BREAKTHROUGH Emerging technologies: Ethics and morality

Anyone who believes that they will still lead an active life in the next ten years should try to understand emerging technologies because these will radically change the world from what it is today. These new technologies will have an impact on all aspects – political, economic and even cultural – of society. Everyone’s daily life – rich or poor, educated or uneducated, urban or rural – will experience radical transformation. Changes that used to take decades to happen will materialize in a matter of years.

These emerging technologies will decide the future of humanity because they can be used by the elite class or populists for good or evil. There is no doubt that there will be immense benefits from these new forms of technology. The main issue has been termed as “distributive justice” by some thinkers. This refers to the determination of access to the benefits of technological change.

There are those who believe that the benefits of emerging technologies will worsen the plight of the poor. The World Bank and the International Labor Organization have already warned that millions of jobs will be wiped out by new technologies. As new labor devices are invented, the power of capitalists will grow and the power of labor will diminish. The number of billionaires will increase while the gap between the rich and the poor will continue to widen. Stephen Hawking, the world’s most famous scientist, has even said that artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of humanity.

By contrast, the optimists believe that emerging technologies, if properly used, could eliminate poverty and abolish suffering. Stuart Russell of UC Berkley said: “Everything we have of value as human beings, as civilization is the result of intelligence and what artificial intelligence ( AI) could do is essentially be a power tool that magnifies human intelligence and gives us the ability to move our civilization forward in all kinds of ways. It might be curing disease, it might be eliminating poverty. I think it certainly should be preventing environmental catastrophe. AI could be instrumental to all those things.

The World Economic Forum has said that the emerging technologies will transform the world in many ways – some are desirable and others are not. Too often the debates about emerging technologies take place at the extremes of possible consequences. There are those who focus on the potential gains and others who focus on the potential dangers. The challenge is looking for the best middle ground between the two extremes.

Ultimately, the extent to which the benefits of emerging technologies will be maximized will depend on the quality of governance. This whole issue becomes a debate on the ethics of governance of these new technologies.

Professor Shimon Whiteson of the University of Amsterdam gives a graphic example: “...I think the human and the computer are really, really quickly becoming one tightly coupled cognitive unit. Imagine how much productive we would be if we could augment our brains with infallible memories and infallible calculators.

Society is already dealing with the difficult questions about privacy and security that have been raised by the internet. Imagine when the internet is in your brain, if the NSA can see in your brain, if hackers can hack into your brain.

Imagine if skills can be downloaded – what’s going to happen when we have this kind of artificial intelligence ( AI) but only the rich can afford to become cyborgs, what’s that going to do to society ?”

These ethical issues have given rise to even controversial declarations. Marvin Minsky was a cognitive scientist and faculty member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He won several scientific awards and was an atheist. He believed that there is no fundamental difference between human and machines and that “somewhere down the line some computers will be more intelligent than most people.”

Ethics and morality of technology

Technology itself is incapable of having any moral or ethical qualities since it is just a tool. There are, however, two basic moral or ethical issues. The first is whether it is right or wrong to invent or implement a technological innovation. Is it morally right to clone a human being ?

The second issue focuses on the ethical use of technology in order to protect society from the misuse of technology. The role of government is to formulate laws and regulations that will serve to ensure that new advances in technological development and application will benefit society.

The World Economic Forum has identified two technologies that stand out as requiring immediate attention for better governance. The first is artificial intelligence or robotics which could have negative social effects such as loss of jobs, invasion of privacy and misuse of data by interest groups or even governments. The second are biotechnologies that involve the modification of living organisms for medicinal, agricultural or industrial uses.

Pope Francis has expressed very strong views on the morality of technology. In his encyclical Laudato Si, he asserts that “...science and technology are wonderful products of a God-given creativity.” But he also warned of economic interests who “...accept every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings.

Perhaps, it may sound simplistic but our business and government leaders should heed the words of Pope Francis when he affirmed that technology can and should be used to improve the lot of humanity and in service to the common good.

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