This paper takes as its point of departure the pressure for industry to take up the notion of ‘responsible development’ of nanotechnology when there is little clarity as to what this might mean in practice. Due to increased complexity, actions to be taken cannot be simply specified. It is necessary to further articulate the issues of responsible development, as such, and through learning by doing;it is on this point that interview data with industrial actors, collected in an earlier project (Shelley-Egan, 2011) are presented as a means of understanding industry’s response to the pressures for responsible development of nanotechnology, along with the articulation of further issues. The findings show that there is differential uptake of pressure for responsible development, and ambiguities and attempts at their resolution. However, in new developments related to the responsible development of nanotechnology, one sees new practices and interactions which may contribute to making the problem manageable at least.