Responsible Nanotechnology: Problems That Lie Ahead

There are radical changes ahead, and I'm increasing pessimistic about our chances of navigating the minefield of challenges that lie before us. Although I joke about the impending apocalypse, it is gallows humor. Actually, I think its coming, and faster than you imagine.

"We are approaching a period of perilous geopolitical instability:

* when weapons of mass destruction will be more varied, more deadly, more available, cheaper to obtain, and easier to hide;

* when the strength (and the ambitions) of regional powers will increase rapidly while the stabilizing might of the U.S. could be in decline;

* when new technologies such as genetic engineering, robotics, nanotechnology, and possibly artificial intelligence could enable radical shifts in the balance of power;

* and when global climatic conditions -- including increased frequency and severity of killer storms, droughts, infrastructure damage, crop failures, and even whole ecosystem collapses -- will contribute to growing tensions.

The global situation is becoming a vortex, a maelstrom in which multiple risk factors will swirl and combine to create sudden new crises for which we may not have time to prepare. The act of reaching into the vortex to grab hold of and deal with one problem could send others spinning in new, ever more dangerous directions."