By Allan Maurer
WASHINGTON, DC—A Supreme Court justice often sits on the bench for a quarter of a century, and in the next 25 years may face questions about the rights of future generations, how private is our personal genetic profile, and at what point does artificial intelligence become human? So says futurist Josh Calder with DC-based Social Technologies. Here’s a set of eight questions Calder says Senators probably will not ask Sotomayor about, but though she could encounter them in coming decades:
1. Think of the children: Do future generations have rights? Are we actually obligated to take them into account in environmental and technological decisions?
“The idea of future generations having rights is an emerging one that speaks to issues of sustainability,” says Calder. “It comes up directly in genetics. Part of it has to do with the idea of using technology to make deeper impacts on ourselves and the future.”
2. R2D2 too: Will an advanced artificial intelligence arise, as people like Ray Kurzweil predict, and will it merit rights?
“People have been talking about the possibility of a “singularity” (in which artificial intelligence becomes sentient) in a couple of decades,” says Calder. “It involves two questions: if something says it’s sentient, do we believe it? And if so, do we care? It may be more of a question if it involves a biological system. Does something require a biological brain to be human?”
3. Virtually real: How real are virtual goods, places, and avatars? Will virtual property take on any kind of legal existence beyond its current status of code that is owned by provider companies?
“What is driving this is people growing more attached to virtual property and goods,” says Calder. “Do you own your virtual property really? What if they shut the whole world down? Another way this is going to blur is with rapid prototyping devices. It may be increasingly possible to take property from the virtual world to the real world and visa versa.”
4. The truth in your brain: Is brain scan-based lie detector evidence admissible as court testimony? What can scanning of memory tell us?
This also brings up the question of false memories and how to distinguish them from real ones, Calder says.
5. Genetic secrets: Do people have genetic privacy? When gene sequencing is easy and cheap, will the information still be a closely held secret?
“This involves a larger issue of what is private,” Calder says. “What is going to happen if anyone can have information sequenced from a cell for under $10? We’re all walking around shedding sequenceable stuff all of the time.”
It also brings up the issue of brain scanning to tell what someone is thinking. “Is it reliable,” asks Calder? “If so, to what purposes will it be used?” If it’s found it can prevent terrorism, we could have more and more invasive means permitted, he suggests.
On the other hand, if insurance companies tried to require genetic sequencing to determine a person’s genetic susceptibility to disease or pre-existing conditions, “The industry would collapse,” says Calder. “It’s not going to happen,” he predicts.
6. Better humans: How far may we go in enhancing ourselves with pharmaceuticals, information implants, and genetic engineering? And what “enhancements” can parents choose for their children?
7. Guilty genes: Are there any genetic characteristics that so greatly increase the chance of criminality that they justify preventive action?
“What if we discovered that 70 percent of sociopathic murderers have a particular genetic combination?” says Calder. “Do we screen juvenile offenders for this?”
8. A horse is a horse? With animals now being given human genes, will we cross a line in which an animal becomes more than an animal?
Chances are slim any Senators will address any of these questions, “Although we might be better off if they did,” says Calder.
“Politicians think in the short term,” he says. “It doesn’t do them any good to think 10 or 20 years out, so I doubt these discussions will come up.”
Calder has been a professional futurist since 1995 and is Social Technologies thought leader. He is also the creator of Futuristmovies.com, a site that examines the future as depicted in movies and has written for Wired magazine and been a commentator on TV, radio and in newspapers.
Online: www.socialtechnologies.com
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