Small gizmos, big arguments
1 o'clock, July 23, 2003
Jed recently noted Popular Science having a problem with Levi’s description of their Dockers’ new anti-spill fiber coating as “nanotechnology”. Apparently it’s not just them. Nanotech visionary K. Eric Drexler, the man who invented nanotech as we [science fiction readers] know it — atomic-scale machines, grey goo, utility fogs, Diamond Age and Queen of Angels and Aristoi — is not happy, either.
“‘Nanotechnology’ has now become little more than a marketing term,” said Eric Drexler, founder of the Foresight Institute, the leading nanotech think tank. “Work that scientists have been doing for decades is now being relabeled nanotechnology.”
On the other hand (page 2, same article), the folks he’s criticizing have a point, too.
“Most people think this field is about nanobots. That’s a big myth,” said Chad Mirkin, director of Northwestern University's $80 million Institute for Nanotechnology. “There’s no real credible research in nanobots. Zero.”
He added, “It’s not clear that you could ever make these structures. Most of the [science] in this area is snake oil.”
So what do you think? As a science fiction writer, do I have to plot around a future with cell-sized spybots and shape-changing self-replicating assassination machines, or can I ratchet it down to gecko gloves and smart fabrics?
There was an article in a fairly recent SFWA Bulletin about this, in which a scientist (and science fiction writer) claimed that most of the stuff attributed to nanotech in science fiction is quite impossible. He could turn out to be wrong, of course, but it was refreshing to see someone saying that nanotech as used in science fiction is basically magic with techno-trappings.