YALE WORKING GROUP

AI, NANOTECH, AND TRANSHUMANISM:
ETHICS, TECHNOLOGY, AND UTOPIAN VISIONS

Nick Bostrom and Bonnie Kaplan

BACKGROUND

The historical human desire to transcend bodily and mental limitations is deeply intertwined with a human fascination with anthropomorphic animals and machines. Writings from as far back as ancient Sumeria and ancient Greece through the Computer Age point to the dynamic interactions between humans and non-humans. In the 20th century, this relationship was articulated into a profound tension between human identity and the promise - or threat - of scientific discovery.

Today the potential ramifications of state-of-the-art technologies (such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, genetic engineering and genomics, and cryonics) still are both inspiring and frightening. How these technologies are used could fundamentally change the ways in which our society functions, and raises crucial questions about our identities and moral status as human beings. The "Ethics, Technology and Utopian Visions" Working Research Group aims to explore the moral implications of using technologies that are currently available in our society as well as those that may come to bear on scientific, political, social, and moral debate in the future.

Molecular nanotechnology is one example of a new technology for which moral implications are relatively unaddressed. Nanotech could be used to create agents to control organic processes at cellular and molecular levels. In another compelling example, genetic engineering has the power to select specific phenotype traits in embryos, generate some forms of human tissues, and code for aspects of cellular behavior; its potential applications range broadly, from coding of pharmaceutical agents specific to a person's genomic type to synthesis of new organisms or even human cloning. Similarly, developments in artificial intelligence and wearable computers blur the definitions both of "intelligence" and of what it means to be human. Combinations of technologies could facilitate diverse outcomes, such as creation of cyborgs (part-biological and part-technological beings) or the nanotechnological disposal of pollutants or curing of diseases.

Though the outcomes epitomized in science fiction literature may or may not come to fruition, the fact remains that extant and potential scientific discoveries and technologies deserve and require intensive ethical explorations. Just as some of these developments are at the interstices of multiple scientific fields, we must explore the their ethical ramifications so that we may assess how individuals, society, and the world will most benefit from these advances.

The proposed working research group will study the capabilities of current and anticipated future technologies, with a focus on ethical issues that their use may engender. This exploration seeks to (1) facilitate a clear understanding of current social and policy questions; (2) begin to lay the framework for a moral, ideological, political and social analysis of potential new technologies; and (3) identify questions for future study.

GOALS

As indicated previously, the working research group on "Ethics, Technology, and Utopian Visions" seeks to:

1.      facilitate a clear understanding of current personal, social, and policy questions related to new technologies;

2.      begin to lay the framework for a moral, ideological, political and social analysis of potential new technologies; and

3.      identify questions for further exploration.

            The overarching goal of this working research group is to bring together a diverse population of academic and professional experts on issues that relate, either directly or indirectly, to the scientific, social, and ethical implications of new technologies. Possible outcomes from this group might include a written document, a published article or book, a symposium, policy recommendations, or guidelines for evaluating ethical implications of new technologies. This group will seek to explore the themes of what it means to be human, what our technological knowledge can and might be able to contribute to the human condition, and what an understanding of the ethical questions surrounding the new technologies has to offer to both human identity and the world in which we now live.

LEADERS

Nick Bostrom, PhD, is a Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy, Yale University

Dr. Bostrom's research interests spans multiple disciplines. He has been doing work in the foundations of probability theory and has developed the first mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects (Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy, Routledge, New York, 2002). This award-winning piece of work has important applications in cosmology, evolution theory, game theory, traffic analysis, and other fields. Bostrom is also a leading light in transhumanism, the study of how anticipated technologies (such as nanotechnology and artificial intelligence) can be used to overcome some of our current biological limitations. He has written extensively on this and related topics in ethics and technology policy. He is a co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association, and he appears frequently as a commentator on technological developments in television and in other media.

In addition to his work in philosophy of science and ethics, Dr. Bostrom has published refereed papers in computational neuroscience and in physics. He obtained his PhD from the London School of Economics in July 2000. For further information, please visit his homepage at http://www.nickbostrom.com.

Bonnie Kaplan, PhD, is a Lecturer at the Yale Center for Medical Informatics and a member of Yale University's Interdisciplinary Bioethics Project, a Senior Scientist at Boston University's Medical Information Systems Unit, and President of Kaplan Associates.

Dr. Kaplan is an authority on people's reactions to new technologies in health care and the author of more than 45 refereed papers and invited papers as well as numerous other articles and publications. Her contributions have been recognized by her appointment as chair of the International Medical Informatics Association Working Group on Organizational and Social Issues, her recipient of the President's Award of the American Medical Informatics Association, and her election as a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.

Dr. Kaplan has taught a variety of information systems courses in business administration and hospital administration programs at several universities. She holds a PhD in History, with a specialization in History of Science, from the University of Chicago. Her CV maybe found at http://ycmi.med.yale.edu/people/kaplan.html

QUESTIONS

Key Question: What can be done to maximize the chances that humans will benefit from, rather than be harmed by, new developments? 

Goal: Greater definition, clarity, and ethical consideration by examining important issues and identifying questions for future study, including:

1.        ethical standards by which to judge "improvement of the human condition"

2.        how posthumans or superintelligent machines would treat humans who aren’t augmented.  How humans will treat these beings.  How other sentient and non-sentient creatures will/should be treated.

3.        the human place in the universe, with respect to with non-humans  (e.g. human-animal, human-machine, human-alien life forms, human-cyborg relationships).

4.        what it means to be human,  transhuman,  posthuman

5.        what values should be incorporated into future artificial intelligences

6.        what happens to one's identity when drugs, devices, genetic, and nanotechnological interventions are used

7.        what choices are possible and how might new developments and new policies be influenced

8.        future scenarios of humankind: ethics, policy, and  technology

9.        ethical issues in medical and health informatics

10.     bioethical themes in literature and film

11.     humanoids in fact and imagination

12.     studies of human relationships with machines

13.     philosophy and intelligence

14.     transhumanism: its history, current status, and future

15.     the idea of "human"

16.     science, technology, and utopian/apocalyptic visions

17.     technology and the changing nature of warfare

18.     social studies of science and technology

19.     the improvability of individuals and society through science and technology

20.     the debate about technological determinism and its implications for policy

21.     individual vs societal vs global levels of decision making

22.     morphological freedom, i.e., one's freedom over one's body

23.     how rights, legal theory, and policy can take account of new scientific and technological developments

24.     whether current principles apply to micro-scale and macro-scale intelligences and life forms, potential beings, and constituents of such beings

25.     moral status and decision-making power of artificial intelligences and beings

26.     the role of a physical body in identity and intelligence

TOPICS

Superintelligence: whether, when, how, and why

Nanotechnology: technological potential and policy issues

The “singularity” hypothesis

Global security

Transparency vs. Privacy

Pharmaceutical enrichment of emotions?

Technological determinism

Life-extension

Long-term prospects

Computers and Humanity

Dystopias and critiques of progress or automation

Better decision-making

The Transhumanist view

SUGGESTED SPEAKERS

Sherry Turkle, MIT: Computers and the Human Spirit

Kenneth Goodman, University of Miami: Ethical Issues in Medical Informatics

Robin Hanson, George Mason State University: Economics and Polymath

Vernor Vinge, California State University: Science Fiction, Mathematics

Vincent Brannigan, University of Maryland: Technology and New Legal Rights

Marge Piercy, author and poet: Golems, Artificial Intelligence, and Utopian Visions

D. Allan Bromley, Yale University: Science, Technology, and Policy

Naomi Rogers, Yale University, cyborgs and feminist theory

Moshe Idel, Hebrew University:  The Golem and Jewish traditions on the artificial anthropoid

POSSIBLE ACTIVITIES

RESOURCES

* Superintelligence: whether, when, how, and why

- Alan M. Turing. “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Mind, Vol. 59, No. 236, pp. 433-460 http://www.oxy.edu/departments/cog-sci/courses/1998/cs101/texts/Computing-machinery.html

- Searle, John R. 1980. “Minds, Brains, and Programs”, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3, 417-457.

- Churchland, Paul, and Patricia Smith Churchland. 1990. "Could a machine think?" Scientific American 262(1, January): 32-39.

- Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. 1942. http://members.evansville.net/bob/robots/laws.html

- Isaac Asimov, 1950. I, Robot. Gnome Press.

- Hans Moravec, 1998. Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind. Oxford University Press.

- Nick Bostrom, 1998. “How long before superintelligence?” International Journal of Future Studies, Vol, 2. http://www.nickbostrom.com/superintelligence.html

- Ray Kurzweil, 2000. The Age of Spiritual Machines. Penguin.

- Eliezer Yudkowsky, 2001. "Creating Friendly AI". http://www.singinst.org/CFAI/index.html

*Nanotechnology: technological potential and policy issues

- Karl E. Drexler, 1985. Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. New York: Doubleday. http://www.foresight.org/EOC/

- R. Merkle, 1994. “The Molecular Repair of the Brain”. Cryonics, Vol. 15, Issues 1&2. http://www.merkle.com/cryo/techFeas.html

*The “singularity” hypothesis

- Vernor Vinge, 1993. "The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era". Whole Earth Review, Winter issue. http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html

- Robin Hanson (ed.), "A Critical Discussion of Vinge's Singularity Concept" http://www.extropy.org/eo/articles/vi.html

*Global security

- Nick Bostrom, 2001. "Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards" http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html

- Bill Joy. 2000. Why the future doesn't need us. Wired 8.04 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html

- Marc Gubrud, 2001. "Nanotechnology and International Security" http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Papers/Gubrud/index.html

- Karl E. Drexler, 1985. Engines of Creation: The coming era of nanotechnology. New York: Doubleday. The chapter “Engines of Destruction” http://www.foresight.org/EOC/

- Foresight Institute, 2001. "Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology". http://www.foresight.org/guidelines/current.html

- CIA Report, 2000. Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future with Nongovernment Experts. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/globaltrends2015/

*Transparency vs. Privacy

- David Brin, 1998. The Transparent Society. Addison-Wesley.

- Arthur Kantrowitz, 1989. “The Weapon of Openness.” Foresight Background, No. 4. http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Background4.html

*Pharmaceutical enrichment of emotions

- David Pearce, "The Hedonistic Imperative". http://www.hedweb.com/hedab.htm

*Technological determinism

- Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx, eds., 1994. Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.

*Life-extension

- Robert Ettinger,  1964. "The Prospect of Immortality". Doubleday, New York. http://www.cryonics.org/book1.html

- James Hughes, 2001. The Future of Death: Cryonics and the Telos of Liberal Individualism. Journal of Evolution and Technology, vol. 6. http://www.transhumanist.com/archive.html#6

- Nick Bostrom Against Aging. Script for Heart of the Matter, BBC 1 Television, 5/3/00. http://www.nickbostrom.com/aging/aging.html

*Long-term prospects

- Robin Hanson, "The Great Filter". http://hanson.gmu.edu/greatfilter.html

*Computers and Humanity

- Sherry Turkle, 1984.  The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. Simon & Schuster, New York.

- Joseph Weizenbaum, 1976. Computer Power and Human Reason.  WH Freeman, San Francisco

*Dystopias and critiques of progress or automation

- Aldous Huxley, 1932. Brave New World

- David Pearce, 1998. “Brave New World? A Defense of Paradise Engineering”. http://www.huxley.net/.

- James Lehman, 2001. “On Becoming Redundant or What Computers Shouldn’t Do”. Journal of Applied Ethics, Vol. 18, No. 1.

- Mary Shelly, 1831. Frankenstein. http://www.georgetown.edu/irvinemj/english016/franken/franken.htm

- Harry Braverman, 1974. Labor and Monopoly Capital. NY: Monthly Review

Press. 

- Paul Attewell, 1987. "The deskilling controversy.  Work and Occupations 14:323-46.

- Rob Kling and Suzanne Iacono, 1988. “The mobilization of support for

computerization: the role of computerization movements.”  Social Problems

34:366-43.

- Karl Čapek, 1921. Rossum’s Universal Robots

- Jack Williamson, 1947. “With Folded Hands”. Astounding Science Fiction, Vol. XXXIX, No. 5, July

- Robert Nozick , 1974. On ‘The experience machine’ In Anarchy, State and Utopia, pp. 42-43.

*Better decision-making

- Robin Hanson, 1995. "Could gambling save science?" Social Epistemology, 9:1, pp. 3-33. http://hanson.gmu.edu/gamble.html

*The Transhumanist view

- Nick Bostrom (ed.), 1999. "The Transhumanist FAQ". http://www.transhumanist.org/

- Nick Bostrom, 2002. “Towards transhumanist ethics.” http://www.nickbostrom.com

- Robert Ettinger, 1972. Man Into Superman. http://www.cryonics.org/contents2.html

FILMS