Christine Peterson

Foresight Co-Founder and Past President Christine Peterson is interviewed on the Singularity Weblog in a 47-minute tour that covers nanotechnology, the founding of the Foresight Institute, her work on personal life extension through Health Activator, open source, and the Technological Singularity. “Christine Peterson on Singularity 1 on 1: Join Us to Push the Future in a Positive Direction“:

During my Singularity 1 on 1 interview with Christine Peterson we discuss a variety of topics such as: how she got interested in nanotechnology and the definition thereof; how, together with Eric Drexler, she started the Foresight Institute for Nanotechnology; her interest in life extension; Dr. Drexler’s seminal book Engines of Creation; cryonics and chemical brain preservation; 23andMe and other high- and low-tech tips for improved longevity; whether we should fear nanotechnology or not; the 3 most exciting promises of nanotech; women in technology; coining the term “open source” and using Apple computers; the technological singularity and her take on it…

Hear Christine discuss some challenges while presenting an essentially optimistic message—a wonderful future is coming from science and technology over the next few decades—a future that encourages everyone to get involved.
—James Lewis, PhD

Christine Peterson, co-founder and president of The Foresight Institute, a public interest group seeking to educate the community on forthcoming technological advances, emphasized the increasingly prominent role that nanotechnology has come to play.

Peterson noted that nanotechnology has the potential to create new materials and make vast advances without the side effects, such as pollution, that would currently ensue. She allowed, however, that the near-invisible and highly sensitive technology might enable intrusions on privacy.

“We need to know what data is collected,” Peterson said, “how it is used and how long it is retained. We have those rights.”

Peterson highlighted the medical benefits of nanotechnology, noting, “The ability to control atoms and molecules would mean that there really isn’t a physical illness [that] we wouldn’t be able to address.”

The report quotes the moderator of the panel, author Piero Scaruffi, as stating that the four panelists were picked because “They discussed life as in the future, rather than life as in the past.” We can certainly expect that life after advanced nanotechnology has been developed will be fundamentally different from life up until that point.

Nanotechnology: How should we evaluate the environmental impact of human-made machines that are too small to see? What limits should be placed on self-replicating nanodevices? What defenses should we institute against malevolent uses of such technology?

These questions were asked by Marc Goodman, a senior advisor to Interpol and founder of Future Crimes Institute, a think tank that explores the security implications of new technology.  In a report by Ted Greenwald at Forbes.com, Goodman urged “aspiring captains of emerging industries like synthetic biology, robotics, and nanotech to take a proactive attitude toward their impact on the global community.”

Great to see this message of foresight reaching such a key audience, in addition to Ralph Merkle’s frequent briefings on nanotech at SU.  —Christine Peterson

“Christine Peterson, president of the Foresight Institute based in Palo Alto, California, warns that without safeguards, the data we gather about each other might one day be used to undermine rather than to protect our freedom. ‘We are moving to a new level of data collection that our society is not accustomed to,’ she says.” …

“‘We need to look urgently at who is getting the data, what they are doing with it, what it does to our freedoms and whether the information can be abused,’ she says. ‘And we need to think about these things now.’”

Establishing standards now for current and near future widespread sensing based upon smart phones owned by individual members of the public will set precedence for considering the future in which MEMS and nanotechnology will make truly ubiquitous and thorough sensing inexpensive.

With terrorism back in the news, so, too, is a curious footnote: Of the hundreds of individuals involved in political violence, nearly half of those with degrees have been engineers. This finding, first published in 2008, has been substantiated by two years of additional research by Oxford sociologist Diego Gambetta and political scientist Steffen Hertog, of the London School of Economics. Host Steven Cherry talks with Hertog about why terrorists seem to have a knack for engineering.

I have not listened to this, but the obvious answer would seem to be that many people might wish to be effective terrorists, but only the more technical ones have the needed skills to carry out an action that causes significant harm.  (I have often been thankful that the superb technical people I know appear to have no leanings in that direction.)

See also Open-Source Warfare and Extremist Engineers.

For now, nanotechnologies are primarily being developed by people who are not likely to deploy them for terrorist purposes, but as time passes this will change.  It took about a century for airplanes to be used outside traditional warfare to do major harm; probably that sequence will be faster for nanotechnologies.  We will need to model both offenses and defenses so that “white hat” nanotechnologists stay ahead; this proposal came from Mark S. Miller.  See the Foresight Guidelines and Open Source Sensing for further thoughts.  —Chris Peterson

Many of you will recall Bill Joy’s famous article in Wired called Why the future doesn’t need us, where he expressed concern about various technologies including advanced nanotech. Apparently he gave an update of his views on this in his talk for TED, viewable here. An excerpt:

So if we can address, use technology, help address education, help address the environment, help address the pandemic, does that solve the larger problem that I was talking about in the Wired article? And I’m afraid the answer is really no, because you can’t solve a problem with the management of technology with more technology. If we let an unlimited amount of power loose, then we will — a very small number of people will be able to abuse it. We can’t fight at a million-to-one disadvantage. So what we need to do is, we need better policy. And for example, some things we could do that would be policy solutions which are not really in the political air right now but perhaps with the change of administration would be — use markets.

Whether you agree with him or not, it’s a useful discussion to have. As he says:

We can’t pick the future, but we can steer the future…So we can design the future if we choose what kind of things we want to have happen and not have happen, and steer us to a lower-risk place.

Check it out. —Chris Peterson

We’ll miss you, but you can watch the conference live at:

http://fora.tv/live/open_science/open_science_summit_2010

Put it on your calendar now!  Or we’ll hope to see you in person, especially for the session where I’m speaking: “Safety and Security Concerns, Open Source Biodefense” at 5:15 PM on Friday.  –Chris Peterson

“However grand their aspirations, they wait upon the will of people in power,” he writes. “And power, which can ratify the truth of good design, can, conversely, debase design into a fabric of lies.”

The moral of Mr. Grudin’s book is that designers should be true to themselves, as Rikyu was, and never compromise. “Good design enables honest and effective engagement with the world,” as he puts it. “Poor design is symptomatic either of inadequate insight or of a fraudulent and exploitative strategy of production. If good design tells the truth, poor design tells a lie, a lie usually related, in one way or another, to the getting or abuse of power.”

Designers of nanotech, AI, and other powerful technologies will need to think hard about what to design, and for whom.  Grudin’s book may help them make better decisions.  Published by Yale University Press, only $17 on Amazon.  See also Grudin’s Time and the Art of Living, and The Grace of Great Things: Creativity and Innovation.  —Chris Peterson

In documentary style, we have Ray discussing his ideas about the Singularity, with commentators variously supporting or refuting or worrying about his ideas. With Bill McKibben in the role of the friendly flat out opponent; Bill Joy playing the reasonable but worried man; and Mitch Kapor doubting the technological possibilities — they are all worked into the weave to (at least) let us know that not everybody believes that a) The Singularity is Coming and b) It’s going to work out well. K. Eric Drexler, MIT roboticist Cynthia Breazeal, desktop manufacturing guru Neil Gershenfeld and many many more are woven in to support the idea — and the more hopeful potentials — of accelerating change leading to radical alterations in life (itself).

The value added here for those h+ types already familiar with this discourse includes the clarity and concise expression of the ideas presented in Ray’s doorstopper sized book, and lots of very groovy, trippy, and playful graphics (including an apparent parody of the opening of Fringe.)

The reviewer says “it’s awesome!” so we look forward to seeing it when it’s more widely available.  —Chris Peterson