  ETHICAL TECHNOLOGY
Thanks for Back-Handed Compliments
By Dale Carrico, Amor Mundi June 6, 2006
William Saletan has just published a curious review of the “Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights” Conference (usually described by its acronym HETHR) that took place last weekend at Stanford University. I was a participant in the Conference myself, and even helped out a bit in organizing it, though the real heavy lifting was undertaken by my friend and collegue James Hughes, the Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) where I am currently a Fellow, and Richard Glen Boire and Wrye Sententia, Directors of the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics where I have been a Summer Fellow in the recent past.
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Constructing the case for enhancement at Stanford
by George Dvorsky
 This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend and speak at the Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights (HETHR) conference at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. The conference, which was sponsored by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics (CCLE), and the Stanford Law School (SLC), brought together a diverse array of thinkers who spent the weekend ruminating over the challenging issues surrounding human enhancement.
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Sustainable Cities
by Jamais Cascio
Sustainlane‘s Warren Karlenzig is now blogging for the organization, and the opening of his site coincides with the release of Sustainlane’s 2006 US Cities Ranking. The top cities include Portland (#1, up from #2 last year), San Francisco (#2, down from #1), Seattle (#3), Philadelphia (#4) and Chicago (#5); New York hits #7, Austin #14, and #50 is Columbus, Ohio.
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Review: Doctor, Can You Fix My Broken Heart?
by Andy Miah
This article began after watching the wonderful film ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ directed by Michel Gondry. It was not the first time I have thought about the way film can convey ethical issues related to medical technologies. One of the other films that sticks in my mind is Extreme Measures. There are many more and this review essay is now being developed into a more substantive article for an edited volume by Sandra Shapsay entitled ‘Bioethics through Film’, which will be published with Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Futurist Matrix Revisited (Again)
by Jamais Cascio
David Brin wrote a provocative and thoughtful response to my futurist matrix idea, and posted it over at his blog. Unfortunately, the system he uses—Blogger—has once again broken its comment system. Rather than wait to reply, I’ve decided to post my response to his response here. (David—this is an updated version of the email I sent.)
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Two Questions for TechnoProgressives
by Dale Carrico
Over on technoliberation I have tried to provide initial responses to a couple of questions that seem to me pretty pertinent for any technoprogressive stance. Hopefully, the discussion of these questions will continue on there from here.
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Hughes & Darnovsky on Limits to Enhancement
KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco
KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco interviews bio-con Marcy Darnovsky and IEET’s James Hughes about limits placed on the use of technology to make us ‘Better Than Well.’
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Anti-aging, again
by Russell Blackford
 In an earlier blog entry, I presented my reconstruction of an argument, developed by Aubrey de Grey, that attempts to demonstrate the existence of a moral obligation to fund radical anti-aging research, i.e. research aimed “curing” the human aging process. In this entry, I’m going to identify a problem for the argument, and I’ll then comment on the implications. I also think that there’s an additional problem, but I’ll merely mention it, and leave it for later time.
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What’s Your Future?
by Jamais Cascio
How do you envision the future? Are we on the verge of dystopia? Soon to be transformed by accelerating change? Ready to strap on the jet packs to pick up our food pills? Settling in for a long struggle?
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Death and the Brain
by George Dvorsky
 Recent voluntary euthanasia hullabaloos such as the Terry Schiavo case have revealed a public that’s largely divided and somewhat confused as to what death is and when it should actually be declared. This issue is set to get increased attention as a) more people vie for increased control over their right to die, b) our medical sensibilities migrate increasingly toward a neurological understanding of what it means to be ‘alive’ in a meaningful sense, and c) the realization that the potential for cryonics and other advanced neural rescue operations will give rise to an information theoretic interpretation as to when death should truly be declared.
It is customary to declare death when the heart stops beating. This only makes sense; in the past it was the practical thing to do given limited medical know how. Moreover, without ever having the phenomenon of an individual in a coma or on life support, there was no need to have an alternative conception as to when it was appropriate to declare death.
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Human Enhancement and the Emergent Technopolitics of the 21st Century (excerpt)
by J. Hughes
Abstract
The political terrain of the 20th century was shaped by the economic issues of taxation, labor and social welfare, and the cultural issues of race, nationalism, gender and civil liberties. The political terrain of the 21st century will add a new dimension, technopolitics. At one end of the technopolitical spectrum are the technoconservatives, defending “human dignity” and the environment from technological progress. On the other end of the spectrum are the technoprogressives, holders of the Enlightenment faith that scientific and technological progress is liberating. Some of the key points of conflict in the emerging technopolitical struggle are the bioethical debates over human enhancement technologies. Technoprogressives such as “transhumanists” advocate for the right to use technologies that transcend human limitations, while technoconservatives argue for a strict limit on the non-therapeutic uses of biomedicine. Technopolitics has cut across the existing political lines and created odd coalitions between left-wing and right-wing technoconservatives on one side and technolibertarians and technodemocrats on the other. Future technopolitical debates are suggested that will force further technopolitical polarization.
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Robot factory predictions
by Mike Treder
Thirty years ago, a robotics and AI researcher named James Albus published a book called People’s Capitalism. Most of the book, as the title suggests, is about economic reform. I won’t comment on the economic ideas in the book. But Chapter 5 is very relevant to molecular manufacturing predictions.
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Why not push beyond the boundaries?
by Russell Blackford
Imagine that there are certain natural boundaries to human capacities, beyond which any increase is “enhancement”, rather than “therapy”. Does that mean we have a moral obligation to stay within those boundaries? I don’t see why. Such reasoning seems like a clear case of the fallacy of claiming what “is” also “ought” to be.
For the sake of argument, leave to one side the problem that defining a therapy/enhancement boundary may often be an impractical task, and that it may defy coherent specification in some contexts.
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Access to Organ Transplants for the World
Changesurfer Radio
In Your Life or Mine Martine Rothblatt proposes a program for expanding global access to xenotransplant organs, combined with global monitoring of emerging infectious diseases.
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Smart’s “Laws on Technology”
by Dale Carrico
Nato Welch recently called my attention to John Smart’s “Laws on Technology,” over the course of a discussion on the technoliberation discussion list. I thought Smart’s Laws were interesting and useful to a point, but I’ll admit that I found their framing rather disturbing in some ways.
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Genetic chimeras - and why give a damn about morality?
by Russell Blackford
I just made some comments like the following in another forum, where my pal Damien Broderick was discussing the morality of scientific experiments that involve inserting human genes into non-human animals. Damien, quite rightly, fulminated against the bizarre essentialism implicit in some of the attacks on these experiments.
This provoked me to some thoughts about what morality is actually for. Why give a damn about it, as most of us obviously do?
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Future Hype: Myths of Tech Change
Changesurfer Radio
According to Bob Seidenstcker, tech change is not exponential. Products are not invented or adopted faster. The Internet does not change everything. We can’t control technology change unless we know how it works.
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Mark Walker on superlongevity
Sentient Developments
On April 20, 2006 at the University of Toronto’s Bahen Centre for Information Technology, Dr. Mark Walker delivered a presentation about the ethics of radical life extension, or as Walker refers to it, ‘superlongevity.’ The talk was organized by the Toronto Transhumanist Association.
The talk was party adapted from his recent paper, “Universal Superlongevity: Is it Inevitable and is it Good?”
Mark Walker Ph.D. is a research associate in philosophy at Trinity College, University of Toronto. He is founder and president of Permanent End International, a nonprofit organization devoted to ending hunger, illiteracy and environmental degradation. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Evolution and Technology and served on the Board of Directors of the World Transhumanist Association from 2002 to 2006.
Attendance for the event was good with about 20 people present. Walker spoke for about an hour discussing ethical issues surrounding life extension. He focused on two major objections or concerns to superlongevity, namely the potential boredom problem of radically extended lives and the issue of overpopulation. Walker presented a fair and balanced case in favour of life extension, noting that while overpopulation may be an issue in the future, it’s not an untenable one. He offered a number of solutions, including the idea of individuals voluntarily choosing not to procreate, or as Walker dubbed it, a ‘non-proliferation pact’ for human reproduction.
After his presentation, Walker entertained questions for about 30 minutes, which was in turn followed by more informal person-to-person discussions.
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Miraculous memory for mere mortals
by George Dvorsky
If you’re looking to significantly augment your memory skills, but don’t have the patience to wait for a cybernetic memory implant, mnemonic techniques may be the answer.
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Funding Robotic Freedom
by Marshall Brain
In the May 15 issue of Time Magazine, columnist Joe Klein takes an interesting stance. The article is called A Fair Trade for Lower Gas Prices and his suggestion is simple: raise the gasoline tax to discourage consumption, and then give the money collected back to people:
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Arguing about biological immortality
by Russell Blackford
I owe an account of why I am slightly sceptical about an argument offered by Aubrey de Grey, who has defended the strong claim that there is a moral imperative to “cure” the process of human aging. (I’ll henceforth drop the scare quotes around the word “cure”, but I intend to signal that I am well aware of the controversies that surround whether the word is apt in this context.)
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Peter Singer: Gengineering Past Ethical Impasses
by Dale Carrico
The following exchange occurs in an interview published today on Salon.com in connection with the appearance of ethicist Peter Singer’s new book (co-written with Jim Mason), The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter:
SALON: f it were possible to genetically engineer a brainless bird, grown strictly for its meat? Do you feel that this would be ethically acceptable?
Singer: It would be an ethical improvement on the present system, because it would eliminate the suffering that these birds are feeling. That’s the huge plus to me.
SALON: What if you could engineer a chicken with no wings, so less space would be required?
Singer: I guess that’s an improvement too, assuming it doesn’t have any residual instincts, like phantom pain. If you could eliminate various other chicken instincts, like its preference for laying eggs in a nest, that would be an improvement too.
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Nanoethics and Technological Revolutions: A Precis
by Nick Bostrom
If we believe that nanotechnology will eventually amount to a technological revolution, and if we are going to attempt nanoethics, we should consider some of the earlier technological revolutions that humanity has undergone and how our moral principles and technology impact assessment exercises would have fared.
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Christian Bioethics Group Denounces NIH Funding of Enhancement Ethics
I always enjoy looking at the world through the Xian Right’s eyes, because they think the forces of progress have accomplished so much more. In this case, transhumanists have apparently taken control of the National Institutes of Health. The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity Denounces NIH Funding of Genetic Re-Engineering Project
CHICAGO, May 3 /U.S. Newswire/—The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity strongly denounces the decision by the National Institute of Health (NIH) to fund a project to develop guidelines for the use of human subjects in genetic enhancement research. The grant, totaling almost three-quarters of a million dollars, is being given to Maxwell Mehlman and Case Law School to promote the genetic re-engineering of human beings for non-therapeutic purposes under the rubric of “enhancement.”
“This is a violation of the spirit of the NIH-sponsored Human Genome Project,” says CBHD Senior Fellow C. Ben Mitchell. “Providing this grant signals a fundamental and dangerous change in the policy of the NIH, resurrecting the mistaken goals of the eugenics programs in the United States and Europe in the early twentieth century.”
The project has been charged with “determining the conditions under which it would be ethical to conduct genetic enhancement research using human subjects,” implying that scientists, physicians, politicians, ethicists or the public at large, condones such research.
“The project presupposes that it is ethical to reengineer normal human beings,” says CBHD President Dr. Andrew Fergusson. “But in a society which correctly decries the use of artificial means, such as steroids to ‘enhance’ athletic abilities, the presumption of the NIH to pursue the re-engineering of human beings is the height of scientific and social arrogance.”
By choosing to pursue an agenda for re-engineering humankind, the NIH has clearly demonstrated an inadequate degree of oversight of its funding activities. The White House and Congress must investigate this blatant misuse of taxpayer funds. CBHD is a strong advocate of research for healing, and is deeply saddened that this incredibly important instrument of good is being used for a course of evil.
I think they see that the Bush administration’s implosion may mean that the influence of the Christian Right in Washington science policy are numbered. Time to return to the trenches and throw hand grenades. For the record, Max Mehlman is a thoughtful analyst of an enhanceed future, an advocate of judicious regulation. He is author of Wondergenes: Genetic Enhancement and the Future of Society Listen to my Changesurfer Radio interview with Mehlman here.
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Lock up your nubile daughter!
by Russell Blackford
 At Conjure a couple of weeks ago, Jenny and I found ourselves in the unusual situation (for us) of being on a panel together - in this case, we were two members of a suitably high-powered panel on what real scientists can learn from their science fictional counterparts.
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Simon Smith on Sentient Developments
Sentient Developments
I recently interviewed Simon Smith, the editor-in-chief of Betterhumans. Topics discussed include Betterhumans, transhumanist culture, cryonics, life extension, systems theory and emergence.
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Spanish socialists want to give apes human rights
by George Dvorsky
 Holy, toldeo, now this is interesting and welcome news: Spanish socialists want to give apes human rights. The blurbage from the Spain Herald reads:
The Spanish Socialist Party will introduce a bill in the Congress of Deputies calling for “the immediate inclusion of (simians) in the category of persons, and that they be given the moral and legal protection that currently are only enjoyed by human beings.” The PSOE’s justification is that humans share 98.4% of our genes with chimpanzees, 97.7% with gorillas, and 96.4% with orangutans.
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The myth of our exalted human place
by George Dvorsky
 I’m still stewing about Spiked Online and their misguided mission to malign the animal rights movement. In particular, I’m upset at Chris Pile’s assertion that animal rights activists are acting misanthropically by putting the welfare of animals on par with those of humans.
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Real Virtuality in your Second Life and beyond
by Giulio Prisco
Virtual Reality is ready for prime time and is catching up with science fiction literature
Versión en Español
April 1: the virtual world Second Life has more than 170.000 “residents”, about a thousand more than yesterday. There are more than 5000 residents online at this moment, and they are spending a lot of real money in the virtual world. In the last 24 hours, residents have spent almost 500.000 US dollars in Second Life. And all these numbers are growing fast. More than a decade after Neal Stephenson‘s popular science fiction novel Snow Crash (1992), a vision of a future Internet (the Metaverse) based on Virtual Reality (VR), defined many of the Virtual Reality (VR) concepts used today, VR technology is catching up with science fiction literature. In the picture above I am working in my virtual office in Second Life.
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Hughes participates in cognitive enhancement consultation for Sandia Labs
Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes at
Arizona State University, together with the
Advanced Concepts Group of Sandia National Laboratories
Arizona State University
May 3-5, 2006
IEET Executive Director James Hughes will join invited workshop participants (neuroscientists, bioengineers, neuroethicists, social scientists, relevant entrepreneurs, and people with legislative, executive, and regulatory experience) to address how a converging set of new technologies that promise to give human beings opportunities to develop, heal and alter their cognitive abilities in a variety of ways will impact society. Governments increasingly will be called upon to support, permit, require, or limit, research and application of such cognitive enhancement technologies.
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