Nanotechnology

WorldChanging has a lengthy interview with Chris Phoenix and Mike Treder of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, a non-profit group helping to make sure molecular manufacturing is developed as safely as possible. In the article they talk about their policy task force (which includes folks like Ray Kurzweil, David Brin, and Jaron Lanier), the risks and benefits of nanofactories, and why open source is so important to the responsible development of nanotechnology

Some of the questions are:

What is the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology hoping to make happen?

How does the "responsible" approach differ from something like the "Precautionary Principle?" What's your take on the concept of "precaution" applied to emerging technologies?

It seems to me that manufacturing via nanofactories will require some different concepts of the manufacturing process than the automated assembly-line model most of us probably have in mind when we think of "factories." Parallel to early design work on the hardware end, has there been much work done on the software/design end of how nanofactories would work

What makes nanofactories so different from traditional production methods

The degree to which research is largely corporate, academic or governmental will obviously vary from country to country. Who are some of the organizations doing innovative work in nanotech?

To what degree is nanotechnology research a province of the big industrial countries, and to what degree is it accessible to forward-looking developing countries (what we term on WorldChanging the "leapfrog nations")?

Read the whole article with the answers here