The Ethics and Policy of New Technologies

INSTRUCTORS

Dr. Nick Bostrom (Department of Philosophy)

Dr. Bonnie Kaplan (Yale School of Medicine's Center for Medical Informatics, Department of Anesthesiology)

1 BRIEF DESCRIPTION

An interdisciplinary exploration of ethical and policy questions surrounding new or anticipated future technologies, including nanotechnology, machine intelligence, genetic engineering, surveillance technologies, information technology, and psychopharmacology. Especial attention will be given to human enhancement opportunities and to global security.

2 EXPANDED DESCRIPTION

Technological change, both present but especially future developments, may lead to the transformation of many fundamental parameters of the human condition and even the human organism itself.  This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the normative, technological, and policy questions raised by these prospects. We feel that there is a lack of opportunity for students to learn about and reflect on the big picture of the human condition and what may lie in store for our species over the coming decades. With better technological foresight and a finer appreciation of the complex normative and strategic challenges ahead, students will be able to participate constructively in current and future debates about what should be done on an individual and social level to enhance the prospects that human society will continue to flourish in the times to come.

Topics Through readings, films, and discussion, we will examine technological change and the challenges this creates for ethics, policy, security, business, and individual decision-making.  Among the topics are: nanotechnology, machine intelligence, genetic engineering, surveillance technologies, information technology, weapons technology, virtual reality, and psychopharmacology.  We will examine both the technological and scientific basis for anticipated future capacities in these areas, concerns about global security and other kinds of risk, the potential benefits of human enhancement technologies, and the many urgent and complex ethical questions that need to be confronted so that the options that will become available will be used responsibly and for the human good rather than for destructive purposes.

Principal readings will be drawn from literary classics, philosophical, scientific, and policy writing.  This course seeks to bring together ideas from many different disciplines by including some of the most current thinking about these issues as well as several essential classic texts. We will also be discussing the broader ideas found in utopian and dystopian literature and how they relate to the technological options that may actually become available.   Sample readings and course outline are below.

Aims & Objectives

* To introduce students to some of the main ideas and issues relating to anticipated technological developments that have potentially profound consequences for the human condition.

* To encourage students to think critically and independently about the big picture of technological change and the challenges this creates for ethics, policy, security, business, and individual decision-making.

* To enhance analytic reasoning ability and the capacity to cogently present complex ideas orally and in writing.

3. NATURE AND AMOUNT OF WORK REQUIRED

Reading: 6-8 hours per week.

Grading                            

Final                   35%
Paper                 40%
Participation      25%

Class participation is measured by intelligent contributions to class discussions. It is therefore essential that you have read and thought about the readings before each class. Asking good questions is a way of getting brownie points, as is answering other students' questions in class. Showing understanding of the literature helps a lot, but just as important is to demonstrating ability to think about the issues independently.

Essay examinations will require you to write about and integrate themes from the assignments and class discussions.

Papers will be 15-20 pages on any topic, approved by the instructor, related to themes of the course.  Topics must be approved by 4 weeks prior to the due date.

WEEKLY SCHEDULE

The class meets for 110 mins one afternoon per week. Readings are required unless otherwise specified.

Week 1 - Overview

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

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

Week 2 - Superintelligence: Feasibility and Time-Scale

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. [Recommended]

Week 3 - Human Dignity and Human Values

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

Joseph Weizenbaum, 1976. Computer Power and Human Reason.  WH Freeman, San Francisco - The chapter: "Introduction"

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

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, 1486. Oration on the Dignity of Man. http://www.sinclair.edu/departments/hum/his-bank/mirando.htm

Week 4 - Nanotechnology

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

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

Week 5 - Life Extension and Cryonics

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

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

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 -[Recommended]

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

Week 6 - Pharmaceutical Enrichment and Emotional Engineering

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

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

Aldous Huxley, 1932. Brave New World

David Pearce, 1998. "Brave New World? A Defense of Paradise Engineering". http://www.huxley.net/. [Recommended]

Week 7 - 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 [Recommended]

Week 8 - Threats to Global Security

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

Joseph Weizenbaum, 1976. Computer Power and Human Reason.  WH Freeman, San Francisco - The chapter: "Against the Imperialism of Instrumental Reason"

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

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

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

Week 9 - The Automation Controversy

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

James Lehman, 2001. "On Becoming Redundant or What Computers Shouldn't Do". Journal of Applied Ethics, Vol. 18, No. 1.

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

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.

Week 10 - Strategies for global security

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

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

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/

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

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

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

Week 11 - Ethical Issues of Enhanced Humans,  Human-Like Machines, Immortality

Karl Capek, 1921. Rossum's Universal Robots  OR

Isaac Asimov, "The Bicentennial Man" movie

Nick Bostrom, 2002. "Towards transhumanist ethics." http://www.nickbostrom.com

Max More, 1999. The Extropian Principles, V. 3.0. http://www.extropy.org/extprn3.htm

Nancy Kress, 1994 (reprint).  Beggars in Spain.  Mass Market Paperback. [Recommended]

Week 12 - Technology, History, Methodology, and Meta-arguments

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

Nick Bostrom, 2001. "Are You Living In a Computer Simulation?" http://www.simulation-argument.com

Robin Hanson, 2001. "How To Live In a Simulation". Journal of Evolution and Technology, Vol. 7. http://transhumanist.com/volume7/simulation.html

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

Week 13 - 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

Robin Hanson, 1998. "Is the Singularity Just Around the Corner? What it takes to get explosive economic growth." Journal of Evolution and Technology, Vol. 2.