Making the Future Safe

Notes from the World Transhumanist Association's annual conference

Ronald Bailey | July 2, 2003

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The better way to counter future bioterrorism is to allow the relatively unfettered development of biotechnology, so that researchers can devise tools for quick diagnosis and defense, now. In other words, there doesn't seem much for Annas' biotech authority to do other than get in the way of the quick development of beneficial technologies.

Annas is also against allowing parents to use genetic engineering to benefit their children, because the kids aren't able to give their consent for the genetic modifications. Of course, no one alive today gave their consent to being born with the randomly acquired set of genes they bear, either. Stock responded that Annas' requirement for consent would mean that children couldn't be treated with drugs, or receive vaccinations. Indeed, just how silly Annas' consent requirement would be is obvious when one considers the case of pediatric surgery and fetal surgery. A fetus can't give permission to have its spina bifida corrected while in the womb, yet it is certainly the moral thing to do. As Stock also pointed out, it is unlikely that parents who treasure their would-be offspring would rush out to use any treatments, much less genetic ones, that they didn't think were fully validated and safe.

Stock argued that proponents of the Precautionary Principle know that it is just a way to "blockade research without admitting that that is what they want to do." Stock also rejected Annas' species-level concerns. "I don't care about the species, I care about individual people," he said.

In his response, Annas left a tiny opening for the future approval of genetic engineering in people. It might be OK with him, he said, after it had proved safe "in 20 generations of primates." Annas then brought up egalitarian objections. Genetic engineering has the potential to create super-wealthy and strong people who might regard us unmodified humans as prime candidates for slavery. He analogized the situation of biotechnologically improved people to the case proposed by Hans Moravec, founder of the robotics institute at Carnegie Mellon University, who argues that if we make people or machines (or a combination) too powerful, they will pose a danger to humanity and would have to be outlawed or exiled. Moravec believes that transhumanism must answer the question posed by Harvard law professor, Martha Minow: "How do you create a world where difference is respected and not a grounds for extermination?"

Stock replied that the divisions over the use of enhancing biotechnologies would not break down along lines of wealth, but along lines of philosophy. People in the developing world, eager to catch up with rich countries, would resort to enhancing technologies before the complacent peoples of the already industrialized world. Annas responded that it was ludicrous to think that poor countries would use biotech enhancements first; after all they can't afford medicines to cure malaria or HIV right now. Stock pointed out that there are many rich people in poor countries, and that various polls already found that majorities of people in Thailand and India would be happy to try genetic engineering as a way to improve their children's chances of success in life.

During the question and answer period, Eliezer Yudkowsky asked Annas "What makes you think that government is good enough to not get us all killed?" Annas' nonresponse was that we need a world government (that's really putting all your eggs in one basket!), while admitting "there's certainly no certainty to this." Indeed not.

Stock closed by warning that Annas' "vision of the global good" felt "like those sorts of great goods that were used as justifications for ... a lot of the evils in the world." For instance, communism. He argued that "the least likelihood of abusing this technology and protecting ourselves is to allow individual choice." We will learn the wisdom of how to use the new advances properly only through experience. Delaying technologies can kill people. Stock pointed out that if a cure for cancer that would otherwise have been available in 2020 is delayed to 2030 because of the application of the Precautionary Principle, that means tens of millions of people who would otherwise have been alive would be dead. He predicted that future humans will look back at this glorious moment, when all these things to alter humanity were being developed, and marvel. It's an enormous privilege to be alive at this time, he declared.

Annas ended by warning that we are not very good at preventing the harms to the environment, the harms of poverty, and the harms of genocide. Thus he recommended that we use the Precautionary Principle as our guide to preventing future harms, including those posed by biotechnology. Of course, we are even worse at foreseeing the benefits of technological developments. Thus Annas ignores the harms that come from not expeditiously proceeding with the development of new technologies.

So that was the debate whether or not humanity should wear a French letter or go bareback. I say that individual people are wise enough to decide for themselves.