Regulation
Speculation on the power of systems that have been called "molecular assemblers" has sparked a wider political discussion on the implication of nanotechnology. This is in part due to the fact that nanotechnology is a very broad term and could include "molecular assemblers." Discussion of the possible implications of fantastic molecular assemblers has prompted calls for regulation of current and future nanotechnology. There are very real concerns with the potential health and ecological impact of nanotechnology that is being integrated in manufactured products. Greenpeace for instance commissioned a report concerning nanotechnology in which they express concern into the toxicity of nanomaterials that have been introduced in the environment. However, it makes only passing references to "assembler" technology. The UK Royal Society and UK Royal Academy of Engineering also commissioned a report entitled "Nanoscience and nanotechnologies: opportunities and uncertainties" regarding the larger social and ecological implications on nanotechnology. This report does not discuss the threat posed by potential so-called "molecular assemblers."
Read more about this topic: Molecular Assembler
Famous quotes containing the word regulation:
“Lots of white people think black people are stupid. They are stupid themselves for thinking so, but regulation will not make them smarter.”
—Stephen Carter (b. 1954)
“Nothing changes my twenty-six years in the military. I continue to love it and everything it stands for and everything I was able to accomplish in it. To put up a wall against the military because of one regulation would be doing the same thing that the regulation does in terms of negating people.”
—Margarethe Cammermeyer (b. 1942)
“Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness; and if these be favourable to virtue and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behavior.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)