The grey goo is coming, the grey goo is coming -- horrifying plagues of self-replicating microsized nanobots and mutant bioengineered pathogens -- unless scientists agree to relinquish the pursuit of certain technologies.
Since Bill Joy, inventor of the Java programming language and other Internet staples, first pronounced this doomsday message in Wired magazine a year ago, "relinquishment" has been the topic of debate in the world of GNR (genetics, nanotechnology and robotics).
Bill Joy wants scientists, technologists and inventors to abandon, drop, quit, renounce and repudiate research and development that is "too dangerous." Moreover, he is calling for "a verification regime . . . on an unprecedented scale."
Much, although not all, of the scientific establishment has accused Joy of overblowing the issue. The computer-world oracle Joy claims as his inspiration has declared he is on the wrong track. The American right accuses him of a monumental assault on capitalism.
Joy, known within the computer industry as the anti-Gates, has prophesied a nightmare of self-replicating genetic materials being combined with nanobots that could multiply themselves into a "grey goo" able to outperform photosynthesis and usurp the biosphere. (Nanotechnology involves the manipulation of materials at the molecular or atomic level -- for example, to create materials stronger than steel but a small fraction of the weight.)
Joy has written about genetically engineered "plants," with "leaves" like solar cells, which could overrun real plants, filling the world with inedible foliage. He has written about omnivorous "bacteria" that could outcompete real bacteria, spread like blowing pollen, replicate swiftly and reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of days.
"Dangerous replicators could easily be too tough, small and rapidly spreading to stop. . . . We have trouble enough controlling viruses and fruit flies," Joy has written.
"Replicators able to obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single species of crabgrass. They might be superior in an evolutionary sense, but this need not make them valuable.
"[This]grey goo threat makes one thing perfectly clear: We cannot afford certain kinds of accidents with replicating assemblers."
He has forecast the certain arrival -- within two or three decades -- of "technology that may replace our species."
He has said: "Once an intelligent robot exists, it is only a small step to a robot species -- to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself."
He has warned against the hazards of tiny robots -- already on the drawing boards -- small enough to navigate the body's circulatory system and infiltrate the brain.
The respected U.S. conservative political journal American Spectator has declared: "Wittingly or not, Joy has unveiled what will be the 21st century's leading rationale for anticapitalist repression and the revival of statism . . . a program and a raison d'être for a new Left." This was not tumultuous applause.
Interestingly, one of Joy's critics is the American software guru Ray Kurzweil, inventor of the first print-to-speech reading machine for the sightless and an innovative music synthesizer.
Joy has said a 1998 encounter with Kurzweil -- an acknowledged seer of the cyberworld -- and Kurzweil's book, The Age of Spiritual Machines, are what ignited his fears of coming technology. (The Canadian band Our Lady Peace's most recent album, Spiritual Machines, takes its name from Kurzweil's book.)
Kurzweil, writing in Communications magazine, acknowledges that the dangers are real. "But Joy's call for relinquishing the pursuit of knowledge and the advance of technology in broad fields such as nanotechnology is not the answer."
He says the profit imperative will compel the journey down technological roads "paved with gold." He asks: "Should we tell the millions of people afflicted with cancer and other devastating conditions that we are cancelling the development of all bioengineered treatments because there is a risk these same technologies may some day be used for malevolent purposes?"
Kurzweil points to the quick development of technology to control replicating computer viruses. The technology is not out of control, he says. He proposes what he calls "fine-grained" relinquishment, plus ethical guidelines.
Meanwhile, IBM has just unveiled a program to create computers that maintain and update themselves, correct input errors from human operators and fight back against hackers. Tick-tock.