NETFUTURE
Technology and Human Responsibility
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Issue #145 May 20, 2003
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A Publication of The Nature Institute
Editor: Stephen L. Talbott (stevet@netfuture.org)
On the Web: http://www.netfuture.org/
You may redistribute this newsletter for noncommercial purposes.
Can we take responsibility for technology, or must we sleepwalk
in submission to its inevitabilities? NetFuture is a voice for
responsibility. It depends on the generosity of those who support
its goals. To make a contribution, click here.
CONTENTS
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Editor's Note
Quotes and Provocations
Of Factory Farms and the Master Race
Monkeys and Computer Hygiene
Is There a Gene for Famine Relief?
Tech Knowledge Revue (Langdon Winner)
Science policy and the push for nanotechnology
Announcements and Resources
Technosapiens Conference
DEPARTMENTS
About this newsletter
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EDITOR'S NOTE
On April 9, NetFuture columnist Langdon Winner testified before the
congressional Committee on Science in Washington, D.C. He had been asked
to speak about nanotechnology and science policy. We present the abridged
text of his testimony below.
A crucial part of Langdon's testimony was a recommendation for the
formation of citizen advisory panels of the sort the Loka Institute
(http://www.loka.org) has so effectively advocated in recent years. On
May 9 Langdon sent me this update:
Well, much to everybody's surprise, my modest proposal to Congress --
to institute citizens panels as one way to assess the societal and
ethical dimensions of nanotechnology -- actually made it into the
nanotech bill that passed the House of Representatives last Wednesday.
If the present language about citizens panels in H.R. 766 survives the
rest of the legislative process, it would be a small but nonetheless
important step toward democratizing science and technology policy-
making in the U.S.
The House bill authorizes $2.36 billion over three years for
nanotechnology research and development -- this at a time of extreme
budget stress. Nanotechnology, like microelectronics, biotechnology, and
networked computing in previous decades, is seen as the next big thing
and, in the childish language of American politicians, "It is imperative
that in the race, the U.S. must be first across the finish line" (Rep.
Mike Honda, D-CA). According to another congressman, Nick Smith (R-MI),
nanotechnology will provide us with "new and exciting products that will
improve our lives in many ways". (Didn't he steal that line from
somewhere? An old asbestos commercial, maybe?)
The House committee's news release offers no cautionary word whatever.
For that, you will have to read Langdon's testimony.
SLT
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QUOTES AND PROVOCATIONS
Of Factory Farms and the Master Race
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Factory farms today pack thousands or tens of thousands of animals into
the narrowest possible spaces, where they live a miserable life cut off
from their natural environment, denied the normal expression of their
instincts, and subjected to extraordinary cruelty. The facts have been
sufficiently publicized to enlighten every citizen who does not prefer
ignorance. Yet the factories and the suffering remain.
We've lately been hearing of the potential for genetic engineering to rid
the animals of their bothersome natural instincts -- or even of their
susceptibility to pain -- in order to make them more adaptable to factory
life. In the end, it appears, we'll have factories where the treatment of
living animals verges upon a huge tissue-culturing operation.
We are, in other words, becoming to the animal kingdom exactly what the
ruling machines are to the factory-farmed humans in The Matrix.
I have long argued that the primary threat of the computer is an internal
one. The machine-in-us steadily consolidates its power, following a kind
of inverse Moore's law that graphs our loss of higher capacities and
sensitivities. Self-recognition seems to be among the losses. While
titillating ourselves en masse upon frightful cinematic images of a master
race of machines, we fail to notice how these images arise from within
ourselves and reflect the truth to be found there.
Related article:
"The Pigs of Iowa" by Lowell Monke in NF #114:
http://www.netfuture.org/2000/Nov3000_114.html
Monkeys and Computer Hygiene
----------------------------
You've heard about the hypothetical team of monkeys laboring over
typewriters and eventually producing the complete works of Shakespeare.
This, as you'll recall, is claimed to illustrate the kind of higher wisdom
that, given the right supportive mechanisms, can emerge from random
processes, including the random mutations supposedly involved in
evolution.
Well, it was bound to happen: researchers at Plymouth University in
England have given some monkeys -- six Sulawesi crested macaques, to be
specific -- a computer for typing. The one-month progress report is now
in, and we're still waiting for the first word to be typed. The monkeys
do use the keyboard at times, but seem to prefer the letter S -- long
strings of S's in fact. Toward the end of the month they struck a few
A's, J's, L's and M's. Most of all, though, they seem to enjoy urinating
and defecating on the keyboard.
Which makes me wonder: do you think there might be something to this
"higher wisdom" business after all?
Is There a Gene for Famine Relief?
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In a review of a book by geneticist James Watson (Science, Apr. 18,
2003), Susan Lindee touches on the question of famine. Noting that
famines result not only from inadequate food supplies but also from
economic systems, she goes on to say:
People can starve when the grain elevators are full; they can have
enough to eat when crop yields are disastrous. India, for example, has
in recent years faced dual crises of both overproduction of food and
profound malnutrition. By December 2000, millions of tons of wheat and
rice stocks were rotting in India's granaries, while 1.5 million
children were dying annually of diseases linked to malnutrition.
Promoters of genetically modified organisms often claim that anyone
opposed to transgenic crops is turning a blind eye to the needs of
those who are starving. But the anthropologist Glenn Davis Stone has
suggested that the real moral outrage is the strategic use of hungry
people to justify corporate programs to develop these crops.
"Malthusian biotechnologists need to explain why crop genetic
modification will feed hungry Indians when 41.2 million tons of excess
grain will not".
Actually, one wonders whether the grain isn't itself a symptom of the
underlying problems. Such excesses tend to occur where you have the
heavy-handed industrialization of agriculture, with its dislocation of
millions of people, much-too-sudden disruption of traditional patterns of
life, loss of local self-reliance, and reduction of dietary diversity.
In any case, Lindee's comments further support the argument Craig Holdrege
and I made a couple of years ago in NetFuture #108, "Golden Genes and
World Hunger":
http://www.netfuture.org/2000/Jul0600_108.html
It's nice to see this kind of awareness making it into the pages of a
journal like Science.
SLT
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SCIENCE POLICY AND THE PUSH FOR NANOTECHNOLOGY
Langdon Winner
(winner@rpi.edu)
TECH KNOWLEDGE REVUE
3.1 May 20, 2003
The following is an abridgment of testimony Langdon Winner delivered
before the congressional Committee on Science in Washington, D.C., on
April 9, 2003.
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Nanotechnology is an emerging technology with enormous potential to alter
our way of life in decades ahead. It is by no means the first emerging
technology to generate sweeping changes in society and the environment,
nor will it be the last.
If one looks at previous episodes of technological transformation, it
becomes clear how crucial it is to ask: Who gets to define what the
transformation will involve? Typically, what happens is that the
promoters of a new technology, those with the most to gain in the short
run, are the ones who speak first and most loudly. They predict a wide
range of practical benefits -- new products, services, efficiencies,
improvements of all kinds. Indeed, they usually proclaim that there is a
revolution just around the corner, one that will alter society for the
better, making us wealthier, wiser, more democratic, and stronger in
community bonds.
Often the promoters try a clever ploy, announcing that the changes on the
horizon are "inevitable," beyond anyone's power to guide or significantly
alter. In advertisements, World's Fairs exhibitions, and public relations
campaigns, proclamations of inevitability have long been standard themes.
In contrast, those who have concerns about the technology and its ultimate
outcomes tend to speak later and more hesitantly. It is common for those
who raise questions about the new devices to be denounced as irrational,
unscientific and even anti-technology. Rachel Carson's modest report in
The Silent Spring about the environmental destruction caused by the use
of chemical pesticides brought heated denials from the chemical industry
and attacks on Ms. Carson's credentials (even though she was a noted
scientist) and flagrant efforts to destroy her reputation. Of course, we
now think of Rachel Carson as a hero, one able to focus our society's
awareness of environmental problems and solutions. But as she raised her
voice, calling our attention to the consequences of spreading poisons
through the environment, she was derided as ill-informed, an enemy of
progress.
Recurring episodes of this kind show why it is important to open the
discussion about emerging technologies to the light of day, and to do this
sooner, rather than later, in the process of planning, development and
application.
The claim that a particular development is "inevitable" is particularly
unhelpful in this regard. It suggests that people who have recently
become aware of potentially significant changes to their way of life have
no legitimate role in the negotiations. After all, who would be so
foolish as to make suggestions when faced with the "inevitable"? As the
motto of the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago informed visitors, "Science
Finds - Industry Applies - Man Conforms."
Nuclear Power and Biotechnology
-------------------------------
All too often those who try to shepherd new technologies into being adopt
strategies that cripple the processes through which consensus, coalition,
and balanced choices might arise. This strategy can backfire, producing
unhappy surprises.
This was certainly the case in the development of nuclear power in the
United States. For many years plans were made by talented but inward-
looking elites in government, business and the military who thought they
knew best what the public should want. They regaled the populace with
lovely propaganda about "the friendly atom" and "electricity too cheap to
meter," but avoided going public about serious problems that the insiders
knew about -- the real costs of the plant, safety issues involved in their
design, and the problem of nuclear waste disposal.
When these deeper problems finally did surface powerfully in the 1970s and
1980s, the social coalition that proponents of nuclear power hoped would
support them suddenly collapsed. The building of nuclear power plants in
the U.S. was halted, possibly forever.
Another episode of technological backfire, one perhaps more relevant to
the rise of nanotechnology, is evident in the crisis that now surrounds
biotechnology. Once again, the social coalition of support, neglected or
even scorned as biotech development moved ahead, has now evaporated in key
areas of application. For reasons they find entirely sensible, nations in
the European Union now refuse to buy genetically modified foods from the
U.S. In a similar way, faced with severe famine, Zambia has refused to
accept GMO corn, even as a charitable gift.
What this suggests is that the failure to provide open, thorough and
honest attention to the broader social, political and cultural contexts
that influence the acceptance or rejection of emerging technologies can
lead to disaster. Late in the process, it does little good to tell those
who are unwilling that they're being irrational or that there is something
woefully defective in their culture (not ours). To paraphrase the great
American philosopher, Yogi Berra: If people don't want to adopt your
better mousetrap, nobody's going to stop them.
Nanotech Worries
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Nearly two decades after the publication of Eric Drexler's Engines of
Creation, a number of concerns about nanotechnology are finally
attracting wide attention.
A recurring nightmare is that promised inventions in self-replicating
systems might escape the boundaries originally established for them and
begin to wreak havoc. As novelist Michael Crichton recently commented,
"Imagine a mass of tiny computers, each smaller than a speck of dust,
programmed to fly in a cloud over a country like Iraq and send back
pictures. Imagine the computers begin to evolve and the aggregate cloud
becomes a death-dealing swarm that threatens mankind -- a mechanical
plague."
Others hear about ambitious proposals to employ nanotechnology and other
"convergent" technologies to create (decades from now) a race of
posthumans. Those not yet persuaded that this is "inevitable" wonder
whether it's a good idea to seek to divide the human species in this
manner and whether public funds should be spent on such ghoulish research.
Another persistent concern is that the rise of this field will not, as
promised, be of general social benefit, but will simply amplify trends
long under way -- the concentration of wealth and power in the the U.S.
and around the globe. Historically speaking, predictions that the latest
and greatest technology will equalize wealth and opportunity have usually
proven false, a fact that never deters boosters of the "next big thing"
from promising that this time (!) the economic and social developments
will be universally shared.
Faced with the various possibilities described in writings about this new
field of research, I must admit that I know too little to judge the
likelihood of various scenarios, both optimistic and pessimistic. Indeed,
I doubt that anyone has this knowledge at present. Rather than play
Cassandra (or Norman Vincent Peale), I would simply note three overriding
questions that ought to be considered as our society decides which
proposals for nanotechnology research are worth sponsoring.
Domination or Cooperation?
--------------------------
Should we continue long-standing efforts to conquer and dominate nature
rather than seek harmony with natural structures and processes?
During the past two centuries, the desire to conquer nature has often
seemed synonymous with progress. Dam the rivers, drain the swamps,
harvest the forests, and bring all plants and animals under human control
-- such counsel seemed eminently sensible. More recently, however, as
some unhappy consequences of this ham-fisted approach have surfaced, many
scientists, engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs have affirmed that
seeking harmony with nature is a more promising technological and economic
approach.
Unfortunately, this recognition seems to have escaped the enthusiasts of
nanotechnology for whom the prospect of conquering nature right down to
the last molecule and atom seems positively invigorating. It appears that
God's creation is, alas, not all that it should be. Fortunately, it can
now be refashioned by a new generation of godlike spirits who live in
Cambridge, Palo Alto, the Research Triangle, and other concentrations of
high-tech brilliance. Thus, the peculiar values of the American middle
class, so exquisitely realized in Happy Meals, SUV's, $200 Nike sneakers,
and botox wrinkle treatments, will now be read into the smallest crevasses
of the material universe. This is something to look forward to.
All of it occurs at a time in which it should be clear that strategies for
dominating nature through brute force have failed repeatedly. For
example, the creation of larger, technically more sophisticated fishing
boats with better and better ways to track and catch fish has brought
astonishing returns. Although it was a difficult battle and took many
years to complete, we have finally conquered the Atlantic cod. The poor
creature has not raised the white flag. It is simply disappearing from
the nets and from the nation's supply of healthy protein.
I understand the obsession with dominating nature and the desire for power
and wealth it reflects. These tendencies are a dreary, but recurring
presence in modern life. Nevertheless, it is still worth inquiring: Why
should American taxpayers be asked to subsidize ever more systematic
assaults on the natural realm? If they knew the kinds of projects
sometimes proposed in this domain, how would they feel about them?
At present we see a wide range of scientific and technological strategies
that try to work closely with nature rather than impose imperial
dominance. It is interesting that these programs -- ones that stress
"natural capitalism," "green design" "biomimicry," and "sustainable
economy" -- point to a new industrial revolution, but one quite different
from the revolution described by proponents of nanotechnology. Is it
possible that the rush to nanotech will come into conflict with efforts to
create a socially harmonious, ecological sustainable future? That
prospect seems entirely likely.
Means, Ends, and Pandora's Box
------------------------------
A second question is this: Should we actively promote a path of
development in which technical means become the driving forces that shape
social ends?
The unfolding of nanotechnology may become yet another instance of a
familiar phenomenon in which powerful techniques emerge from the lab and
then go looking for uses. This pattern defies common-sense understandings
of the proper relationship between human ends and technical means.
In the common-sense sequence, one begins by asking: What are our needs?
What fundamental purposes define our inquiries? After the basic social
ends have been clarified, compared, debated, and evaluated, we then move
on to make choices among existing means, including newly developed
technical devices.
As one reads reports coming from scientists and policy makers interested
in nanotechnology, one does not see the common-sense ends/means thinking
at work. There seems little willingness to ask: What are society's basic
needs at present? What goals define our sense of well-being going
forward?
What we find instead is a kind of opportunistic means-to-ends logic.
Researchers and institutions interested in doing molecular- and atomic-
scale engineering scan the horizon to see what opportunities might be
identified as justifications for public funding and private investment.
Thus, enterprising nanotechnologists notice applications that might
deliver medical doses tailored to specific cells. Looking at the sheer
size of the Department of Defense budget, other nanotech promoters imagine
how the technology might provide new weapons and other devices to the
military. Yes, there's always a lot of money in that. Others catch on to
this lucrative game and say, well, perhaps research on a range of nanotech
applications could help the elderly or people with disabilities.
In sum, what we see here are tools that evolve quickly in response to a
variety of internal research priorities and then go opportunistically
looking for things to do. And, of course, one can always find something.
I am pleased that Congress is prepared to offer support for study of the
societal and ethical dimensions of an important new field of scientific
and technical research. But I fear that the manner in which the work is
done will reproduce the kind of backwards logic that has shaped far too
much of American technological development in recent decades. It is a
logic that justifies the creation of a wide range of flashy new gadgets
but cannot be bothered to examine the most urgent facts about the human
condition in our time.
Thirdly: Is it wise to experiment with technological applications likely
to produce irreversible effects?
As a general matter, technologies should be judged superior if the
consequences of their use are reversible. Some common projections about
the outcomes of nanotechnology point to effects that could never be
recalled from the environment or from the species with which nano-systems
interact. As we scope out the possibilities here, we need to ask: Would
particular paths of research and development risk opening Pandora's box?
If so, how can present policies help eliminate that menace?
Citizens as Policy Advisers
---------------------------
Clearly, there is need to initiate systematic studies of the social and
ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. We need broad-ranging, detailed,
intellectually rigorous inquiries conducted by persons who have no
financial or institutional stake that might skew the questions raised or
constrain the answers proposed.
Studies of this kind could be launched in a number of ways, including
funding truly cross-disciplinary programs in universities to scope out key
issues and policy alternatives. But I would not advise you to pass a
Nanoethicist Full Employment Act, sponsoring the creation of a new
profession. Although the new academic research in this area would be of
some value, there is also a tendency for those who conduct research about
the ethical dimensions of emerging technology to gravitate toward the more
comfortable, even trivial questions involved, avoiding issues that might
become a focus of conflict. The professional field of bioethics, for
example, (which might become, alas, a model for nanoethics) has a great
deal to say about many fascinating things, but people in this profession
rarely say "no."
Indeed, there is a tendency for career-conscious social scientists and
humanists to become a little too cozy with researchers in science and
engineering, telling them exactly what they want to hear (or what scholars
think the scientists want to hear). Evidence of this trait appears in
what are often trivial exercises in which potentially momentous social
upheavals are greeted with arcane, highly scholastic rationalizations.
How many theorists of "intellectual property" can dance on the head of a
pin?
One way to avoid the drift toward moral and political triviality is to
encourage social scientists and philosophers to present their findings in
forums in which people from business, the laboratories, environmental
organizations, churches, and other groups can join the discussion. It is
time to reject the idea that there are only a few designated stakeholders
qualified to evaluate possibilities, manage risks, and guide technology
toward beneficial outcomes.
Examples of technology policy steered by narrowly interested technical
elites can be found in America's systems of medicine. For several
decades, research and development have produced ever more exotic, high-
tech treatments that help propel costs of health care to dizzying levels.
Following this path, according to the Word Health Organization, the U.S.
ranks only 24th in the quality of medical care actually delivered to its
populace.
For many decades, there has been a tendency in government-funded research
and development to exclude the participation of those who are the ultimate
stakeholders -- the general public. Yet citizens pay the bills for the
work unfolding; they and their children and grandchildren will be the ones
to experience the ultimate outcomes, good or bad.
Why not include the public in deliberations about nanotechnology early on
in the process rather than after the products reach the market?
In that light, I believe Congress should seek to create ways in which
small panels of ordinary, disinterested citizens, selected in much the way
that we now choose juries in cases of law, be assembled to examine
important societal issues about nanotechnology. The panels would study
relevant documents, hear expert testimony from those doing the research,
listen to arguments about technical applications and consequences
presented by various sides, deliberate on their findings, and offer policy
advice. It is possible that the news media would find these citizen
panels a fascinating topic to cover.
To begin, one might ask citizen panels to explore two highly relevant
questions:
Will proposed paths for the military application of nanotechnology make us
safer or not?
Would projected uses of nanotechnology in industry tend to create jobs or
eliminate them?
There is now a lively research program within the National Science
Foundation -- Social Dimensions of Engineering, Science, & Technology --
that funds experimental citizen panels of the sort I am describing. I
would suggest that Congress build upon these fruitful experiments and
specify (perhaps in the present legislation) citizen panels as one way to
inform public debate about the societal and ethical dimensions of
nanotechnology.
These days we often hear how important it is to be innovative in emerging
technical fields. Here is a way that Congress could be truly innovative
-- creating possibilities for citizen stakeholders to join in the study
and evaluation of new technologies.
---------------------
Tech Knowledge Revue is produced at the Chatham Center for Advanced Study,
339 Bashford Road, North Chatham, NY 12132. Langdon Winner can be reached
at: winner@rpi.edu and at his Web page: http://www.rpi.edu/~winner .
Copyright Langdon Winner 2003. Distributed as part of NetFuture:
http://www.netfuture.org/. You may redistribute this article for
noncommercial purposes, with this notice attached.
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ANNOUNCEMENTS AND RESOURCES
Technosapiens Conference
------------------------
I'll be delivering an invited address at a conference on technology,
ethics, and the future, to be held September 19 - 20, 2003, in Oakland.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Bioethics and Culture, the Council for
Biotechnology Policy, and the Institute for Business, Technology and
Ethics, the event is (rather awkwardly) entitled, "The Face of the Future:
Technosapiens? (Beyond Bio - Nanotech, Cybernetics, and the Future of the
Human Race)".
Other speakers include:
** Nigel M. de S. Cameron, executive chairman of the Center for Bioethics
and Culture, and director of the Council for Biotechnology Policy
** Richard Hayes, executive director of the Center for Genetics and
Society in Oakland.
** C. Christopher Hook, Director of Ethics Education, Mayo Clinic
** William Hurlbut, Stanford University, member of President's Council on
Bioethics
** C. Ben Mitchell, editor of Ethics and Medicine and fellow with
the Council for Biotechnology Policy
** Ted Peters, the Center for Theology and Natural Science
** Christine Peterson, co-founder and president of the Foresight Institute
For more information or to register, go to:
http://www.thecbc.org/exp/conf/str_0309.asp
SLT
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Steve Talbott :: NetFuture #145 :: May 20, 2003
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