I understand that sentiment and philosophy, Mark. Developments in technology that have the potential to result in great harm, foreseen and unforeseen have always come with ethical considerations in advancing and developing them. Splitting the atom, where is the line drawn between good (energy production) and bad (nuclear warheads)? And even the bad may have gradients - was possibly saving the lives of a million soldiers invading Japan by nuking two cities bad or less bad? Treaties, a form of laws between nations, followed the destructive explosions that restricted the advancement and development of splitting atoms for warheads.
And so it is with biotechnology advancement and development. Which cannot be severed from AI advancement and development, both are on a collision course. And the ethical considerations that entails. And what, if any laws could or should be passed that control the advancement and development of those fields. The Precautionary Principle is steeped in ethics.
A discussion of the development of AI technology and the law issue you bring up could easily be substituted in this treatment of Newgenics, biotechnology. This dialogue and exploration into ethical considerations of the development of this type of technology applies to the ethical considerations of AI. These issues have major public policy implications, perhaps rising to the necessity of laws to address them. The power and force of government brought to bear. To ignore the discussion and debate by shutting it down as non-negotiable seems precipitous. Even for libertarians.
Buck v. Bell, American Eugenics, and the Bad Man Test:
Putting Limits on Newgenics in the 21st Century
Minnesota Journal on Law and Inequity, January, 2020
"However, as Aultman points out, typically “ethics lags behind” science, and “this division creates obstacles for serious moral deliberation and critical developments in policy-making involving the social and economic implications of genetic research and technology.”
Maybe we will find that there is too much profit, speed, and power in genomics to keep everyone focused on ethics and morals once someone discovers the secrets to turning humans into non human species or supermen, creating alien life, achieving immortality, or wiping out entire populations with a single genetic tweak, for example. Will conversations about ethics and morality be enough to protect society from its own excitement when that happens, or will a stricter approach be warranted?
For inspiration, we might turn back to Justice Holmes. In The Path of the Law, many years prior to his decision in Buck, Holmes described the study of law as a prediction of how the courts will respond to a given action, and suggested that this is how a “bad man” naturally unconcerned with ethics or morals (and only concerned with whether he will have to pay a fine or go to jail) would approach the law. With this, Holmes laid the foundation for American Legal Realism and gave birth to what would be famously known as the “Bad Man Theory” of the law.
With this “bloodless and detached view of the law,” he may also have left for posterity an important insight into how we might need to restrain those who, like Holmes, Priddy, Strode, or Whitehead, while either not concerned with whether what they are doing is right, or fully believing they are doing the right thing, occasionally make widely consequential, harmful choices in the name of science and the greater good.
How might we go about creating strict boundaries for the Bad Man in the life sciences? At least one commentator, Dr. Shobita Parthasarathy, has suggested using national patent systems as a means of regulating gene editing technology, pointing out that “organizations and individual researchers using CRISPR-Cas9 are already creating licensing agreements that reflect their own moral codes.” In addition, Dr. Parthasarathy points out that the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine have urged for a “stringent oversight” system to ensure that gene editing trials are only used for treatment and prevention of serious disease or disability, though “[t]hese recommendations haven’t yet been translated into legal frameworks or formal governance structures.”"
I understand that sentiment and philosophy, Mark. Developments in technology that have the potential to result in great harm, foreseen and unforeseen have always come with ethical considerations in advancing and developing them. Splitting the atom, where is the line drawn between good (energy production) and bad (nuclear warheads)? And even the bad may have gradients - was possibly saving the lives of a million soldiers invading Japan by nuking two cities bad or less bad? Treaties, a form of laws between nations, followed the destructive explosions that restricted the advancement and development of splitting atoms for warheads.
And so it is with biotechnology advancement and development. Which cannot be severed from AI advancement and development, both are on a collision course. And the ethical considerations that entails. And what, if any laws could or should be passed that control the advancement and development of those fields. The Precautionary Principle is steeped in ethics.
A discussion of the development of AI technology and the law issue you bring up could easily be substituted in this treatment of Newgenics, biotechnology. This dialogue and exploration into ethical considerations of the development of this type of technology applies to the ethical considerations of AI. These issues have major public policy implications, perhaps rising to the necessity of laws to address them. The power and force of government brought to bear. To ignore the discussion and debate by shutting it down as non-negotiable seems precipitous. Even for libertarians.
Buck v. Bell, American Eugenics, and the Bad Man Test:
Putting Limits on Newgenics in the 21st Century
Minnesota Journal on Law and Inequity, January, 2020
https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1622&context=lawineq
"However, as Aultman points out, typically “ethics lags behind” science, and “this division creates obstacles for serious moral deliberation and critical developments in policy-making involving the social and economic implications of genetic research and technology.”
Maybe we will find that there is too much profit, speed, and power in genomics to keep everyone focused on ethics and morals once someone discovers the secrets to turning humans into non human species or supermen, creating alien life, achieving immortality, or wiping out entire populations with a single genetic tweak, for example. Will conversations about ethics and morality be enough to protect society from its own excitement when that happens, or will a stricter approach be warranted?
For inspiration, we might turn back to Justice Holmes. In The Path of the Law, many years prior to his decision in Buck, Holmes described the study of law as a prediction of how the courts will respond to a given action, and suggested that this is how a “bad man” naturally unconcerned with ethics or morals (and only concerned with whether he will have to pay a fine or go to jail) would approach the law. With this, Holmes laid the foundation for American Legal Realism and gave birth to what would be famously known as the “Bad Man Theory” of the law.
With this “bloodless and detached view of the law,” he may also have left for posterity an important insight into how we might need to restrain those who, like Holmes, Priddy, Strode, or Whitehead, while either not concerned with whether what they are doing is right, or fully believing they are doing the right thing, occasionally make widely consequential, harmful choices in the name of science and the greater good.
How might we go about creating strict boundaries for the Bad Man in the life sciences? At least one commentator, Dr. Shobita Parthasarathy, has suggested using national patent systems as a means of regulating gene editing technology, pointing out that “organizations and individual researchers using CRISPR-Cas9 are already creating licensing agreements that reflect their own moral codes.” In addition, Dr. Parthasarathy points out that the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine have urged for a “stringent oversight” system to ensure that gene editing trials are only used for treatment and prevention of serious disease or disability, though “[t]hese recommendations haven’t yet been translated into legal frameworks or formal governance structures.”"