A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

The Nanotechnology Age

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the “next big thing” was nanotechnology, the engineering of matter at the scale of individual complex molecules. Visionaries like Eric Drexler suggested that a historical singularity might be approaching, when self-reproducing nanoscale robots could perform previously impossible manufacturing tasks at practically no cost, thereby producing essentially infinite prosperity.

In 2000, and again five years later, the US government convened major conferences of leading experts to consider the societal implications of nanoscience and nanotechnology. The notion that nanobots or some other single nano innovation would soon transform the economy was unanimously rejected by scientists knowledgeable with the technical challenges. However, they identified a very large number of industries where methods based on nanoscience could markedly improve the performance of products, whether or not they could also achieve lower cost. The transformation of industry would be widespread but gradual, allowing graceful adjustment of employment and investment patterns. Rather than causing a revolution, nanotechnology is expected to sustain conventional technology-based economic growth for several decades in the advanced nations, with benefit diffusing gradually around the world.

The very diversity of nanotechnologies makes them very difficult to monopolize, thus buffering their impact on the organization of work and financial power. To some extent ...