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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
×

Emerging and Readily Available
Technologies and National Security

— A Framework for Addressing Ethical,
Legal, and Societal Issues

Jean-Lou Chameau, William F. Ballhaus, and Herbert S. Lin, Editors

Committee on Ethical and Societal Implications of Advances in Militarily
Significant Technologies That Are Rapidly Changing and Increasingly
Globally Accessible


Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
Board on Life Sciences
Committee on Science, Technology, and Law

Center for Engineering, Ethics, and Society Advisory Group

                       NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL AND
                                 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING                 
                                              OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS

Washington, D.C.

www.nap.edu

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS    500 Fifth Street, NW    Washington, DC 20001

NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.

Support for this project was provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under Award Number HR0011-11-C-0038. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-29334-1
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-29334-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013958004

This report is available from

Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
National Research Council
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001

Additional copies of this report are available from the National Academies Press, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Keck 360, Washington, DC 20001; (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313; http://www.nap.edu.

Copyright 2014 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
×

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., is president of the National Academy of Engineering.

The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine.

The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone and Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council.

www.national-academies.org

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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COMMITTEE ON ETHICAL AND SOCIETAL IMPLICATIONS OF ADVANCES IN MILITARILY SIGNIFICANT TECHNOLOGIES THAT ARE RAPIDLY CHANGING AND INCREASINGLY GLOBALLY ACCESSIBLE

WILLIAM F. BALLHAUS, The Aerospace Corporation (retired), Co-Chair

JEAN-LOU CHAMEAU, California Institute of Technology, Co-Chair

MARCUS FELDMAN, Stanford University

BRAN FERREN, Applied Minds

BARUCH FISCHHOFF, Carnegie Mellon University

MICHAEL GAZZANIGA, University of California, Santa Barbara

HANK GREELY, Stanford University

MICHAEL IMPERIALE, University of Michigan Medical School

ROBERT H. LATIFF, University of Notre Dame

JAMES MOOR, Dartmouth College

JONATHAN MORENO, University of Pennsylvania

JOEL MOSES, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

KENNETH OYE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

ELIZABETH RINDSKOPF PARKER, University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law

SARAH SEWALL, Harvard University

ALFRED SPECTOR, Google, Inc.

JOHN H. TILELLI, JR., Cypress International, Inc.

STEPHEN J.A. WARD, University of Oregon

Staff

HERBERT S. LIN, Study Director and Chief Scientist, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB)

JON EISENBERG, Director, CSTB

ENITA WILLIAMS, Associate Program Officer, CSTB (through April 2013)

SHENAE BRADLEY, Senior Program Assistant, CSTB

ERIC WHITAKER, Senior Program Assistant, CSTB

RACHELLE HOLLANDER, Director, Center for Engineering, Ethics, and Society

FRAZIER BENYA, Program Officer, Center for Engineering, Ethics, and Society

JO L. HUSBANDS, Senior Program Officer, Board on Life Sciences

ANNE-MARIE MAZZA, Director, Committee on Science, Technology, and Law

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD

ROBERT F. SPROULL, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Chair

LUIZ ANDRÉ BARROSO, Google, Inc.

ROBERT F. BRAMMER, Brammer Technology, LLC

EDWARD FRANK, Apple, Inc.

JACK L. GOLDSMITH III, Harvard Law School

SEYMOUR E. GOODMAN, Georgia Institute of Technology

LAURA HAAS, IBM Corporation

MARK HOROWITZ, Stanford University

MICHAEL KEARNS, University of Pennsylvania

ROBERT KRAUT, Carnegie Mellon University

SUSAN LANDAU, Google, Inc.

PETER LEE, Microsoft Corp.

DAVID LIDDLE, US Venture Partners

BARBARA LISKOV, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

JOHN STANKOVIC, University of Virginia

JOHN SWAINSON, Dell, Inc.

PETER SZOLOVITS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

ERNEST J. WILSON, University of Southern California

KATHERINE YELICK, University of California, Berkeley

JON EISENBERG, Director

LYNETTE I. MILLETT, Associate Director and Senior Program Officer

VIRGINIA BACON TALATI, Program Officer

SHENAE BRADLEY, Senior Program Assistant

RENEE HAWKINS, Financial and Administrative Manager

HERBERT S. LIN, Chief Scientist, CSTB

ENITA WILLIAMS, Associate Program Officer (through April 2013)

ERIC WHITAKER, Senior Program Assistant

For more information on CSTB, see its Web site at http://www.cstb.org, write to CSTB, National Research Council, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001, call (202) 334-2605, or e-mail the CSTB at cstb@nas.edu.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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BOARD ON LIFE SCIENCES

JO HANDELSMAN, Yale University, Chair

ENRIQUETA C. BOND, Burroughs Wellcome Fund

ROGER D. CONE, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

SEAN EDDY, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

SARAH C.R. ELGIN, Washington University

DAVID R. FRANZ, Consultant, Frederick, Maryland

LOUIS J. GROSS, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

ELIZABETH HEITMAN, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

JOHN G. HILDEBRAND, University of Arizona, Tucson

RICHARD A. JOHNSON, Arnold & Porter, LLP

JUDITH KIMBLE, University of Wisconsin, Madison

CATO T. LAURENCIN, University of Connecticut

ALAN I. LESHNER, American Association for the Advancement of Science

KAREN NELSON, J. Craig Venter Institute

ROBERT M. NEREM, Georgia Institute of Technology

CAMILLE PARMESAN, University of Texas at Austin

ALISON G. POWER, Cornell University

MARGARET RILEY, University of Massachusetts

JANIS WEEKS, University of Oregon

MARY WOOLLEY, Research!America

FRAN SHARPLES, Director

SAYYEDA “AYESHA” AHMED, Senior Program Assistant

CARL-GUSTAV ANDERSON, Program Associate

BETHELHEM M. BANJAW, Financial Associate

KATHERINE BOWMAN, Senior Program Officer

INDIA HOOK-BARNARD, Program Officer

JO L. HUSBANDS, Scholar/Senior Project Director

ANGELA KOLESNIKOVA, Temporary Program Assistant

JAY LABOV, Senior Scientist/Program Director for Biology Education

KEEGAN SAWYER, Associate Program Officer

MARILEE SHELTON-DAVENPORT, Senior Program Officer

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND LAW

DAVID KORN, Massachusetts General Hospital, Co-Chair

RICHARD A. MESERVE, Carnegie Institution for Science, Co-Chair

BARBARA E. BIERER, Harvard Medical School

ELIZABETH H. BLACKBURN, University of California, San Francisco

JOHN BURRIS, Burroughs Wellcome Fund

CLAUDE CANIZARES, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

ARTURO CASADEVALL, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

JOE S. CECIL, Federal Judicial Center

ROCHELLE COOPER DREYFUSS, New York University School of Law

DREW ENDY, Stanford University

MARCUS FELDMAN, Stanford University

JEREMY FOGEL, Federal Judicial Center

ALICE P. GAST, Lehigh University

BENJAMIN W. HEINEMAN, JR., Harvard Law School

D. BROCK HORNBY, U.S. District Court, District of Maine

WALLACE LOH, University of Maryland, College Park

MARGARET MARSHALL (retired), Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

ALAN B. MORRISON, George Washington University Law School

CHERRY MURRAY, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

ROBERTA NESS, University of Texas School of Public Health

HARRIET RABB, Rockefeller University

DAVID RELMAN, Stanford University

RICHARD REVESZ, New York University School of Law

DAVID S. TATEL, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

ANNE-MARIE MAZZA, Director

STEVEN KENDALL, Associate Program Officer

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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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CENTER FOR ENGINEERING, ETHICS, AND SOCIETY ADVISORY GROUP

JOHN AHEARNE, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, Chair

ALICE AGOGINO, University of California, Berkeley

STEPHANIE J. BIRD, Ethics Consultant and Co-Editor of Science and Engineering Ethics

GLEN DAIGGER, CH2M HILL GERALD E. GALLOWAY, JR., University of Maryland, College Park

DEBORAH JOHNSON, University of Virginia

WILLIAM KELLY, American Society for Engineering Education

FELICE LEVINE, American Educational Research Association

MICHAEL LOUI, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

DONNA RILEY, Smith College

CHRIS SCHAIRBAUM, Texas Instruments, Inc.

CAROLINE WHITBECK, Case Western Reserve University

WILLIAM WULF, University of Virginia

RACHELLE D. HOLLANDER, Center Director

FRAZIER BENYA, Program Officer

SIMIL RAGHAVAN, Associate Program Officer

VIVIENNE CHIN, Administrative Assistant

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Preface

In 2010, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) asked the National Academies to develop and articulate a framework for policy makers, institutions, and individual researchers that would help them think through ethical, legal, and societal issues (ELSI) as they relate to research and development on emerging and readily available technologies with military relevance.1 The study was motivated in part by DARPA’s experience earlier in the previous decade with programs that encountered difficulties related to privacy concerns and the realization that a more systematic approach to ethical, legal, and societal issues was an important ingredient for success in its mission of avoiding and creating surprise through R&D. Box P.1 contains the full charge to the Committee on Ethical and Societal Implications of Advances in Militarily Significant Technologies That Are Rapidly Changing and Increasingly Globally Accessible.

Coming from the Department of Defense (DOD), this concern—stated so explicitly—is relatively new. The DOD has long required a legal review of whether weapons are in conformance with the law of armed conflict, but this requirement applies only to weapons near procurement and

___________________

1 DARPA’s original charge to the committee used the term “democratized technologies” rather than “emerging and readily available technologies.” Democratized or, equivalently, emerging and readily available technologies are those with rapid rates of progress and low barriers to entry. However, the committee believed that the term “democratized” is easily misunderstood, and this report uses the term “emerging and readily available technologies” (ERA technologies). More discussion of this topic is contained in Chapters 1 and 3.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Box P.1 The Project Statement of Task

The National Academies will develop a consensus report on the topic of ethical, legal, and societal issues relating to research on, development, and use of increasingly globally accessible and rapidly changing technologies with potential military application, such as information technologies, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology. This report will articulate a framework for policy makers, institutions, and individual researchers to think about such issues as they relate to these technologies of military relevance and to the extent feasible make recommendations for how each of these groups should approach these considerations in their research activities. A workshop to be held as early as practical in the study will be convened to obtain perspectives and foster discussion on these matters. A final report will be issued within 21 months of the project start, providing the National Research Council’s and National Academy of Engineering’s findings and recommendations.

not to R&D more generally. It is true that certain technologies—genome research, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology, for example—have in the eyes of the U.S. government warranted some degree of explicit attention to ethical, legal, and societal issues. In addition, there is a long history of academic work on ELSI concerns related to various civilian-oriented technologies. But for the most part, these technologies have been exploited for civilian purposes, and work on ethical, legal, and societal issues has been confined largely to that context.

ELSI concerns are inherently challenging, complex, and multidimensional, and their resolution often involves seeking common ground among individuals with deeply held but often unarticulated assumptions about ethics, culture, and epistemology. In some cases, finding common ground may be impossible to achieve in any reasonable time frame. Nevertheless, at the very least, ethical, legal, and societal issues are important enough to deserve serious exploration and attention, even if such common ground cannot be found, and in the committee’s view, DARPA deserves great credit for being willing to raise such issues.

How ELSI expertise and scholarship developed in the context of civilian-oriented science and technology can be applied to the military context is a central theme of this report. But the lessons offered from that expertise and scholarship will require some modification for and adaptation to the military context—that is, they cannot be adopted wholesale, given that the military context does have a number of unique attributes.

Skeptics of the Department of Defense’s attention to ELSI concerns

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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may well claim that any attempt to argue for uniqueness and processes different from those used for civilian-oriented research is tantamount to shoving hard issues under the table while maintaining a veneer of concern, but the committee does not share this point of view. That is, the committee recognizes the existence of real tensions between military missions (and the technology for supporting those missions) and traditional ELSI concerns. These tensions cannot be eliminated, but it is the committee’s hope that this report can help senior leadership and program managers of agencies that support R&D for military and other national security purposes—including but not limited to DARPA—do a better job of managing these tensions. In addition, the report may also be of value to individual researchers, whether in the defense community or not, who work on the technologies discussed in this report and who may also be interested in the ELSI dimensions of their work.

The committee assembled for this project included individuals with expertise in risk analysis, perception, and communication; ethics; human rights; military operations; military acquisitions; national security law; organizational behavior; media/communications; bioethics; biomedical sciences; and information technology.

The committee first met in August 2011 and five times subsequently. Its earlier meetings were devoted primarily to workshops and plenary sessions for gathering input from a broad range of experts on a variety of topics related to ethical, legal, and societal issues associated with technology of different kinds used in different contexts; later meetings were devoted primarily to committee deliberations. (See Appendix A for brief biographies of committee members and staff and Appendix B for the agendas for the committee’s information-gathering sessions.) The committee heard presentations related to military ethics and law, emerging contexts for military operations, future military missions and technologies for use in these missions, biomedical ethics and engineering ethics, risk assessment and communication, emerging technologies and ELSI concerns, mechanisms used by government agencies to address ethical, legal, and societal issues, approaches to embedding ethics in research and development, and non-U.S. perspectives on ethics in science and technology. In addition, the committee received input on specific emerging and readily available technologies, including information technology, neuroscience, prosthetics and human enhancement, synthetic biology, cyber weapons, robotics and automated weapons, and nonlethal weapons. Additional input included perspectives from professional conferences, the extant literature regarding ELSI concerns and science and technology, and government reports studied by committee members and staff.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The complexity of the issues explored in this report meant that the committee had much to learn from its briefers. The committee is grateful to many parties for presentations on the following dates:

August 30-31, 2011. Shannon French (Case Western Reserve University), Ward Thomas (College of the Holy Cross), Judith Miller (formerly of the Department of Defense), Peter Schwartz (Global Business Network), Scott Wallace (U.S. Army (ret.)), George Lucas (U.S. Naval Academy), Patrick Lin (California Polytechnic State University), R. Alta Charo (University of Wisconsin Law School), and Joseph Herkert (Arizona State University).

November 2-3, 2011. Peter Lee (Microsoft Research), Keith Miller (University of Illinois, Springfield), Gloria Mark (University of Irvine), Simson Garfinkel (Naval Postgraduate School), Scott Grafton (University of California, Santa Barbara), Craig Stark (University of California, Irvine), Martha Farah (University of Pennsylvania), Stuart Harshbarger (Contineo Robotics), Daniel Palanker (Stanford University), Gerald Loeb (University of Southern California), Nicholas Agar (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand), James Hughes (Trinity College), George Church (Harvard University), Drew Endy (Stanford University), Nita A. Farahany (Vanderbilt University), Judith Reppy (Cornell University), and George Khushf (University of South Carolina).

January 12-13, 2012. Deborah Johnson (University of Virginia), Sheila Jasanoff (Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government), David Rejeski (Woodrow Wilson Center), Malcolm Dando (University of Bradford, United Kingdom), Kelly Moore (National Science Foundation), Jean McEwen (National Human Genome Research Institute), Valery Gordon (National Institutes of Health), Fred Cate (Indiana University School of Law), Ray Colladay (DARPA (ret.)), Mark Seiden (Yahoo!), Randall Dipert (University of Buffalo), Neil Rowe (Naval Postgraduate School), Ron Arkin (Georgia Institute of Technology), Peter Singer (Brookings Institution), Jürgen Altmann (Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany), Denise Caruso (Carnegie Mellon University), and Peter Hancock (University of Central Florida).

April 12-13, 2012. Heather Douglas (University of Waterloo, Canada), Alex John London (Carnegie Mellon University), Nils-Eric Sahlin (Lund University, Sweden), Paul Fischbeck (Carnegie Mellon University), Wandi de Bruin (Carnegie Mellon University), Arthur Lupia (University of Michigan), Adam Finkel (Carnegie Mellon University), William Brinkman (U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science), Carmen Maher (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Office of the Chief Scientist), Edward Knipling (U.S. Department of Agriculture), Diana Hoyt (National Aeronautics and

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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Space Administration), Qiu Renzong (Chinese Academy of Social Science, China), Frans Brom (Utrecht University, The Netherlands), Steven Lee (Hobart and William Smith Colleges), and Montgomery McFate (U.S. Naval War College).

June 4, 2012. George Perkovich (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), David Fidler (Indiana University), and Neil Davison (International Committee of the Red Cross).

The committee also appreciates the support of Norman Whitaker from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the conduct of this project. In addition, the committee acknowledges the intellectual contributions of NRC and NAE staff: Herbert S. Lin (study director and chief scientist of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB)), Jon Eisenberg (director, CSTB), Enita Williams (associate program officer, CSTB), Rachelle Hollander (director, Center on Engineering Ethics), Frazier Benya (program officer, Center for Engineering, Ethics, and Society), Anne-Marie Mazza (director, Committee on Science, Technology, and Law), and Jo Husbands (senior program officer, Board on Life Sciences). Shenae Bradley and Eric Whitaker (both senior program assistants for CSTB) provided administrative support. Special thanks are also due to Patricia Wrightson (associate director of the Board on Global Science and Technology), who contributed time and expertise as a staff consultant.

Jean-Lou Chameau, Co-Chair
William F. Ballhaus, Co-Chair

Committee on Ethical and Societal Implications of Advances in Militarily Significant Technologies That Are Rapidly Changing and Increasingly Globally Accessible

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Acknowledgment of Reviewers

This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:

Carlos Betha, United States Air Force Academy,

Kathleen Clark, Washington University School of Law,

Nancy Connell, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey,

David Fidler, Indiana University Maurer School of Law,

Shannon French, Case Western Reserve University,

Paul Gaffney, Monmouth University,

Elizabeth Heitman, Vanderbilt University Medical Center,

Deborah Johnson, University of Virginia,

David Korn, Harvard University,

Miltos Ladikas, University of Central Lancashire,

Maria Lapinski, Michigan State University,

Patrick Lin, California Polytechnic State University,

Lester L. Lyles, United States Air Force (retired),

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Richard O’Meara, Rutgers University,

David Relman, Veterans Administration Palo Alto Health Care System,

Robert F. Sproull, Oracle (retired),

Detlof von Winterfeldt, University of Southern California, and

John Weckert, Charles Sturt University.

Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Julia Phillips from Sandia National Laboratories and Kenneth Keller from the Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center. Appointed by the National Research Council, they were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.

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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Page xviii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
×
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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4.4    Social and Behavioral Sciences

4.4.1    Sociology and Anthropology

4.4.2    Psychology

4.5    Scientific and Technological Framing

4.6    The Precautionary Principle and Cost-Benefit Analysis

4.7    Risk Communication

4.8    Using Sources of ELSI Insight

5    AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK FOR IDENTIFYING ETHICAL, LEGAL, AND SOCIETAL ISSUES

5.1    Stakeholders

5.1.1    Those Involved in or Connected to the Conduct of Research

5.1.2    Users of an Application

5.1.3    Adversaries

5.1.4    Nonmilitary Users

5.1.5    Organizations

5.1.6    Noncombatants

5.1.7    Other Nations

5.2    Crosscutting Themes

5.2.1    Scale

5.2.2    Humanity

5.2.3    Technological Imperfections

5.2.4    Unanticipated Military Uses

5.2.5    Crossovers to Civilian Use

5.2.6    Changing Ethical Standards

5.2.7    ELSI Considerations in a Classified Environment

5.2.8    Opportunity Costs

5.2.9    Sources of Insight from Chapter 4

5.3    An Example of Using the Framework

5.3.1    A Hypothetical Scenario for Analysis

5.3.2    A Process for Identifying Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues

5.3.3    Questions Related to Stakeholders and Crosscutting Themes

5.3.4    Developing a Future Course of Action

5.4    The Framework in Context

5.4.1    A Summary of the Framework’s Questions

5.4.2    Utility of the Framework

5.4.3    Identifying Fraught Technologies

5.4.4    Frequently Heard Arguments

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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6    GOING BEYOND INITIAL A PRIORI ANALYSIS

6.1    Unanticipated Impacts

6.2    Limits of A Priori Analysis

6.2.1    The Limited Utility of Technology Forecasting

6.2.2    Sources of Uncertainty in Technology Forecasting

6.3    Broadening Predictive Analysis of Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues

6.3.1    Use of Deliberative Processes

6.3.2    Anticipatory Governance

6.3.3    Adaptive Planning

7    MECHANISMS FOR ADDRESSING ETHICAL, LEGAL, AND SOCIETAL ISSUES

7.1    Characterizing Possible Mechanisms for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues

7.2    What Mechanisms Have Been Used to Address Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues?

7.2.1    Self-regulation and Self-awareness

7.2.2    Established Institutional Mechanisms

7.2.3    Existing DARPA Efforts to Manage ELSI Concerns

7.3    Considerations for Mechanisms Used to Address Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues in the Context of Military R&D

8    FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

8.1    Synthesis

8.2    Findings

8.3    Recommendations

8.3.1    Recommendations for Agencies

8.3.2    Recommendation for Research-Performing Institutions and Individual Researchers

8.4    Concluding Observations

APPENDIXES

A    Committee Members and Staff

B    Meeting Agendas and Participants

C    Research and Development Organizations Within the Department of Defense

D    Established Institutional Mechanisms for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Page R2
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Page R3
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Page viii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Page xiii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Page xvii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Page xviii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering. 2014. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security: A Framework for Addressing Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18512.
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Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security is a study on the ethical, legal, and societal issues relating to the research on, development of, and use of rapidly changing technologies with low barriers of entry that have potential military application, such as information technologies, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology. The report also considers the ethical issues associated with robotics and autonomous systems, prosthetics and human enhancement, and cyber weapons. These technologies are characterized by readily available knowledge access, technological advancements that can take place in months instead of years, the blurring of lines between basic research and applied research, and a high uncertainty about how the future trajectories of these technologies will evolve and what applications will be possible.

Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security addresses topics such as the ethics of using autonomous weapons that may be available in the future; the propriety of enhancing the physical or cognitive capabilities of soldiers with drugs or implants or prosthetics; and what limits, if any, should be placed on the nature and extent of economic damage that cyber weapons can cause. This report explores three areas with respect to emerging and rapidly available technologies: the conduct of research; research applications; and unanticipated, unforeseen, or inadvertent ethical, legal, and societal issues. The report articulates a framework for policy makers, institutions, and individual researchers to think about issues as they relate to these technologies of military relevance and makes recommendations for how each of these groups should approach these considerations in its research activities. Emerging and Readily Available Technologies and National Security makes an essential contribution to incorporate the full consideration of ethical, legal, and societal issues in situations where rapid technological change may outpace our ability to foresee consequences.

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