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Corporate Cornucopia
Examining the Special Implications of Commercial MNT Development
Molecular nanotech is the largest commercial opportunity of all time. But it may also create severe roadblocks and risks, including terrorism, unstable arms races, competitive pricing, restrictive patents, import opposition, economic disruption, and out-of-control AI.
Originally published in Nanotechnology Perceptions: A Review
of Ultraprecision Engineering and Nanotechnology, Volume 2, No.
2, May 8, 2006. Reprinted May 24, 2006 by KurzweilAI.net.
The development of molecular nanotechnology (MNT) promises to lead
rapidly to cheap superior replacements for a large majority of durable
goods, a substantial fraction of all non-durable goods, all
existing utilities, and some services. For this reason and due to
the relatively low expected cost of developing nanofactories,1
MNT represents the largest commercial opportunity of all time. Unfortunately,
the very size of the opportunity —combined with its extreme
suddenness, military significance, potential for disruption of existing
institutions, and ease of duplication—creates certain severe
complications that lead to difficulties in capturing the value created.
MNT also has the potential to impact the timeframes and severities
of a number of major global risks such as those of terrorism, emergent
disease, global warming, omnicidal war, and human extinction due
to competition by either intelligent or unintelligent robotic competitors,
for which reason there are important non-commercial motivations
for preventing its unrestricted utilization. As a result of these
difficulties and of the intrinsic uncertainty associated with any
particular attempt to develop MNT, commercial development of MNT
is likely to be much less rapid than would be predicted from a simple
consideration of the value to be created, relevant time horizon,
and risk adjusted discount rate.
Despite this, it remains highly probable that MNT will first be
realized by a commercial project for the simple reason that probabilistic
priors so strongly favor commercial development of new technologies.
A slew of militarily relevant technologies were developed by the
US, German, and Russian governments during the Second World War
and in its aftermath, but that was at a time when the commercial
and public sectors were far more fully integrated than they are
today and when the external pressures forcing governmental efficacy
were greater. By contrast, over the last few decades, virtually
every significant technological development has been commercial
in origin (or even recreational, e.g. the Open Source movement and
SpaceShip One) rather than public. Governmental R&D initiatives,
such as those aimed at curing cancer and AIDS and at developing
space travel and fusion power have tended to fail totally or almost
totally during the past 30+ years.
Given that an important subset of possible scenarios are driven
by commercial development, it seems prudent to examine in some detail
the major features of most commercial scenarios and to identify
the ways in which developers may experience unique difficulties
distinct from those associated with the development of other products
and the ways in which they may manage those difficulties. This paper
will attempt to do that, examining the probable implications of
both relatively open and relatively secretive development programs
in the event of successful development of MNT. It will be assumed
that the developers are highly rational and informed, and that they
are attempting to maximize profit in the relatively short term while
avoiding the most serious risks of MNT. Development will be assumed
to occur within the next 20 years, over the backdrop of a world
politically and technologically fairly similar to our own, and with
a historically typical gap of a few years between the initial development
of the technology and its successful imitation or implementation
by competing projects. It also will be assumed that the more powerful
MNT applications, such as those in intelligence amplification, neuroscience,
extremely powerful distributed robotic systems, and artificial intelligence
(AI) will take some time to emerge even given nanofactories and
massive funding.
Part 1: Competitive Strategy
Pricing
The simplest and most traditional of the problems facing MNT developers
is competitive pricing. Setting the prices of MNT goods close to
the cost of production provides little profit with which to expand
or compensate for risk undertaken, while setting prices too high
threatens both to unnecessarily reduce consumption below the optimal
level and to draw both legal and illegal competitors into the field.
In addition, given the number of industries in which MNT products
are likely to compete and the political clout of many of those industries,
either high or low prices could motivate antitrust concerns. Theoretically,
a higher price is indicative of a monopoly while a lower price indicates
competition, but a lower price will also lead to more successful
and rapid competition with existing companies and to greater market
share, and this could be seen as evidence of monopoly status or
of anticompetitive tactics.
Motivating competitors to develop MNT is probably the most serious
risk associated with high pricing. In order to minimize this risk
it will be necessary for prices to be relatively low, and also for
expenses to appear as great as possible. It will be particularly
desirable (from the commercial developer's point of view) that the
apparent cost of developing MNT be as great as possible,
as this is the expense that can most easily be inflated. One way
in which this can be done is to publicly spend as much money as
possible on research ostensibly aimed at developing nanofactories
over a fairly long period of time after nanofactories actually
have been developed. Money can soundly be borrowed in order to fund
this research, even at high interest rates, due to the certainty
of eventual success. Meanwhile, profits can be generated via the
sale of supposedly incremental results of the nanofactory research
such as gem quality or better diamonds, doped silicon computers
modestly more powerful than those otherwise available at a given
price, and inexpensive carbon nanotubes.
Once the nanofactories are publicly acknowledged to exist, the
apparent low hanging fruit associated with the supposed development
trajectory will be depleted, and a substantial fraction of the global
pool of technical experts plausibly capable of relevant work will
have already been recruited, discouraging imitation. In addition,
the creditors will constitute a class of stakeholders in the new
technology who are nonetheless integrated into the existing economic
system. Loan repayment will contribute to the justification of profit
to the public and to the government. In general, the public appears
to accept the legitimacy of high profit margins most readily when
the product in question is an extremely expensive luxury, an extremely
inexpensive everyday item, or a new product with an explicit need
to amortize development costs. It is important to point out that
it is excessive profit margins, not excessive profits that
usually are considered objectionable. For this reason, actual profits
will be greater if expenses can be increased, because the dollar
value of a 200% markup is larger on a product costing $100 to produce
than on one costing $10. Wasteful expenditures on supposed inputs
also can create stakeholders.
Like software, restricted versions of MNT products can easily be
designed and can be sold for lower prices than unrestricted versions.
For instance, less expensive copies of a given product can be sold
to less wealthy countries, or even less wealthy regions within a
country. This might be accomplished without competing with the products
sold to wealthier regions by installing GPS or inertial locators
to monitor product location and disable them from functioning outside
of their licensed area. In this manner, profitability can be maximized
by selling to all potential customers for prices that constitute
a reasonable fraction of their willingness to pay. With built-in
biometric sensors, some MNT devices could even be assigned prices
based on the personal characteristics of their purchaser. In addition
to maximizing profit, this sort of strategy should greatly reduce
any humanitarian concerns regarding the distribution of MNT products.
The public generally accepts the existence of restricted software
without resentment. Nanostructured physical objects can be made
more difficult to hack than either software or contemporary hardware,
so the restrictions on use built into MNT products can be more robust
than those built into today's printers or software.
IP Protection
The most likely outcome of patenting nanofactories in any given
country would be widespread patent violation both by other countries
and by many criminal organizations. This would probably be followed
by the slew of problems2 that long have been predicted
to accompany uncontrolled MNT development, such as unstable arms
races, malicious grey goo, and massively oppressive MNT empowered
governments. In addition, pirate nanofactories would be used to
build nanofactories of unpatented design, which then would be patented.
All this does not mean that IP law cannot contribute some value
to an MNT "first mover." A large number of patents of variable scope
can be produced to restrict the products that a competing MNT developer
can produce legally. Patents on key components can obstruct possible
commercial efforts to develop competing nanofactories without revealing
too much about the workings of existing nanofactories. In a field
as large and as unexplored as nanotechnology, there surely will
be room for a number of extremely broad patents that can be used
to slow down competitors. In such a fast moving field, even a patent
that delays competition by a few months before being overturned
could be extremely valuable. Potential patents might include mechanochemistry,
carbon mechanochemistry, self-replicating machines, self-replicating
programmable productive systems, diamondoid nanoscale machines,
and more, but should be chosen to avoid revealing too much about
how a nanofactory can be built.
Governments may attempt to force developers to share MNT production
capabilities or may simply steal such capabilities. When high-level
officials finally begin to distinguish between reality and science
fantasy and to recognize the technology's potential, they rightly
will see MNT as a national security issue. However, preventing simple
theft is relatively easy. Nanofactories can be made large enough
that they can't be stolen covertly and/or lost. They can also be
networked wirelessly or otherwise equipped for easy inventory. It
would add little complexity to equip all nanofactories with oxidative
self-destruction systems. The best way to resist forceful interrogation
is probably to not have any individuals within the company who know
everything or almost everything that is needed in order to build
a new nanofactory, and to hold out the threat of not doing business
with countries that violate the company's rights. Directly threatening
a country like the United States in this manner would be unwise.
Rather than doing that, an indirect threat could be delivered by
setting up production facilities in some high political risk countries
with little respect for private property. If this is done, it is
likely that one of these countries will attempt to steal MNT production
capabilities prior to any developed country doing so. If the company
responds by destroying all stolen assets, not sharing information,
and refusing to trade with that country, this will deter other nations
from repeating their mistake, at least in the short term. The desire
not to imitate the behavior of disreputable states will be another
incentive for developed countries to respect the rights of the developing
company.
Throughout the early commercialization of MNT, the continual borrowing
of as much money as possible will be a major imperative. This is
true for several reasons. The first of these is that it is important
to retain control of the company and associated technology in order
to implement a relatively long-term plan rather than one that might
maximize shareholder profits in the very short term, for which reason
stock should not be sold to raise capital. The second is that over
the first decade or so, the scale of operation associated with the
developing company will be continually increasing at such a rate
as to make even ludicrous debts from a few years back trivial. The
third reason is to acquire the previously mentioned sets of justificatory
expenses and of influential stake-holding creditors. A fourth reason
will become relevant later in development, once the potential of
MNT is well established and the broader public and public intellectuals
become hostile. Hostility is a nearly certain early result of any
massive technological disruption regardless of the quality of life
improvements it makes available (aging reversal technologies may
turn out to be an exception to this generalization, since their
psychological impact will be unprecedented in scope and is not easily
predicted, but thus far even aging reversal seems to fit this generalization).
As hostility develops in response to massive technological impact,
it may be both possible and desirable to slow governmental activity
by reducing governmental access to funds. This might be accomplished
by competing with the government to drive up the price of debt and
by releasing products which make an attractive lifestyle achievable
on the interest payments from a moderate amount of high yield debt,
reducing the size of the work-force and thus increasing the cost
of running a large bureaucracy. Such actions should be undertaken
gradually so that they are not interpreted as an attack on borrowers
and bureaucracies, as that would lead to escalation. By raising
both the interest rate and the wages of skilled labor, potential
competitors can be further prevented from developing MNT independently.
Dealing with Opposition
Due to the potential for economic and social disruption, some countries
may refuse to allow the import of MNT-derived products. This is
not a serious problem for an MNT producer. A general boycott by
all major nations is extremely unlikely, especially considering
the magnitude of the benefits that MNT will make available. Tariffs
would take some time to put into effect and whatever nation stood
to improve its trade balance via MNT exports would petition the
WTO for tariff elimination. In addition, MNT can be used to produce
traditional capital for the production of non-MNT products.4
One of the earliest products released by an MNT developer is likely
to be inexpensive hydrocarbons for fuel and other applications.
These can be made by harvesting solar energy over the oceans, using
it to hydrolyze water, and using the hydrogen to reduce atmospheric
or other (limestone?) CO2. The machinery for all of this can be
produced quickly in any quantity with MNT. Floating solar platforms
can be made with either hydrocarbon production or MNT manufacturing
capabilities. The manufacturing centers should be designed to utilize
the hydrocarbons as feedstock and solar energy as a power source
in order to rapidly produce more platforms of both types. Design
and control for such platforms should be non-problematic, and their
products could be sold on the global petrochemicals and natural
gas market. In this case, there would be no practical difference
between a country that chooses to purchase oil from traditional
sources and one that purchases MNT-derived oil, as both would apply
demand to the same pool of global production and impacting the same
global price, making boycotts ineffective unless they were extremely
broad. Hydrocarbon storage facilities probably will have to conform
to all normal laws regarding the storage and transport of hydrocarbons,
complicating implementation somewhat. However, simply violating
regulations and hiring legal teams to delay the imposition of fines
until they are no longer relevant may be an acceptable strategy
for faster implementation if the regulatory framework would otherwise
slow development overly much.
While MNT will accelerate the development of new products, it will
reduce the time required to build new capital even more. As a result,
production capabilities sufficient to satisfy global petrochemical
demand should take much less time to develop than designs capable
of competing in a wide variety of industries. The revenue generated
via the initial products will be an important part of what enables
the rapid development of newer products.
The revenue from this early activity will be more than sufficient
to hire as many researchers and administrators as can be productively
utilized to develop new MNT designs. Integrating so many new employees
without critical security risks will be a difficult problem, but
it should be a manageable one as there are already many companies
that face similar difficulties. At this point, the MNT developers
also should have enough money to purchase both public opinion and
political influence in so far as these goods can be rapidly purchased.
In order to minimize opposition it will be critically important
for the developers not to be seen as a non-competitive monolith.
This will be particularly difficult if MNT development is overt
as opposed to remaining a secret, but it is probably possible under
either secret or public development. The company may be best able
to avoid conveying the impression of monopoly if it carefully and
legally shares its technology with a few select partners who thoroughly
appreciate the dangers associated with MNT (especially the critical
dangers of uncontrolled AI and unstable arms races), the need to
avoid them, and the consequent need to avoid further disseminating
the basic technology. If these partners compete in the production
and sale of relatively safe MNT products, it is possible that the
market generally will be seen as saturated and further entrants
will be discouraged. This decision would constitute a non-secretive
alternative to the earlier prospect of inflating the apparent cost
and difficulty of MNT development, although both strategies could
be pursued sequentially. In the case of such a strategy, as in contemporary
oligopoly arrangements, branding will become an extremely important
part of profit maximization. A more trusted brand probably would
be able to charge a substantial premium, especially for nanomedical
products and services once those are developed.
d) First Mover Advantages
A large fraction of the profitability associated with nanomedicine,
and to a lesser degree that associated with any new MNT product,
is likely to occur during the period of initial release. This is
true because MNT products often will solve problems cleanly and
completely, leaving no significant vestigial market. For instance,
one of the first novel nanomedical devices produced using MNT is
likely to be a powder of biocompatible glucose oxygen fuel cells
with internal temperature sensors to avoid excess waste heat and
a binding site for later removal from the bloodstream. The purpose
of this device would be simply to burn fuel, producing waste heat.
From the public's perspective it will be a rapid weight loss infusion
capable of safely producing one to two pounds of weight loss per
day (or several times that in extremely cold weather or while the
body is immersed in cool water). Once this system is safely developed
and successfully marketed, the market effectively will be gone.
People may continue to become overweight, but the world's accumulated
pool of overweight people willing to use nanomedicine will be expended.
Those overweight people who are reluctant to use new medical technologies
will surely still prefer, when they eventually decide to use one,
to use the established brand even if it costs somewhat more than
its competition, as its safety will have been more thoroughly established.
Furthermore, later nanomedical devices will incorporate the weight
loss function as a mere side effect of their other capabilities,
making this design obsolete. In other fields, the advantages from
safety, branding, superior R&D, and expansion into a technological
frontier will not favor the first mover as completely, but it is
a basic economic result that, all else being equal, oligopoly quantity
competition leaves first movers with dominant market share even
in the long run.3
Given the above result, are competing MNT producers likely to engage
in the alternation of de facto collusion and quantity or
monopolistic competition typical of contemporary oligopolies? The
simple answer is yes, at least in the short term, as this behavior
maximizes short run profits for all competitors under the constraints
imposed by antitrust law and prisoner's dilemmas. However, MNT will
be associated with novel productive powers that may call the default
assumption into doubt. For instance, the traditional MNT vision
of home manufacturing, the software metaphor of unlimited manufacturing
capacity matching production precisely to demand, and even the growing
paradigm of online agent-based purchasing all suggest price competition
as a plausible alternative. Still, there seem to be few large examples
of actual price competition in the world of retail, even where they
would be most expected, such as in the sale of bottled water, public
domain IP, internet retailing, and the like. Even freelance service
work such as housekeeping, therapy, tutoring, and most other examples
of work by the self employed are far from perfectly competitive,
with agencies matching consumers to producers and keeping large
commissions and with many producers spending more time searching
for clients than working, and demanding far more for an hour of
work than the value of an hour of their time.
By reducing the scale of manufacture, in addition to improving
the ability to match supply to demand, MNT and nanoblock4
assembly seem likely to produce a world where retail is relatively
more important and wholesale less. Wal-Mart or its successor still
may sell MNT-built products, but if they do, they probably will
sell them primarily through large factory/grocery stores rather
than from giant wholesale stores, as the combination of a nanofactory
with virtual reality environments for trying out products will greatly
reduce the necessary floor space and inventory space. It is also
reasonable to suggest that members of a much wealthier society will
be less inclined to travel substantial distances in order to shop,
and less likely to accept uninteresting work for under ten dollars
an hour. Smaller stores that offer a better atmosphere and knowledgeable
service thus will have both more customers and less difficulty finding
employees. As a result, brands will be easily differentiated and
price competition will be even less prevalent than it is today.
The sale of energy will provide the first MNT mover with yet another
advantage over later competitors. If claims can be established to
solar energy streams sufficient to satisfy global energy demand,
and environmental laws can be passed to restrict the utilization
of solar energy streams other than those initially tapped, competitors
may have to pay a larger amount for solar energy inputs than first
movers.
At this point, it is still far from clear whether the developers
of MNT will or should choose to publicize their achievement. Their
decision probably will be driven in part by the nature of the company
that makes the final enabling innovations, and in part by the intensity
of the technological competition. If MNT is developed in a world
where it is still widely considered a retro-futurist fantasy, competition
will be much less intense than in one where it is developed as the
result of intense international competition. I personally expect
a scenario reminiscent of that accompanying the birth pangs of the
airplane, i.e. many competitors all over the world but no very large
and competent concerted efforts aiming at a technology that was
still taken by consensus to be impossible despite a technological
infrastructure that was making its achievement noticeably less difficult
every year. In such a scenario, a private company that wishes to
utilize MNT productive capabilities will be able to do so rather
overtly without creating widespread awareness of what is happening.
Inexpensive solar panels are surely within the range of what they
can publicly produce, but rapidly deployed macroscale floating solar
oil factories are not. In a world where MNT is seen as completely
discredited, or in one where ubiquitous but mundane "nanotechnology"
had made Drexlerian predictions seem as quaint as those once made
about nuclear energy or space travel, even the solar oil factories
might not lead to widespread correct conclusions without an accurate
explanation; conversely, if MNT was the 21st century's
space race, there would be little point in secrecy and every reason
to develop and market all important applications possible applications
as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine a world where the replacement
of traditional industry by molecular manufacturing is taken for
granted by everyone even moderately future-oriented in the same
way that today all such people see as inevitable the digital replacement
of analogue film-making, Chinese dominance of durable goods manufacture,
or the transition to HDTV. The economic and political havoc that
would be expected to result from a widespread belief in truly radically
near future change is difficult to calculate, and might even be
sufficient to make such a prophesy self-preventing. For this reason
among others, it is fair to say that even weeks after the development
of MNT is announced, the majority of investors still will not know
about it. Even those who do will probably understand it less well
than today's typical science fiction author, and will thus not base
any informed investment decisions on their knowledge of MNT. It
is also easy to imagine a near-future world filled with constant
inaccurate claims of MNT breakthroughs, such that accurate information
would not trigger immediate market adjustments upon its release.
Part 2: MNT Risk Management
Economic Disruption
Much has been made of the large number of jobs that might be eliminated
with the advent of molecular manufacturing. If all or nearly all
jobs were to rapidly become unnecessary, the resulting economic
disruption would not necessarily cause major hardship, as some have
feared. However, most work is not associated with the production
of products that can easily be replaced by MNT. Instead, early MNT
products will almost eliminate certain sectors, such as manufacturing;
will greatly reduce the need for workers in some others, such as
mining, utilities, construction, and transportation/warehousing
of goods; will have little direct impact on the demand for work
in some fields, such as educational services, management, and food
services; and will greatly increase the demand for a few professions,
especially information technology and possibly scientific and technical
services. Theoretically, capital can be substituted for most varieties
of labor, and MNT also will greatly expand the ease of creation
of capital while devaluing existing capital, but it will take time
for new capital to replace most workers. For instance, in the short
term, trash-collecting robots are unlikely, but in the long term,
home recycling and incineration units are likely.
I estimate that MNT will make 10% - 20% of all current US jobs
obsolete within a year of development, 20% - 40% within two years,
and in the absence of strong AI will make 60% - 80% of current work
unnecessary within a decade of development, as more powerful tools
multiply the capabilities of service workers in fields like waste
management and accommodations/food services. Many workers probably
will be retained by their employers for months or years after their
services are no longer necessary due either to contractual stipulations
or simply to slow managerial reaction times. In addition, laws may
be passed further restricting the elimination of jobs, but ultimately
obsolete industries will disappear even with government life support
and will eliminate jobs by closing if they can't do so with layoffs.
At the same time that many jobs disappear, so will many workers.
Great uncertainty, high discount rates, high interest rates, and
novel low cost lifestyle options will provide many workers with
strong incentives to leave their jobs and either retire or try to
found businesses more suited to the new economy. This will drive
the expenses faced by many employers upwards, as noted earlier,
but will do little to mitigate the problem of unemployment, as the
workers who have the capital to invest and retire are by definition
not those most threatened by the loss of their jobs and typically
cannot be easily replaced by even larger numbers of inappropriately
trained workers.
Most of the neediest workers will be covered by state unemployment
insurance, which will have the added benefit of increasing non-discretionary
governmental spending. Increases in the duration of unemployment
payouts should be lobbied for, but even if these are successful,
more will be needed. Further subsidies for the unemployed may be
possible through investments in companies (such as MyRichUncle.com)
that give loans in exchange to a fraction of the borrower's future
earnings. However, several million people still will be in need
of both money to live on and meaningful work that they are not able
to find for themselves. Dealing with those people is not a core
business function, but providing low cost goods to any agencies
that show competence in doing so (groups such as Habitat for Humanity,
etc.) probably will be a very sound investment in good will.
By contrast, although it would be possible to support all of the
displaced people or hire them for make-work, spending money directly
to do so generally would be expected to aggravate the resentment
that was supposed to be mitigated. One of the most important things
to do when mitigating resentment is to work hard to fight the impression
that people with MNT can do anything and that all remaining problems
are therefore their fault. For PR purposes, it is probably best
to downplay what the technology is capable of. This also will tend
to reduce governmental fear, public paranoia, and pressure to share
dangerous technologies with militaries that cannot be trusted with
them.
Abuse of Novel Capabilities
The second major class of risk that must be avoided is that associated
with intentional abuse. This includes everything from the production
of self-replicating robots to rapid military build-ups to universal
intrusive surveillance (even, possibly, surveillance of brain activity,
hence of thoughts). The extreme number of potentially disastrous
abuses that MNT lends itself to is a very strong argument for making
every possible effort to either maintain secrecy regarding MNT techniques,
or at least to limiting access to extremely trustworthy parties.
Many other essays in this collection will discuss the consequences
of failing to maintain secrecy, but for the purposes of this paper,
it should suffice to assert that so long as MNT remains tightly
controlled these risks should be manageable.
Dangerous Consequences of Excessive Computing Power
The final and most critical danger associated with MNT is that
it will lead to the release of massive computing power and the acquisition
of neurological knowledge that will make it easier to develop AI
(artificial intelligence) than to control it, leading to a total
loss of control and human extinction. It is obviously best to respond
to this by being extremely judicious with respect to the distribution
of devices for studying the brain and by limiting the available
computing power available for a dollar to a level significantly
greater than that being produced by competing companies but far
less than what could be made available. It is best if the gap between
available MNT computers and traditional
9 computers is great enough to dominate the market and end incremental
development of computing power, but small enough not to contribute
substantially to reducing the cost of parallel projects aimed at
developing MNT or AI. Despite such precautions, MNT development
will accelerate AI development in many ways. The most significant
of these may be the increased ability to spend time on long-term
personal projects resulting from increased personal freedom.
The largest risks are likely to be of an internal origin, as some
of the thousands of researchers in the company may attempt to evolve
an AI on internal nanocomputers. An obvious way to ameliorate this
problem is to limit design and production to low power computers,
or to dedicated computers for running molecular simulations and
designing products, or for other very specific purposes. In the
long run though, this is a stopgap measure. Some strategy must be
developed for ensuring that mankind is not accidentally wiped out
by an AI. The scope of this problem goes beyond that of this paper,
but it is probably a good starting place to assert the desirability
of doing whatever is possible to direct global R&D towards the
development of technology for making people more intelligent and
away from technology for making machines more intelligent.
Ultimately, it does appear that AI can be developed safely and
that preventing unsafe AI permanently should be possible, but it
also appears that the level of intelligence required to safely develop
AI is approximately independent of the available level of computing
power, while that required to unsafely develop AI decreases with
computing power. For this reason, increasing intelligence and reducing
available computing power both contribute to risk reduction. Anti-aging
technology also may contribute, because it provides a de facto
increase in the amount of thought that a person can ultimately apply
to any given problem, although the development of anti-aging technology
will be strongly commercially and PR driven in any event, and thus
requires no further justification.
1. "Molecular Manufacturing: What, Why and How" by Chris Phoenix
(http://wise-nano.org/w/Doing_MM)
2. See "Dangers of Molecular Manufacturing" (http://www.crnano.org/dangers.htm)
3. In price competition, producers compete to sell for the lowest
possible price. They choose what price they will sell at and then
sell as many as the public demands at that price. In practice, this
requires that the company be able to match supply precisely to demand.
Economically this is equivalent to perfect competition and eliminates
all profit. In quantity competition, producers sell undifferentiated
products to wholesalers, setting the quantity sold to maximize profits.
As the number of competitors increases this becomes more like perfect
competition because each producer has increasingly little incentive
to restrict quantity in order to maintain demand. By committing
to a particular level of production in advance, earlier entrants
can establish equilibria where they sell larger volumes than later
entrants. With a linear demand curve, each entrant will sell half
the volume of its predecessor. In monopolistic competition, companies
sell similar but branded goods and use marketing and reputation
to maintain a willingness to pay a premium over the market price
for branded products. Branded goods are imperfect substitutes with
high cross elasticities of demand, so as the price of one brand
increases, consumers gradually switch over to its competition.
4. For an explanation of nanoblock manufacturing, see "Safe Utilization
of Advanced Nanotechnology" by Chris Phoenix and Mike Treder (http://www.crnano.org/safe.htm).
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