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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: My thoughts on nanotechnology strategy research as an EA cause area, published by Ben Snodin on May 2, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Two-sentence summary: Advanced nanotechnology might arrive in the next couple of decades (my wild guess: there’s a 1-2% chance in the absence of transformative AI) and could have very positive or very negative implications for existential risk. There has been relatively little high-quality thinking on how to make the arrival of advanced nanotechnology go well, and I think there should be more work in this area (very tentatively, I suggest we want 2-3 people spending at least 50% of their time on this by 3 years from now). Context: This post reflects my current views as someone with a relevant PhD who has thought about this topic on and off for roughly the past 20 months (something like 9 months FTE). Note that some of the framings and definitions provided in this post are quite tentative, in the sense that I’m not at all sure that they will continue to seem like the most useful framings and definitions in the future. Some other parts of this post are also very tentative, and are hopefully appropriately flagged as such. Key points I define advanced nanotechnology as any highly advanced future technology, including atomically precise manufacturing (APM), that uses nanoscale machinery to finely image and control processes at the nanoscale, and is capable of mechanically assembling small molecules into a wide range of cheap, high-performance products at a very high rate (note that my definition of advanced nanotechnology is only loosely related to what people tend to mean by the term “nanotechnology”). (more) If developed, advanced nanotechnology could increase existential risk, for example by making destructive capabilities widely accessible, by allowing the development of weapons that pose a higher existential risk, or by accelerating AI development; or it could decrease existential risk, for example by causing the world’s most destructive weapons to be replaced by weapons that pose a lower existential risk. (more) Timelines for advanced nanotechnology are extremely uncertain and poorly characterised, but the chance it arrives by 2040 seems non-negligible (I’d guess 1-2%), even in the absence of transformative AI. (more) It seems likely that there’d be a long period of development with clear warning signs before advanced nanotechnology is developed, pushing against prioritising work in this area and pushing towards a focus on monitoring and foundational work. (more) There has been relatively little high-quality nanotechnology strategy work, and by default this seems unlikely to change much in the near future. (more) It seems possible to make progress in this area, for example by clarifying timelines, tracking potential warning signs of accelerating progress, and doing strategic planning. (more) Overall, I think that nanotechnology strategy research could be very valuable from a longtermist EA perspective. Currently, my extremely rough, unstable guess is that we should have 2-3 people spending at least 50% of their time on this by 3 years from now (against a background of perhaps 0-0.5 FTE over the past 5 years or so). (more) Note that it seems that we don’t want to accelerate progress towards advanced nanotechnology because of (i) the dramatic but highly uncertain net effects of the technology, including the possibility of very bad outcomes, (ii) the plausible difficulty of reversing an increase in the rate of progress, and (iii) the option of waiting to gain more information. (Though note that I still feel a bit confused about how harmful various forms of accelerating progress might be, and I’d like to think more carefully about this topic.) (more) Introduction This post has two main goals: To provide a resource that EA community...