Converging Technologies, Diverging Values: Navigating NBIC Through Turbulent Waters

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Converging Technologies,Diverging
ValuesNavigating NBIC Through Turbulent Waters

• Davis Baird, University of South Carolina,
  Department of Philosophy NanoCenter
• Support from National Science Foundation
  University of South Carolina College of Liberal
  Arts, NanoCenter, Office of Research

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Starting with two images
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Metaphors for a Dynamic World

• We need better dynamic metaphors for thinking
  about and taking action with respect to
• The nanoscale
• NBIC convergence
• Socio-nano-technological change
• Ethical engagement with all of the above

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Five Kinds of Unification

• Unified science
• Unified engineered and natural devices
• Unified humanity
• Unified control of research
• Unified ethics
• Each is easy to refute, yet each captures a
  kernel of truth

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Unified Science

• NBIC calls for unifying bioscience, information
  science and cognitive science as material
  extensions of nanoscience
• Not a philosophers unified science
• Unification should allow for rapid fruitful
  synergistic exchange between biologists,
  physicists, chemists and engineerscombating
  disciplinary isolation
• It could also challenge the guild-like
  expertise of specific scientific disciplines

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Bio-mimesis

• Unifying the natural and the engineered
• Designing and Building engines following natural
  examples
• Some differences will be hard to avoid
• Evolutionary history, function, telos and the
  intentions of designers

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Unified Humanity Resistance is futile

• It is hard to find the right metaphor to see a
  century into the future, but it may be that
  humanity would become like a single, distributed
  and interconnected brain based in new core
  pathways of society.
• From local groups of linked enhanced individuals
  to a global collective intelligence, key new
  capabilities would arise from relationships
  created with NBIC technologies.
• The Borg vs. enhanced individuals
• While clearly confused we are moving ahead in
  this direction

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Centralized and unified research organization

• It is not enough to wait patiently while
  scientists and engineers do their traditional
  work
• The contributors to this report recommend a
  national research and development priority area
  on converging technologies focused on enhancing
  human performance. The role of government is
  important because no other participant can cover
  the breadth and level of required collective
  effort. Without special efforts for coordination
  and integration, the path of science might not
  lead to the fundamental unification envisioned
  here.
• Do we gain efficiency by directing research?

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Nano and NBIC initiatives invite ethics

• Ethical, legal, moral, economic, environmental,
  workforce development, and other societal
  implications must be addressed from the
  beginning, . Research on societal implications
  must be funded, .

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But unified ethics

• Foregone conclusion Perhaps wholly new ethical
  principles will govern in areas of radical
  technological advance, such as the acceptance of
  brain implants, .
• Optimistic consensus The ability to control the
  genetics of humans, animals, and agricultural
  plants will greatly benefit human welfare
  widespread consensus about ethical, legal, and
  moral issues will be built in the process
• The prime difficulty for the converging
  technologies programat least in the USwill be
  to allow for vigorous healthy debate. Ethics may
  not be unified.

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Socio-Nano-Technological Change

• We need to create the Research on societal
  implications that must be funded
• What should such research look like?
• It is hard to find the right metaphor to see a
  century into the future, but it may be that
  humanity would become like a single, distributed
  and interconnected brain based in new core
  pathways of society.
• What about a century into the past

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Two images
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Two more images
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Three Ways for Ethics to Engage Technological
Change

• One 1933 Chicago Worlds Fair
• Science Discovers, Technology Applies, Man
  Conforms
• Two Ethicist as Expert Consultant
• Measuring the goodness of technology
• Three Ethicist as Mediator of a Complex Field

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Constructive Mediation

• CuriosityThe organic necessity to
  technological development That which is
  technically sweet is irresistible.
• CapitalThe economic necessity to competitive
  capitalism Death for the timidor too prudent.
• PrincipleIndividual social rights what we
  ought to do the prudential principle avoid
  unnecessary risks.
• FactsFacts on the ground are a force in
  themselves contextualized facts are a different
  kind of force Which facts, pursued by whom, for
  whose benefit?
• Limited resourcescapital, intellectual,
  workforceconstrain and direct action
• Politicsthe art of acting with what is possible
• Traditioncultural, religious or simply
  historicalthat can act as a kind of sea anchor
  to rapid change

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Nanotechnologies are coming, but we will jointly
define them as they arrive

• Collectively, distributing our expertise and
  interests, we will navigate society toward better
  nanotechnologies.
• By learning to talk and listen to each other
• Constructively changing how we understand
  nanotechnologies as we create them
• A dynamic process not static nano-ethics

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Key roles for humanists

• They will create constructive communication
  pathways
• They will grease these pathways with new concepts
  that allow appropriate unification and diversity
• Pathways that provide for vigorous ethical debate
• Pathways that bring our understanding of new
  technologies along with the devices
• Creating smooth technological transitions