Proposal for a Nanobot Nanoshield

The Lifeboat Foundation is proposing a next generation Nanoshield Proposal to extend their current Bioshield proposal. Bioshield is concerned with bioterrorism and is supported by Ray Kurzweil and U.S. Senate majority leader Bill Frist, playing nicely into current terrorism FUD. Nanoshield, however takes this a step further. It's a proposal of specific techniques for detecting, slowing down, and combatting (in some cases at all costs) the threat of mass self-replicating nanobots.

A few of the interesting excerpts:

One of the earliest-recognized and best-known dangers of molecular nanotechnology is the risk that artificial nanotech replicators 2 — capable of digesting biological materials and functioning autonomously in the natural environment — could quickly convert the entire global ecosystem into more copies of themselves. This is a scenario often referred to as "grey goo", but more accurately termed "global ecophagy", a term coined by Robert A. Freitas, Jr. 3. Such replicators, called "ecophages", would constitute a class of sophisticated artificial life forms more lethal than any plague that has ever existed on this planet. If they are ever built and released, ecophages will need to be controlled by a sophisticated artificial immune system more powerful than any immune system that has ever been existed in natural biology.

If ecophages are detected, there could be a response from prepositioned stores of generic defensive nanorobots manufactured by a global network of defensive nanofactory stations that have been put in place well in advance of the outbreak of the threat. These first-line defensive nanorobots will have generic abilities to disable ecophages — e.g., sensor blinding, spray painting to ruin energy-producing solar cells, and perhaps some capability of mechanical disassembly or physical crushing, electric shock, e-beam irradiation, and so forth. These defenses will buy time for the specific immunity defenses to kick in.

Many of the proposed emergency responses will themselves cause additional damage during the process of halting the ecophagic outbreak, much as a surgeon's scalpel damages the tissue through which it cuts...
Some examples of emergency ecophagy defenses are:
Skysweepers. Air-filtering nanoscoop devices could filter the whole Earth's atmosphere, thereby removing all aerovores...
Utility Fog. Massive utility fog curtains capable of establishing filters for the separation of the atmosphere into compartments...
Solar Shades. Large solar shields that can be used to block the sunlight reaching Earth's surface...
an orbiting mirror could be used to focus concentrated sunlight into a specific ecophagic outbreak region...
high-power emitters of fairly penetrating radiation, possibly x-rays or electrons from thermionic emitters, can be used to destroy all large molecularly structured systems within a large volume.

Those "solar shades" sound familiar. We probably shouldn't try that one unless we like being turned into duracells. I like the idea of a giant ant fryer though.

Thanks KurzweilAI.net