WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Some reckon 21st-century nanotechnology will be a more important development than all the technological wonders of the 20th century put together. It’s an incredible claim, but there are also serious doubts about our safety once we manage to fully unlock the nanoworld.

Miniature particles could be toxic to humans. After all, we’re dealing with particles we can’t even see. Breathing in nanoparticles from the air could cause lung disease.

No one truly understands what potential dangers nanomaterial might pose to us. We could compare it to some insecticides that were considered safe in the 1960s and 1970s. These days, many of these insecticides have been banned for causing certain diseases such as cancer.

What would happen if nanobots were to cause chaos in the biosphere? The biosphere is the parts of Earth where life exists. American engineer K Eric Drexler has painted a gloomy picture of a future in which nanobots are able to create more of themselves and then destroy all living things by breaking them down into dead, grey goo. Regardless of how unlikely this scenario is, it’s still a terrifying thought.

Reservations about everything that could go wrong in our exploration of the nanoworld have prompted some critics to warn against meddling with something we don’t understand. But if humans had followed that logic, we’d still be living primitive lives because we’d be too scared to explore the unknown, and wouldn’t have made all the medical, technological, scientific and educational progress that underpins modern life.