Prey

Prey is a novel released by best-selling science-fiction author Michael Crichton in 2002, with a nanotechnology-based plot that became the focus of debate on the impact of science fiction on the public's understanding of science fact. While certainly bringing the topic of nanotechnology to the attention of a wide audience, the impact of its negative impacts on the public has not been proven. Similar to his earlier novels, such as Jurassic Park (1990), the novel is a cautionary tale about science and technology breaking away from the control of its developers. While largely seen as a novel about nanotechnology, it is more accuratly a novel about the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information technology. Michael Crichton himself has said that in writing Prey, he was interested in exploring where the three trends of distributed programming, biotechnology, and nanotechnology might be heading.

The plot revolves around a secretive U.S. firm, Xy-mos, which develops nanorobots capable of swarming in order to act an intelligent camera for reconnaissance and spying for the military. The swarm has been created by using genetically modified E. coli bacteria that create gamma assemblers from raw materials which in turn can manufacture nanobots.

However, things go wrong when the nanobots are intentionally released into the environment and begin evolving, forming self-autonomous swarms. These swarms then develop predatory behaviors, attacking animals and eventually humans. They even develop the ability to form a three-dimensional replicas of people by intelligently swarming into human shape. Ultimately, they evolve to the point that they can infect human, controlling them and forcing them to infect others. The story ends with the swarm being eradicated and the survivors pondering the folly of allowing science and technology to get out of control.

The novel was a best-seller, with sales of over a million in its first six months after release, and it stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for 15 continuous weeks.

Book reviewers tended to praise the pace of the action and suspense of the novel, but reviewers from within the sciences tended to criticize it as being fear based and criticized the science as far-fetched, exaggerated, and often in error. The concept of molecular manufacturing, and “Grey Goo”-type self-replicating nanobots, as articulated in Prey, harkens back to the predictions of Richard Feynman and K. Eric Drexler, in 1959 and 1986, respectively, which have since been criticized by scientists are equally far-fetched, exaggerated, and in error.

That the novel would give rise to both misinformed understanding of nanotechnology's possibilities, as well as negative attitudes toward its impact, became known as the “Prey effect,” with concern that if the novel was made into a movie, as many of his previous novels had been (Jurassic Park in 1993, Andromeda Strain in 1971 and 2008, and Timeline in 2003), the impact of its negative messages would be greatly increased.