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Who will decide on new technologies?

  
 
astrojax69
22:37 / 11.07.05
went to the adelaide festival of ideas last week and, among many other stimulating sessions, i heard susan greenfield speak on new technologies emanating from the cyber age (my words, not hers) she spoke of neurons being grown on silicon chips and the possibilities of the merging of these technologies - we are the first generation who really have the capacity to ask how we want to live.

implants can allow a quadraplegic to move a cursor by thought; potentially implants could allow us to receive our e-mails directly into the brain (woe betide spammers who are caught!) and the boundaries between silicon and carbon as 'life forms' are being eroded. there is a lot of 'frankenstein' potential, but of course, we have long been extending our brains outside our bodies (from language, to maps, to diaries & who among us remembers every no. plugged into our mobile phones?)

where will the new technologies take us? and, importantly, who will decide for our communities, for society, which parts of the potentials -cloning, genuine a.i., brain implants, etc - we want to develop and which we abhor?

i asked susan and a sociologist chatting after her session whether we need a new discipline to decide these questions. is science best placed? prob'ly not, as it does not historically see the cultural aspects of itself very well (and probably nor should it) and are the ol disciplines, like sociology and philosophy best placed?

the sociologist was adamant that 'the old disciplines, of course!' should decide, but is there scope for a new discipline to meld the scientific rigour with the cultural sympathies and the philosophical nuances to allow society to discuss the potential of these emerging technologies?
 
 
Jack Fear
23:48 / 11.07.05
The discipline that will decide is the discipline that has always determined the development of new technologies: economics.
 
 
astrojax69
03:27 / 12.07.05
yeah, but it never discusses it!!
 
 
Jack Fear
10:24 / 12.07.05
Fuck that. Market first, ask questions later. Economics is a science of action, not introspection.

Seriously, though—the question betrays a fundamental research of how hard-science research works. You don't start with the ethical considerations, you start with a problem, or—as is more likely—a market. A desire. (And desire is the right word: sex is the secret engine that drives much of technological innovation, second only to warfare.)

Research only asks Can we? not Should we?

Those questions do get asked, of course, but only after the fact—after there's a problem. That's why the history of man's relationship with his technology is a long catalog of trying to put the genie back into the bottle.

The question is: Is this the right way to do it? That is, do we need sociologists and ethicists further up the chain—shaping research, nudging it in socially-productive directions, saying "Don't do that, do this instead"? Or should we just let scientists do what they do, and sort out the social implications afterwards?
 
 
Quantum
11:35 / 12.07.05
Have to agree that in our capitalist driven research climate, funding dictates what gets investigated, and only moneymaking directions really get funded (cancer research for example). How else could that work?

I agree with the idealist vision of a 'World Council of Ethical Science' directing research as something to move toward, but there are a host of problems. What criteria should they apply? How would they prevent rogue discoveries from being made? Would it drive research underground? (I'm seeing a dark future where Ethics Board mercenaries storm the underground corporate labs to smash the horrific illegal biotech experiments...)

Additionally, the benefits of discoveries are often unexpected and unforeseeable (research into petroleum waste products produced the plastics industry for example) so to decide in advance what to research is to decide blind to some extent.

I think a new discipline to sort through the cyber possibilities is unnecessary- we have sci-fi writers for that. The next best thing would be forward-looking legiuslation from the international community, and I'm pretty sure we get that- I think there are already laws on human cloning and nanotech for example.
 
 
Lurid Archive
15:29 / 12.07.05
The discipline that will decide is the discipline that has always determined the development of new technologies: economics.

I'm not sure I agree with that. I think it is politicians that these days decide on at least some research. We have to be clear what we mean here. The short term development of technology is driven by industry, for sure, and mostly takes existing knowledge and tries to make money out of it. You can argue that that is money driven.

The sorts of research that happens at universities, however, isn't always so clearly funded because of the profit motive. There is a certain amount of research that has no clear medium term pay off that is funded by governments. So while the design of the newest Intel chip is driven by something like economics, the development of the quantum mechanics that makes such things possible was not.

You don't start with the ethical considerations, you start with a problem, or—as is more likely—a market.

Maybe. People also choose research areas and problems *because* of ethical considerations. On the other hand, as long as someone - a company or a government - throws money at an unethical area of research, it is quite likely that you will find people to do it.

This perhaps makes little difference in the end, but I think it changes the emphasis on who is actually deciding about the direction research should take - scientists themselves aren't the only people, nor even always the most influential people, in making these decisions.
 
 
Psi-L is working in hell
08:21 / 18.07.05
I agree with Lurid. I'm not sure that economics is the only driver of technology...maybe more so in the private sector, but certainly in the public sector in the UK, the research priorities for university research are a mixture of basic and applied goals.

is there scope for a new discipline to meld the scientific rigour with the cultural sympathies and the philosophical nuances to allow society to discuss the potential of these emerging technologies?

There is the growing discipline of Science and Technology Studies (STS), which since the 60's has brought together both the older disciplines of history, philosophy, anthropology and sociology together with scientists to study exactly the questions you raised in your post astrojax. Some of the more applied aspects of the discipline such as Constructive Technology Assessment, which is the real-time discussion of the political, social and technical implications and directions of a new technology are starting to be experimented with by some governments. It's worth checking out work by Arie Rip or Daniel Sarewitz. There's a paper for those of you that are interested by Sarewitz on real-time technology assessment with respect to nanotechnology here.

Nanotechnology in the UK is perhaps a good example of how governments are coming round to the idea that scientists or economists alone will not necessarily direct technology in the most socially acceptable manner. So whilst the govenment has committed huge amounts of money towards nano research, it has also explicitly committed itself to undertaking social research to ensure that the public, scientists, economists etc are involved in continuous discussions alongside the development of the technology to ensure that social, ethical, political implications are at least heard, and could potentially help to shape the technology itself. Along this same route, Cambridge University's Nano Centre has even employed a sociologist to work alongside the scientists as they develop the technology, partly to give some idea of the way those scientists themselves shape technology with their own implicit social world views, but mainly to help the scientists to consider the social and ethical implications of their work and to find ways of discussing their work with the public.

So whilst economics is still a large driver of technology, there are moves afoot to redress this balance I think, at least in the UK. The contoversies over BSE and GM foods in this country have made the government and industry both wake up to the fact that public support for new technology is not always forthcoming, thus market success is not guaranteed...these moves are small granted and all still very experimental, but its a start.
 
  
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