com, were the ones that offered a traditional Commercial service, using the vast potential of the Internet simply as a communication channel.

The Open Source movement illustrates the potential for all three systems to work together productively. Open Source was inspired by the Free Software movement, which is militantly dedicated to purely Information principles; for example, the Free Software Foundation does not approve of distributing free software together with non-free software.¹⁸ Open Source, by contrast, welcomes the collaboration of Commercial (non-free) software manufacturers. Some companies, such as Red Hat, make money by selling and supporting Open Source software. The Open Source licenses, which keep the software from being hijacked by commercial interests, make use of copyright law, so that Open Source and Free Software rely on our Guardian legal system for protection just as much as any Commercial entity does.

Molecular nanotechnology will make it possible to manufacture or copy physical objects almost as easily and cheaply as data is produced and copied now. This will provide a broader domain for the advantages of unlimited-sum transactions, but will also pose additional problems and tangible dangers. An understanding of all three systems of action will help in policy-making, administering the new technologies to maximize the benefits while minimizing the problems.
 

Advanced nanotechnology will present a wide range of problems and opportunities: not just diverse issues, but different kinds of issues. Many of these issues have arisen already, with older technologies and institutions. The anticipated impacts of nanotechnology are so extensive that some analysts¹⁹ classify it as a general purpose technology (GPT). A GPT offers transformative applications across a wide spectrum of industries, and can have massive economic and social implications. Previous examples include steam engines, railways, internal combustion engines, electricity, telecommunications, and computers.²⁰

Some of the issues raised by molecular nanotechnology are new and unfamiliar, and even the old issues take on new urgency when they occur in new combinations. The promise of MNT is material abundance and rapid improvement of technology at low cost and high convenience.²¹ The threat of MNT is the potential of developing and fabricating dangerous weapons and other undesirables covertly or in large quantity.²² To minimize the threat while maximizing the benefit will require the cooperation of many organizations of several distinct types.

Reducing the Risks of Nanotechnology: Guardian Principles

In 2002, researchers used DNA purchased over the Internet to build fully infectious poliovirus.²³ MNT-based rapid-prototyping or manufacturing capability, whether available in the home or by mail order, would be able to build things far more intricate and functional than a simple virus. Nanometer-scale computer circuitry will probably be one of the first products; this enables all sorts of computing, communication, and surveillance devices. If the technology is based on biochemistry, then medicines, drugs, and poisons may be available; indeed, a wide range of custom-designed chemicals. If the technology is based on rigid machine parts, then a wide range of shapes and manipulations will be possible; it has already been demonstrated that a cavity in plastic can act as a “binding site” to trap chemicals,²⁴ so even a purely mechanical nanotechnology should be able to interact with biochemical systems to some extent.

Today's supercomputers can be used for tasks of military significance, such as simulating nuclear explosions and cracking codes. In fact, sufficiently powerful computers are considered a munition (armament), and their export is controlled. Certain software, including some common encryption software, is also considered a munition. But the supercomputers of today are the desktop computers of tomorrow and the palmtops of the day after, and nanotechnology will certainly allow the building of computers that are immensely powerful by today's standards. These computers may be integrated with devices of varying degrees of sophistication; for example, a near-magical surveillance technology could be packaged into a device too small to see. Even the mundane types of nanotechnology may need to be controlled.

The more exotic suggestions, such as “grey goo”,²⁵ can get quite scary. Grey goo is a kind of nanodevice that takes in biomass and turns it into copies of the grey goo device. In theory, if such a device were not countered, it could “eat” the biosphere. Fortunately, the design of such a device would be quite difficult, and devices of the grey goo class would have no commercial or even military use, since more specialized non-replicating devices would be far more efficient. It is thus highly unlikely that anyone would build a grey goo, or device that could run amok and become grey goo, by accident, and military or commercial organizations would have little interest in building such a thing on purpose. However, the prevalence of computer worms and viruses indicates that some people do build things like this for fun.

If approached with pessimism, MNT appears far too dangerous to be allowed to develop to anywhere near its full potential. However, a naive approach to limiting R&D, such as “relinquishment”,²⁶ is flawed for at least two reasons. First, it will almost certainly be impossible to prevent the development of MNT somewhere in the world. China, Japan, and other Asian nations have thriving nanotechnology programs, and the rapid advance of “enabling technologies” such as biotechnology, MEMS, and scanning-probe microscopy (SPM) ensures that R&D efforts will be far easier in the near future than they are today. Second, MNT will provide benefits that are simply too good to pass up, including environmental repair; clean, cheap, and efficient manufacturing; medical breakthroughs; immensely powerful computers; and easier access to space.

If the spread of molecular manufacturing ability cannot be prevented, then the resulting problems must be dealt with piecemeal. Some sort of watch will have to be kept, on an ongoing basis, to reduce the number of criminals, terrorists, and hobbyists building dangerous nanodevices, and to clean up problems when they do occur. A deployment of nasty stuff such as “time bomb dust” or “grey goo” might have to be dealt with quickly, forcefully, and invasively. A nanotech-focused police organization would need broad powers to exert force on random people or property. It is crucial that such an organization be incorruptible. Several of the Guardian principles, such as “Shun trading” and “Be exclusive”, work to minimize corruption. Others, such as “Exert prowess”, “Take vengeance”, and “Deceive for the sake of the task”, are uncomfortable to many people but probably necessary.

One might think that a Guardian organization would need to adapt and change swiftly when facing a new and rapidly improving technology. However, there is a good reason why Guardian principles include “Adhere to tradition” and “Be fatalistic.” An organization that allows itself to change too quickly may lose focus. In addition, if the Guardians are too quick to try new things, they may create cures worse than the diseases. This is one of several reasons why a Guardian-only solution cannot work. Instead, the Guardians must be willing to allow a broad range of innovation, carried out by more than one type of organization, and then adapt the most suitable technologies to do their own work.

Nanotechnology for Profit: Commercial Principles

“Be thrifty. Be optimistic. Be efficient. Be industrious. Be honest.” These are a few of the Commercial principles (see Table 1). Commercial organizations will work very hard to give people what they want—or what they will pay for, which often is the same thing. If a product needs to be developed to satisfy a market, some company somewhere is probably working on it. Money can be a great incentive.

Commercial organizations must compete, but they are not allowed to use force—that is reserved for Guardian organizations. So they try to make their products better, and sell them to more people. They are willing to invest in developing products, and making them easier to use, and making consumers aware of them. They are accustomed to collaborating and innovating, and to making and keeping contracts. Molecular nanotechnology will enable the creation of many new technologies and products, many of them quite specialized and quite useful. The development of all of this potential—not to mention the development of basic LMNT capabilities—requires an incentive, and Commercial organizations will use the incentive of money to bring the benefits of molecular manufacturing to a wide swath of the population.

In fact, the advantages of capitalism are so well established that it would be redundant to spend more time on them here. We will, however, mention some limitations. Motivated by money, corporations do not tend to consider factors that cannot be quantified. Some industries are notorious for creating environmental or health problems, simply because it is more profitable to do so than to pursue alternatives. In addition, money tends to flow where it can achieve a quick return on investment; venture capitalists won't invest in a project that takes longer than a few years to reach fruition. Long-term benefits, like hidden costs, are largely ignored by the Commercial mindset.

This is not bad; it simply means that Commercial entities cannot be the sole decision-makers. Some opportunities would be missed due to long development cycles or unwillingness to do “pure research”, and some problems would be created that, even if they were acknowledged, would not be avoided due to institutionalized short-sightedness.

Another limitation of the Commercial system is that there is no obligation toward people who can't afford to pay for a product or service that they need. Again, this is not bad, as long as there are non-commercial organizations that can take up the slack. A purely philanthropic, altruistic, for-profit corporation is a contradiction in terms—it would become ineffective through making unprofitable choices. What this means is that commercial organizations should do what they do best, developing and selling products with a relatively short planning horizon, but they should not claim ownership of everything. A society based entirely on Commercial principles would have many people literally starving in the streets, and most of us would not want to live there. The solution is not to nationalize commercial entities. Societies that tried that saw their economies stagnate or implode. The solution is to maintain thriving commercial entities that care only about the bottom line, in balance with other entities using other principles.

Fortunately, molecular nanotechnology—even in its early, limited form—will allow the creation of vast amounts of non-commercial, widely distributable wealth.

Unlimited Benefits of Nanotechnology: Information Principles

It may be only a matter of time until the manufacture of products becomes as cheap as the copying of files. Molecular nanotechnology will help this process along, because the first practical self-duplicating factory will almost certainly be designed on the nanometer scale. A tabletop model might weigh a kilogram. The amount of raw materials required to produce a new factory might cost only a few dollars or Euros, and a well-designed factory could process that much material in an hour or so. Once one such factory exists, it and its copies can be used to make an unlimited number of tabletop factories, cheap enough to give away. Building a new product would be as simple as emailing its blueprint to the factory—which might be sitting beside your computer.

If personal nanofactories were ubiquitous, then their products would be readily available. The only limits would be raw materials—which would be completely renewable—and licensing fees for the products. If a product design were created and given away, as Linux is given away, anyone who wanted or needed one could have it. Any product that could alleviate poverty or suffering might be instantly available to everyone. As soon as a need was recognized, designers and programmers would be motivated by the desire to gain reputation through filling the need and by the knowledge that their work could improve the lives of millions of people.

This would only be possible, however, if nanofactories were not restricted to prevent the making of free products. Commercial entities, of course, would have a strong interest in preventing competition from products that people didn't pay for. And Guardian entities would be sweating over the malicious ways that an unrestricted factory might be used. A completely unrestricted factory looks like a bad idea for several reasons, including intellectual property violations and dangerous products. A tightly controlled factory is a bad idea for at least three reasons: heavy restrictions would prevent the alleviation of vast amounts of human suffering, would hinder the creation of an undreamed-of level of prosperity, and would also make a black market inevitable. Some sort of compromise must be reached.

There are two ways to exert control over nanofactory manufacturing. One way is to maintain tight limits on distribution of personal nanofactories and/or access to usage, which is inadvisable for several reasons, as we have seen. Another option is tight built-in technical restrictions on individual nanofactories.²⁷ Preventing a nanofactory from building unapproved products likely could be done using technologies already in use today. In fact, it appears that the nanofactory control structure could be made virtually unbreakable. This does not mean that implementing technical controls on production necessarily will be easy. A great deal of work must be done to develop an effective strategy for product certification.

Table 3 illustrates four separate options of combining controlled or open distribution with restricted or unrestricted nanofactory design. Use of a restricted nanofactory design combined with widespread deployment and ample access appears to be the best solution.

             
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