by Andrew Maynard | Apr 12, 2026 | Blog
In 2004, I was standing in a lab at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, measuring what happened when you opened a packet of carbon nanotubes. The question was deceptively simple: do these materials become airborne in ways that could harm people?...
by Andrew Maynard | Apr 12, 2026 | Blog
In July 2016, four years into running my Risk Bites YouTube channel, I drew some stick figures on a whiteboard in my office at Arizona State University, pointed a camera at them, and recorded a video explaining what nanotechnology is. It was, by any professional...
by Andrew Maynard | Apr 12, 2026 | Blog
In 2006, I sat in a Congressional hearing room and testified about nanotechnology safety for the first time. The questions from lawmakers were remarkably similar to the ones I hear about AI today: Is this technology dangerous? Are the people developing it acting...
by Andrew Maynard | Apr 12, 2026 | Blog
On the flight back from the book launch in Portugal in late 2025, I found myself unable to stop thinking about the size of a book. Not its length — its physical dimensions. During finalization, Jeff Abbott and I had printed mockups in different sizes, and there...
by Andrew Maynard | Apr 12, 2026 | Blog
In 2020, I published a book about the future. Not about AI specifically — about our relationship with the future itself. Sixty short essays tracing a thread from the Big Bang through evolution, intelligence, creativity, innovation, hubris, and responsibility. I...
by Andrew Maynard | Apr 12, 2026 | Blog
In the fall of 2023, I asked my undergraduate students at Arizona State University what they thought about ChatGPT. I expected widespread adoption. What I got was closer to a collective shrug. Only about a third of them used it regularly. One student put it plainly:...
