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We are approaching a period of perilous geopolitical instability:
when weapons of mass destruction will be more varied, more deadly, more available, cheaper to obtain, and easier to hide;
when the strength (and the ambitions) of regional powers will increase rapidly while the stabilizing might of the U.S. could be in decline;
when new technologies such as genetic engineering, robotics, nanotechnology, and possibly artificial intelligence could enable radical shifts in the balance of power;
and when global climatic conditions —including increased frequency and severity of killer storms, droughts, infrastructure damage, crop failures, and even whole ecosystem collapses—will contribute to growing tensions.
The global situation is becoming a vortex, a maelstrom in which multiple risk factors will swirl and combine to create sudden new crises for which we may not have time to prepare. The act of reaching into the vortex to grab hold of and deal with one problem could send others spinning in new, ever more dangerous directions.
A couple of weeks ago I was walking with Aubrey de Grey in picturesque Palo Alto when I asked him what the latest word was on Technology Review’s SENS challenge. He looked at me quite seriously and said, “The first three submissions will be presented in just two days.” I asked him if he was worried, and he responded by noting that he was pleased with the selection of judges – a panel that includes Rodney Brooks and Craig Venter, among others.
Nick Bostrom spoke at the Singularity Summit at Stanford University on May 13, 2006. “We will probably one day have to take the gamble of superintelligence no matter what. But once in existence, a superintelligence could help us reduce or eliminate other existential risks, such as the risk that advanced nanotechnology will be used by humans in warfare or terrorism, a serious threat to the long-term survival of intelligent life on earth. If we get to superintelligence first, we may avoid this risk from nanotechnology and many others. If, on the other hand, we get nanotechnology first, we will have to face both the risks from nanotechnology and, if these risks are survived, also the risks from superintelligence. The overall risk seems to be minimized by implementing superintelligence, with great care, as soon as possible.”
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.’
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.)
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: [I]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.
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.
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.
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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