[extropy-chat] Article: WORLD magazine worries about nanotech and transhumanism

[Neil H.]

Here's another article which is worth reading to get a better idea of the
sorts of reasons people have for worrying about nanotechnology and
transhumanism. This particular article from a Christian magazine:

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/11580

Relevant quote:

In 2001, the National Science Foundation and other government agencies
convened a meeting of nano-prophets to divine the ways nanotechnology could
improve the human body and mind in the next 10 to 20 years. The meeting
headlined representatives from the government, private sector, and academia,
including Mihail Roco, a senior government adviser on nanotechnology, and
Phillip Bond, undersecretary of commerce for technology.

After the meeting, the NSF published a 467-page document, "Converging
Technologies for Improving Human Performance." It has been called both the
scariest and the silliest government report ever printed.

Its authors predicted that in the next 10 to 20 years, nanotechnology would
allow a broadband connection between the human brain and machines. It would
enable new sports, art forms, and means of communication; allow the human
body to resist stress, sleep deprivation, disease, and aging; and find ways
to exploit the resources of the moon, Mars, or approaching asteroids. In
short, nanotechnology will solve all the world's problems.

"The 21st century could end in world peace, universal prosperity, and
evolution to a higher level of compassion and accomplishment," Mr. Roco and
another science adviser claimed in the report's introduction. "It may be
that humanity would become like a single, distributed and interconnected
'brain.'"

The European Commission and the German Parliament criticized the U.S. report
(called among nano-techies the Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno, or NBIC report) for
being overly futuristic without considering societal and moral issues. In
its own report, the German Parliament noted its bias toward a
pseudo-scientific movement called transhumanism. Transhumanists believe
science, including nanotechnology, will help humans transcend their mental
and physical limitations, including pain and death.

"These ideas have bled into mainstream science technical thinking," says
Nigel Cameron, director of the Center on Nanotechnology at the Chicago-Kent
College of Law. Mr. Cameron works to bring together transhumanism's critics
to voice their concerns. He cites the work of Kevin Warwick as one reason to
take transhumanism seriously.

Mr. Warwick, a professor at the University of Reading in England, claims to
have connected his central nervous system to a computer during a 2002
experiment. Doctors implanted a tiny electrical sensing device in a nerve in
Mr. Warwick's left arm. The sensor sent and received signals between his
central nervous system and a computer. According to Mr. Warwick's university
website, the implant allowed him to control a mechanical hand with his own
thoughts and movements. He also sent neural signals to a simpler implant in
his wife, who felt sensation in her arm as a result.

Mr. Warwick explained his worldview in a 2000 column in Wired: "I was born
human. But this was an accident of fate—a condition merely of time and
place. I believe it's something we have the power to change."

Mr. Cameron points to Mr. Warwick's experiment as evidence the
human-computer connection envisioned in the NBIC report could happen. But
will it?

...

David Guston, director of the Center for Nanotechnology and Society at
Arizona State University, wants to help nanotechnology avoid a mess like the
stem-cell debacle. At the AAAS meeting, he explained the center's plans to
scour scientific journals and interview researchers about current and
upcoming developments in nanotechnology. Center staff members would share
the information with citizen groups and give their feedback to the
scientists.

That could be an important time for those concerned with the ethical and
real-life implications of nanotechnology to step forward. "There is so
little interest in having this conversation in the churches. Basically
people are pro-life, but they think, 'technology is wonderful and what's for
dinner?'" said Mr. Cameron.

The "Real-Time Technology Assessment" project aims to help scientists
incorporate the public's values in their decisions. At the least, it will
help the public see what is coming before, as Mr. Guston put it, "out from
the lab pops a technology that's relatively cleanly black-boxed and, oh,
society has to deal with it."
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