ETHICS, TECHNOLOGY, AND
UTOPIAN VISIONS WORKING GROUP: A Somewhat Whiggish and Spotty Historical Background

Bonnie Kaplan and Nick Bostrom
Yale University

The human desire to overcome bodily and mental limitations, and the human fascination with human-like animals and machines, have long and intertwined histories.  Going back to even to the earliest preserved traces of human culture, we find myths and lores that includes stories of a search for immortality, just as we find searches for God-like knowledge.  The ancient Greeks built human-like automata.  In medieval thought, as humanism was developing in Europe, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's "Oration on the Dignity of Man"[1] claimed that it is man's task to form himself into something.  Jewish golem stories[2] stem from a kabalistic belief in creating artificial beings in time of need. As scientific thought developed during the Renaissance, the idea of a clock-work universe came into vogue.   Modern automata, based on clock-work mechanisms, delighted many.  The Copernican revolution in astronomy challenged humans' unique place in the universe, and, later, the Newtonian view of a clock-work universe prevailed.  During the Scientific Revolution and Age of Enlightenment, philosophic and scientific thought emphasized science and critical reasoning as the means of finding out about the natural world and the destiny and nature of man and giving a grounding for morality.  They also led to the idea of progress and the use of science to perfect not only individuals, but also society(for example, by Francis Bacon (1521-1626).)[3]  French thinkers, building upon revolutionary ideals and Enlightment thought, further developed these ideas. A century later, the Marquis de Condorcet  (1743-1794) was one of the first to elaborate a theory of progress and combine scientific and utopian theories of society,[4] while Count Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), known for his scientific utopianism, formulated current knowledge into the fundamental doctrines that served Auguste Comte (1798-1857) for an expanded and systematized system of sociology.[5]

Humanist philosophy and new scientific theories laid the groundwork for eighteenth and nineteenth century ideas that humans could improve themselves and their society through reason, science, and technology.  At the same time, there was a confluence of ideas concerning human nature and biology as similar to that of animals and machines.  Julien Offray de La Mettrie expounded on L'Homme Machine, in which he argued for the unity of all life, claiming that "man is but an animal, or a collection of springs which wind each other up."[6]  Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire speculated about extending human life span through medical science, while Mary Shelley's Frankenstein[7] created horrific visions of such research. Claude Bernard developed the idea of self-regulating organic processes, le milieu intérieur, based on his physiological research.[8]  Soon after, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and later writings[9] caused considerable controversy concerning the distinctiveness of humankind.  While earlier theorists drew upon mechanistic analogies for inspiration, with the great biological discoveries of the nineteenth century, the metaphor of society as an organism (earlier articulated by Edmund Burke[10]) was further developed as positivism merged with evolutionary philosophy in sociology[11] (e.g. Comte,[12] Herbert Spencer[13]).  By the end of the century, though, Henry Adams saw the dynamo, not an organism, as the symbol of the age.[14]

These confluences of machinery, biology, science, technology, society, and perfectability extended into the twentieth century.  In the early years, the Progressive movement in the US was influenced by the idea that society could be improved through planning and policy.  Concurrently, J. B. S. Haldane's discussion of how scientific and technological findings may come to affect society and improve the human condition[15] set off a chain-reaction of future-oriented discussions.  J.D. Bernal speculated about space colonization and bionic implants as well as mental improvements through advanced social science and psychology.[16]  Walter B. Cannon developed the notion of homeostasis, reminiscent of Bernard's le milieu intérieur, and applied the concept to society.[17]  The eugenics movement was in full flower (though begun earlier, e.g. Francis Galton[18]).  By the 1930s, in the US,  policy by now was based on a faith, articulated by William Fielding Ogburn in science as leading to progress - a kind of scientific and technological determinism - and that society would be bettered through the judicious application of the specialized knowlegde of a far-seeing vanguard.[19]  Countervailing voices also were heard.   Bertrand Russell took a more pessimistic view, arguing that without more kindliness in the world, technological power would mainly serve to increase men's capacity to inflict harm on one another.[20]  These ideas were developed further in Aldous Huxley's novels[21] and later by many  other writers. 

The second world war changed the direction of many of these currents. The earlier eugenics movement was seriously discredited and the idea of creating a new and better world became, for some, taboo and passé.  On the other hand, the govermental role in mobilizing the atomic bomb effort, and its ultimate success, inspired optimism in both science and technology as well as in new governmental policies,[22] including, among other changes, the development of the National Science Foundation and expansion of the National Institutes of Health.  Wartime research led to the creation of a variety of "giant brains" and "thinking machines," early computers and other "intelligent" devices.  Alan Turing's work on cryptography laid the groundwork for automata theory, and his famous essay, "Can Machines Think?"[23] asked a question still being debated.  During the war years, an interdisciplinary group interested in models of the brain based on electronic circuitry formed around the idea that concepts in biology and engineering could form the basis for a transdisciplinary synthesis that could be important to the social sciences. These individuals included neurophychiatrist Warren S. McCullogh and polymath Walter Pitts, who laid the foundations of research in artificial intelligence and neural nets; mathematician John von Neumann, who was involved in developing an early computer and concepts fundamental to computer science; and engineer Claude Shannon, who developed the ideas on which information theory is based; and mathematician Norbert Weiner, who, working together with neurobiologist Arturo Rosenblueth developed the idea of cybernetic devices, i.e. ones regulated through feedback.  (Rosenbleuth had worked in Cannon's laboratory and was well familiar with the idea of homeostasis.)  Weiner's theory of cybernetics, "the science of communication and control in man and machine,"[24] was applied almost immediately to understanding and improving both individual and societal life and mental health.   The Macy Conferences (sponsored by the Macy Foundation) on Cybernetics brought together these individuals with such illustrious social scientists as, for example, Margaret Mead (anthropology), Gregory Bateson (social science), Kurt Lewin (psychology), Paul Lazasfeld (sociology), Filmer S. C. Northrop (philosophy), and others.  This group also influenced psychologists who later developed computational models of the brain and likely influenced linguist Noam Chomsky,[25] who soon proposed a theory of language based on a concept analogous to the "hard-wiring" of rules of grammar and grammatical generation.[26]  Two individuals working in this realm made ground-breaking contributions to both economics and to artificial intelligence.  Mathematician John von Neumann developed both game theory and concepts on which computer science has been based, as well as explored The Computer and the Brain. [27] Nobel Laureate economist Herbert Simon worked not only on rational decision making in the abstract, but, together with cognitive scientist Allen Newell and Alan Shaw, developed problem solving languages and algorithms for intelligent machines, including chess playing programs.[28] 

The relationship between biology, technology, science, and human destiny was discussed and analyzed in the internationally popular literary genre of science fiction, which experienced a "golden age" during the 1940s and 1950s, and these writers continued to publish influential stories for years afterwards.  Scientists and engineers used science fiction as a way of exploring ideas, and also were influenced by the futuristic ideas and practical suggestions inherent in many of the stories.  Key among these writers, for these purposes, are: Arthur C. Clarke,  an English-Ceylonese who inspired visions of the past and future evolution of intelligence popularized in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey;"[29] American Robert A. Heinlein, who developed the idea of devices for microscopic engineering manipulation and of a social revolution directed by a super-intelligent machine;[30] and Stanislaw Lem, a Pole whose whimsical and charming stories explored themes of intelligent robots.[31]  US biochemist and science popularizer Isaac Asimov was crucial in the development of artificial intelligence and robots as themes in science fiction.  His Three Laws of Robotics were developed in a series of stories[32] that profoundly influenced future thought on intelligent automata.  These and other Asimov robot stories explicitly raise the questions of what should be the guiding ethical principles designed into artificial intelligences, what happens when these principles are challenged in various ways, and at what point an artificial intelligence becomes human, themes later taken up in the film ”The Bicentennial Man," based on some of his writing.  He explicitly drew on golem stories and intended to debunk the Frankenstein myth and such dystopian writings as Karel Čapek's "RUR".[33] Asimov's Foundation trilogy[34] explored the perfectability of society through the proper understanding and application of the laws of social science and history.  His Fantastic Voyage,[35] also later made into a popular film, posited micro-beings able to fight biological damage and disease. 

Science fiction-like ideas became realities. McCulloch and Pitts influenced a number of younger associates who later created significant advances in computer science and artificial intelligence research.  Among them was Marvin Minsky, founder of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, who directed the development of a robotic hand built at Project MAC [Man and Computer] in the 1960s and developed the a model of intelligence based on human society.[36]  Robert Ettinger started the cryonics movement with the publication of his book, The Prospect of Immortality.[37]  He argued that it should be possible to freeze a person today and preserve her until such a time when technology is advanced enough to repair the freezing damage and other diseases she might have had. In 1972, Ettinger published Man into Superman,[38] where he discussed a number of conceivable improvements to the human being, continuing the tradition started by Haldane and Bernal. Meanwhile, Erik Drexler so developed some of Richard Feynman's ideas[39] as to create an explosion of interest in nanotechnology.  His Engines of Creation was the first book-length treatment of molecular nanotechnology, its potential uses and abuses, and the strategic issues raised by its development.[40]  One use of nanotechnology is in repairing tissue damage and genetic malfunctions, i.e., curing diseases.  By this time, computers no longer were seen as brains, but brains were seen as computers.  Cognitive science, and, more recently, the ideas of evolutionary psychology, based on information processing and computational models of the brain, had come into their own.[41]  Others developed ideas of space colonization, cyborgs (beings that combine biological organisms with machinery, as in physician Michael Crichton's science fictional thriller which became the basis for "The Bionic Man"[42]), cloning, and transhumanism, i.e., enhancing humans to such an extent that they transcend current capabilities and biological limitations.  Scientists continue to explore these ideas both in their formal research and through their fictional writings.  Among them are Vernor Vinge, a mathematician, computer scientist, and science fiction writer, and David Brin, an astronomer and another popular science fiction author.  Even the prominent MIT artificial intelligence researcher, Marvin Minsky, co-authored a science fiction novel.[43]

Transhumanism brings together a number of these themes.  Although the word was  coined by Julian Huxley,[44] F. M. Esfandiary, who later changed his name to FM-2030,  provided one of the first descriptions of the concept of the transhuman as an evolutionary bridge towards posthumanity.[45]   Many organizations appeared for life extension, cryonics, space colonization, or futurism.  These groups started coming together through the efforts of Max More and T.O. Morrow, who began publishing Extropy Magazine in 1988, and in 1992 the Extropy Institute was formed.  Modern transhumanism thus was born in the US in the late 1980s. Marvin Minsky was a prominent voice for a transhumanist standpoint during the 1970s and 1980s.  Also influential was robotics researcher Hans Moravec's Mind Children, and his more recent Robot.[46] The World Transhumanist Association was founded in 1998, which brings us to contemporary transhumanism, an international grassroots movement that seeks to raise awareness of the potential to enhance human life and human capacities through technological and other rational means.