# Lessons from nanotechnology

Before AI's governance debates existed, Andrew Maynard was inside the technology transition that rehearsed them — and watched it get right the one thing he argues AI is now getting wrong. Nanotechnology, in his words, "did dodge a bullet" by engaging early, often, and far beyond its own technical circles; genetically modified organisms show what the other path costs, and AI development is repeating the GMO pattern. The claim beneath the history is a principle: "it's complicated" is never an excuse for keeping the people a technology will affect away from the table.

## The argument

The argument is paired history, told by a participant. Two transformative technologies entered public life a generation apart under the same pressure AI faces now — experts insisting the subject was too complex for outsiders to weigh in on — and their fates diverged. Andrew writes about the divergence as someone who helped steer one of the two cases: he co-chaired the US interagency Nanotechnology Environmental and Health Implications working group, served as Chief Science Advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (Woodrow Wilson Center, 2005–2010) — "highly influential" is his own description of it — testified at House Science Committee hearings on nanotechnology (2006–2008), and sat on PCAST nanotechnology working and advisory groups (2006–2012), briefing the Council directly. The lessons are reported, not surveyed — Andrew was a participant.

GMOs are the control case. At the tail end of the twentieth century, Monsanto's "it's complicated, leave it to us" approach, as Andrew characterizes it, "backfired spectacularly" (2023-05-15). His verdict on the whole episode: "a masterclass in how naivety, hubris, greed, and a lack of broad engagement, can create near-insurmountable roadblocks to progress" (2023-10-02). The failure named is not a dangerous technology stopped but a promising one forfeited: closed expert circles did not protect GMO development — they wrecked it.

Nanotechnology faced the same fork and took the other path — barely. "we did dodge a bullet there. And we did this by engaging early and often across a very broad range of domains and expertise. But it was touch and go at some points" (2023-05-15). The hedge is load-bearing: this is no story of enlightened consensus. The exclusionary instinct lived inside nanotech too — Andrew recalls briefing PCAST when a Council member exclaimed, in his explicitly flagged paraphrase, "you can't expect members of the public to make decisions on technologies that they don't understand and we do!" (2023-05-15). What differed, he argues, is that enough people recognized early that development and governance had to be "a team effort": building trust across policy makers, civil society, and publics; addressing social, economic, environmental, and health risks early, without which the technology's benefits "could well slip from our grasp"; working with experts from the arts, humanities, and social sciences alongside the nano-specific disciplines. And the learning loop had closed once before — early investment in responsible nanotech "drew heavily on lessons learned from the GMO debacle" (2023-10-02).

Beneath the history sits the principle. A technology with the power to affect everyone gives everyone the right to some role in its development and use — and ""It's complicated" is not an excuse for avoiding engaging with people who have a stake in AI not messing up their lives, and who have expertise that may just extend the range of development and governance options beyond the limited understanding of self-proclaimed experts in the field" (2023-05-15). The justification is epistemic as well as democratic: people "don't need to understand the inner workings of AI to discuss and explore how it might potentially impact their lives and threaten what's important to them" (2023-05-15) — the same move [risk innovation](risk-innovation.md) makes in defining risk as a threat to value. The deficit-model rebuttal behind this has decades of scholarship under it, back to Brian Wynne's mid-1990s sheep-farmers study — and by September 2023, PCAST itself was making the case, in a letter calling for dialogue and participatory engagement that Andrew read as a shift from assuming public value arises naturally to realizing it takes intentional two-way engagement (2023-09-04).

AI, on this record, is running the GMO play. Development is "driven by a small group of experts and companies who believe that they have all the understanding they need" (2023-10-02). Exhibit A: former Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Meet the Press in May 2023, arguing industry must define the boundaries first because "There's no-one in the government who can get it right. But the industry can roughly get it right." Andrew's response keeps its fairness — "I suspect that he has a more nuanced perspective" than the clip shows, and engagement genuinely costs patience, humility, and work against inertia — but the pattern is one he reports meeting "time and time again", most recently around quantum technologies, and "it never plays out well" (2023-05-15). The stakes argument closes it: "we cannot afford to get things wrong — if anything, the stakes here are far higher than they were with either nanotechnology or GMOs" (2023-10-02). Because such lessons stay siloed rather than transferring on their own, the Nature Nanotechnology commentary with Sean Dudley folds the case into the argument for [advanced technology transitions](advanced-technology-transitions.md) as a field: investment that can "bridge disciplines and sectors, and bring together people, communities, and organizations with diverse expertise and perspectives to investigate emerging landscapes and drive toward a more equitable, sustainable, and promise-filled future" (2023-10-02).

## Lineage

- **2000s — the participant years.** Andrew co-chairs the interagency Nanotechnology Environmental and Health Implications working group and serves as Chief Science Advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2005–2010); he testifies at US House Science Committee hearings on nanotechnology (2006, 2007, 2008) and serves on PCAST nanotechnology working and advisory groups (2006–2012), briefing the Council directly (Maynard CV; 2023-10-02 post).
- **2018 — the engagement case in book form.** *Films from the Future* (2018) devotes chapter 10, built on the 1951 film *The Man in the White Suit*, to why public engagement matters and what failing at it costs — the chapter Andrew would later point AI audiences toward (per his 2023-09-04 post).
- **2023-05-15 — the principle stated against the counter-position.** [Respectfully Erik Schmidt, industry can't get AI governance right on its own!](https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/erik-schmidt-ai-regulation) ([AI-readable mirror](https://text.futureofbeinghuman.com/substack/erik-schmidt-ai-regulation.html)) — the dodged bullet, the PCAST anecdote, the GMO backfire, and the principle that complexity is no excuse for exclusion.
- **2023-09-04 — official convergence.** [Why public engagement is so important for advanced science and technology](https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/why-public-engagement-is-so-important) ([AI-readable mirror](https://text.futureofbeinghuman.com/substack/why-public-engagement-is-so-important.html)) — a just-released PCAST letter argues for participatory engagement; Andrew reads it against the deficit-model resistance he keeps meeting.
- **2023-10-02 — the argument enters the scholarly record.** "Navigating Advanced Technology Transitions Using Lessons from Nanotechnology" (Maynard & Dudley), *Nature Nanotechnology* 18, 1118–1120 ([doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01481-5](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01481-5)) — a published commentary, editorially reviewed rather than formally peer-reviewed as a research paper would be — with a same-day companion in [The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/navigating-the-risks-and-benefits-of-ai-lessons-from-nanotechnology-on-ensuring-emerging-technologies-are-safe-as-well-as-successful-210872), introduced in [Responsible AI: Lessons from Nanotechnology](https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/responsible-ai-lessons-from-nanotechnology) ([AI-readable mirror](https://text.futureofbeinghuman.com/substack/responsible-ai-lessons-from-nanotechnology.html)).
- **2025-09-23 — the pattern-watch continues.** Modem Futura ep. 50, "Sloppy Clankers: Is This AI's Frankenfood Moment?" ([episode mirror](https://text.futureofbeinghuman.com/modemfutura/50-sloppy-clankers-is-this-ais-frankenfood-moment.html)) — Andrew and Sean Leahy explore whether the backlash dynamics of the 1990s "Frankenfood" moment, when public sentiment turned sharply against GMOs, are beginning to attach to AI.

## In his own words

From [Respectfully Erik Schmidt, industry can't get AI governance right on its own!](https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/erik-schmidt-ai-regulation) ([AI-readable mirror](https://text.futureofbeinghuman.com/substack/erik-schmidt-ai-regulation.html)), 2023-05-15:

> "The nanotechnology case is an interesting one as, interestingly, we did dodge a bullet there. And we did this by engaging early and often across a very broad range of domains and expertise. But it was touch and go at some points."

From [Responsible AI: Lessons from Nanotechnology](https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/responsible-ai-lessons-from-nanotechnology) ([AI-readable mirror](https://text.futureofbeinghuman.com/substack/responsible-ai-lessons-from-nanotechnology.html)), 2023-10-02:

> "This is a serious mistake, and one that needs to be corrected as soon as possible. We've learned a lot from previous advanced technology transitions like nanotechnology. I'd include the development of technologies like genetically modified organisms here, which was a masterclass in how naivety, hubris, greed, and a lack of broad engagement, can create near-insurmountable roadblocks to progress. In fact early investment in responsible nanotech drew heavily on lessons learned from the GMO debacle."

From [Why public engagement is so important for advanced science and technology](https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/why-public-engagement-is-so-important) ([AI-readable mirror](https://text.futureofbeinghuman.com/substack/why-public-engagement-is-so-important.html)), 2023-09-04:

> "Hopefully the PCAST letter will help move the needle here — at least a little — because the bottom line is that it's becoming increasingly hard to identify pathways to a better future without broad, sophisticated, and meaningful ways of engaging with the people who will be a part of building and living in this future!"

## Engagement and reception

The argument's scholarly carrier reached two audiences at publication: the *Nature Nanotechnology* commentary (Maynard & Dudley, 2023-10-02; a published commentary, editorially reviewed rather than formally peer-reviewed) put it before the nanotechnology research community, and the same-day companion article in The Conversation put it before general readers. The historical claims draw additional standing from the record they rest on — congressional testimony, PCAST service, and the Wilson Center role are checkable public facts, not recollection alone.

Beyond those publication venues, as of 2026-08-08 this corpus has not compiled independent citation or adoption evidence for the nanotech-to-AI lessons argument itself — an absence of record, not a verdict on the idea; the initiative does not typically solicit reception ([Philosophy](philosophy.md)), and [reception](reception.md) is a living page that will carry verified items as they accrue. The nearest continuation is the initiative's own: Modem Futura ep. 50 (2025-09-23) returning to the GMO parallel two years on — self-continuation, and labeled as such.

## Where to go deeper

**The essays (canonical + AI-readable mirror):**

- [Respectfully Erik Schmidt, industry can't get AI governance right on its own!](https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/erik-schmidt-ai-regulation) ([AI-readable mirror](https://text.futureofbeinghuman.com/substack/erik-schmidt-ai-regulation.html)) — 2023-05-15; the fullest statement: the dodged bullet, the PCAST anecdote, and the principle.
- [Why public engagement is so important for advanced science and technology](https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/why-public-engagement-is-so-important) ([AI-readable mirror](https://text.futureofbeinghuman.com/substack/why-public-engagement-is-so-important.html)) — 2023-09-04; the PCAST letter, the deficit-model critique, and *The Man in the White Suit*.
- [Responsible AI: Lessons from Nanotechnology](https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/responsible-ai-lessons-from-nanotechnology) ([AI-readable mirror](https://text.futureofbeinghuman.com/substack/responsible-ai-lessons-from-nanotechnology.html)) — 2023-10-02; the GMO masterclass and the commentary introduced.

**The papers:**

- Maynard, A. D. & Dudley, S. M. (2023). "Navigating Advanced Technology Transitions Using Lessons from Nanotechnology." *Nature Nanotechnology* 18, 1118–1120. [doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01481-5](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01481-5)
- Maynard, A. D. & Dudley, S. M. (2023). "Navigating the risks and benefits of AI: Lessons from nanotechnology on ensuring emerging technologies are safe as well as successful." [The Conversation, 2023-10-02](https://theconversation.com/navigating-the-risks-and-benefits-of-ai-lessons-from-nanotechnology-on-ensuring-emerging-technologies-are-safe-as-well-as-successful-210872)

**The podcast:**

- Modem Futura ep. 50, "Sloppy Clankers: Is This AI's Frankenfood Moment?" (2025-09-23) — [episode mirror](https://text.futureofbeinghuman.com/modemfutura/50-sloppy-clankers-is-this-ais-frankenfood-moment.html).

**Related ideas:** [Advanced technology transitions](advanced-technology-transitions.md) — the field these lessons argue for, where the nanotech case study is one premise among several · [Risk innovation](risk-innovation.md) — why publics need no technical mastery to weigh threats to what they value · [Moral panics](moral-panics.md) — the backlash dynamics on the other side of the engagement coin · [Universities must lead](universities-must-lead.md) — who besides industry can hold the table.

**Related corpus pages:** [Foundations](foundations.md) — the risk-science-as-practice strand this history belongs to, and the communication-and-trust strand behind the deficit-model critique · [Philosophy](philosophy.md) — the initiative's stance on engagement and reception.