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Top2. Convergence
Many previous contributions to the debate on the ethical governance of “emerging” technologies have focused on a single category: AGI, or SB, or NT. The U.S. Presidential Commission (2010) on synthetic biology is a good example. Others include Wallach & Allen (2009), Hunt & Mehta (2007) and Martin (2006), to mention just a few. The ethical principles proposed in these works are essentially the same and they all prioritize reducing the risk of harm to the public (i.e. minimizing expected future aggregate suffering), as well as a more general “public beneficence” (Figure 1). Furthermore, almost every claim made about any one specific technology (say, SB) can be literally duplicated with reference to any of the other technologies (e.g. AGI, NT) without any significant loss of moral or scientific support.
Figure 1. Stable governance principles for the convergent technologies
To give just a few illustrative examples1 of such “duplications”:
- I.
With regard to AGI: “On the optimistic side, there is a reference to an ‘invisible hand of system interactions’: the idea that the operation of many self-sustaining AGIs (or NT-enhanced or SB-enhanced trans-human entities) will somehow lead to overall good. On the side of harm, we are duly warned of a possible ‘social tsunami’”.
- II.
For NT: “NT (or SB, or AGI’s) might have “the effect of forcing adjustments and compromises by the existing forces of global injustice and inequality.
- III.
For SB: “It is obvious that manufactured SB-entities (or NT, or AGI’s etc.) have the potential to add to the total stock of the human goods in the World (e.g. freedoms, wealth, health, safety, happiness, pleasure, etc.). However, it is equally obvious that they can have catastrophic consequences.
It is also apparent that concerns with “freedom, justice, health and wealth” are quite central to almost all expert deliberations on ethical governance. For example, the recommendations of the US Presidential commission were all derived from a set of inter-related ethical principles, as follows: