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Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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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B

Meeting Agendas and Participants

The Committee on Ethical and Societal Implications of Advances in Militarily Significant Technologies That Are Rapidly Changing and Increasingly Globally Accessible held five open meetings starting in August 2011. These meetings included information-gathering sessions open to the public, as well as closed segments for committee deliberation. The committee heard from numerous presenters at these meetings. They include the following by meeting date and session.

MEETING 1

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

10:45 AM - 11:15 AM

Discussion of Charge with DARPA

Norman Whitaker, DARPA

11:15 AM - 12:45 PM

Military Ethics and Law

Shannon French, Case Western University (video)

• How and to what extent, if any, do military ethics differ from the law of armed conflict?

Ward Thomas, College of the Holy Cross

• How have norms of military conflict evolved with the introduction of new technologies?

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

Judith Miller, former Department of Defense general counsel

• How do ethical/legal considerations enter into DOD acquisition decisions?

12:45 PM - 1:30 PM

Lunch

1:30 PM - 3:15 PM

Military Futures: Emerging Contexts Peter Schwartz, Global Business Network

• What are the emerging/re-emerging contexts and trends in the global environment that are shaping military missions?

Consider:

—Non-state actors in conflict (e.g., insurgencies, terrorism);

—Access to resources (food, energy, water)

—Climate disruption

—Ethnic/religious tensions and conflict

—Economic pressures

—Demographic changes

—Social connectedness

—Changes in regional military capacities and relationships

—Technology “push”

—Dual-use technologies and research


3:15 PM - 3:30 PM

Break

3:30 PM - 5:15 PM

Future Military Missions

Scott Wallace, U.S. Army (ret.), Tradoc

• What military missions are emerging in response to these trends?

Consider, for example:

—Peacekeeping, conflict reduction, humanitarian operations; nation-building

—DOD support as authorized by law for domestic agencies within the continental United States

—Traditional military activities, for example with respect to near-peer competitors


5:15 PM

Adjourn

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

8:30 AM - 10:15 AM

Technologies for Meeting Emerging Military Missions

George Lucas, U.S. Naval Academy

Patrick Lin, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California

• How do the emerging/re-emerging contexts and military missions described earlier shape ethical, legal, and societal questions about military technology?

Consider, for example, such questions as they relate to:

—Constraints on technologies intended to help protect troops, civilian populations, or particular subgroups; to support humanitarian missions or other peacekeeping operations

—Technologies that kill vis-à-vis those that maim or that negatively or positively affect mental or psychological processes

—Concerns regarding blowback from emerging technologies

—Technologies that enable military operations at long range or that remove the “human-in-the-loop” from decision making (e.g., drones, cyber, robots)

—Technologies for surveillance (including surveillance of populations as well as of military deployments and movements)


10:15 AM - 10:30 AM

Break

10:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Prior ELSI Efforts—Biomedical/Engineering Ethics

R. Alta Charo, University of Wisconsin Law School

• Basic approach of and relevant history from biomedical ethics

Joseph Herkert, Arizona State University

• Basic approach of and relevant history from engineering ethics; ethics of emerging technologies

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

MEETING 2

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

8:00 AM - 8:30 AM

Breakfast

8:30 AM - 8:40 AM

Welcome and Housekeeping

8:40 AM - 10:35 AM

Technology Panel 1—Information Technology

Technology and Applications—Peter Lee, Microsoft Research

Ethics—Keith Miller, University of Illinois, Springfield

Ethics and Societal Issues—Gloria Mark, University of California, Irvine

Ethics of Research—Simson Garfinkel, Naval Postgraduate School

10:35 AM - 10:50 AM

Break

10:50 AM - 12:45 PM

Technology Panel 2—Neuroscience

Basic Science—Scott Grafton, University of California, Santa Barbara

Applications—Craig Stark, University of California, Irvine

Ethics—Martha Farah, University of Pennsylvania (via video link)

12:45 PM - 1:30 PM

Lunch

1:30 PM - 3:25 PM

Technology Panel 3—Prosthetics

Technology (arm)—Stuart Harshbarger, Contineo Robotics

Technology (eye)—Daniel Palanker, Stanford University

Technology (neurology)—Gerald Loeb, University of Southern California (via phone)

Ethics—Nicholas Agar, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (via Skype)

Ethics—James Hughes, Trinity College

3:25 PM - 3:40 PM

Break

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

3:40 PM - 5:35 PM

Technology Panel 4—Synthetic Biology

Fundamentals—George Church, Harvard University (via video link)

Applications—Drew Endy, Stanford University

Ethics—Nita A. Farahany, Vanderbilt University

5:35 PM - 6:15 PM

Reception with Speakers

6:15 PM - 7:45 PM

Dinner

Thursday, November 3, 2011

8:00 AM - 8:30 AM

Breakfast

8:30 AM - 10:15 AM

Crosscutting Synthesis and Discussion

Judith Reppy, Cornell University

George Khushf, University of South Carolina

10:15 AM - 10:30 AM

Adjourn

Questions for Technology Panels

Basic Science

What is the maturity of the underlying science for creating national security applications with significant operational value? What hard problems need to be resolved to enable such applications?

Applications

Assuming the hard scientific/technical problems described above can be resolved, what are the scope and nature of such national security applications?

How important are the potential national security applications for the future of the technology/field/etc. as opposed to, for example, potential commercial drivers of development?

Ethical and Societal Issues

How, if at all, do researchers in the field identify and address ethical issues that might apply to their research? What mechanisms exist to address latent ethical issues that are not noticed by researchers? (Leave out issues related to scientific misconduct.)

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

What ethical and societal issues arise if the national security applications described above can be successfully deployed?

What ethical and societal issues arise in the course of conducting basic and/or applied research oriented toward national security applications? How can or should attention to these issues affect directions and outcomes of basic and applied research oriented toward national security applications?

How, if at all, have the ethical and societal issues evolved as the technology has matured?

MEETING 3

Thursday, January 12, 2012

8:00 AM - 8:30 AM

Breakfast

8:30 AM - 8:45 AM

Housekeeping

8:45 AM - 10:45 AM

Emerging Technologies and ELSI

Deborah Johnson, University of Virginia

Sheila Jasanoff, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government

David Rejeski, Woodrow Wilson Center

Malcolm Dando, University of Bradford (respondent)

• How have various technology fields addressed ELSI concerns?

• How and in what ways have these approaches been successful and unsuccessful?

• How, if at all, have these fields managed uncertainties (prospectively) and inaccuracies (retroactively) in forecasts about what the future would bring? (Uncertainties and inaccuracies are intended to cover all domains in which they might be relevant—ELSI concerns, scientific or technical developments, national security applications.)

• How, if at all, are the lessons learned from past and current approaches to ELSI issues being changed by:

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

—A military/national security orientation or application of emerging technologies?

—High degrees of accessibility to these technologies by nonmajor nation-states and/or subnational actors?


10:45 AM - 11:00 AM

Break

11:00 AM - 12:45 PM

Mechanisms Used by Government Agencies to Address ELSI Concerns (panel 1 of 2, panel 2 for April meeting)

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 (retired)

• What are some of the mechanisms (e.g., regulations, rules, institutions) that agencies have used to address ELSI concerns? What prompts agencies to put these mechanisms in place?

• What has been the impact on the course of scientific/technological research and progress when these mechanisms have been used?

• How has the research community responded to such mechanisms?

• How and in what ways, if any, could such mechanisms be usefully applied to the conduct of research with applications for national security?

12:45 PM - 1:30 PM

Lunch

1:30 PM - 3:15 PM

Technology Panel—Cyber Warfare

Mark Seiden, Yahoo!

Randall Dipert, University of Buffalo

Neil Rowe, Naval Postgraduate School

• See attached questions (same as for November meeting)

3:15 PM - 3:30 PM

Break

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

3:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Technology Panel—Robotics and Automated Weapons

Ron Arkin, Georgia Institute of Technology

Peter Singer, Brookings Institution

Jürgen Altmann, Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany

• See attached questions (same as for November meeting)

5:30 PM - 6:00 PM

Reception

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Dinner

Friday, January 13, 2012

8:00 AM - 8:30 AM

Breakfast

8:30 AM - 10:30 AM

Risk Assessment (panel 1 of 2, panel 2 for April meeting)

Paul Fischbeck, Carnegie Mellon University

• How to elicit expert judgments about the performance of deeply uncertain systems Denise Caruso, Carnegie Mellon University

• How to responsibly conduct R&D in the context of emerging scientific understanding and complexity Peter Hancock, University of Central Florida

• How to anticipate human use and misuse of new technologies

10:30 AM - 10:45 AM

Break

10:45 AM - 11:45 AM

Committee Discussion—Identification of Major Ideas

This session will focus on identifying the major ideas that committee members believe are important for inclusion in the report. To increase the efficiency of the idea extraction process, we’ll use a procedure often used in industry to engage committee members in parallel.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

We start with large sheets of butcher paper on the wall, each with the title of a chapter from the draft report (see attachment). An additional sheet is labeled “miscellaneous and other.” Each committee member will have a 3 × 5 sticky note pad; during this session, committee members write their ideas on these sticky notes, one idea per sheet. They then post their ideas on the relevant sheet of paper. Reading other ideas on the sheet often inspires people to think of yet other ideas, which they are free to post as appropriate. Sometimes committee members think of the same ideas—that becomes clear as multiple notes appear with the same idea. Over lunch, staff will examine the ideas that have been posted and will attempt to synthesize commonalities for presentation to the group at the start of the afternoon session.

11:45 AM - 12:45 PM

Lunch

12:45 PM - 3:15 PM

Committee Discussion

3:15 PM

Adjourn

Questions for Technology Panels

Basic Science

What is the maturity of the underlying science for creating national security applications with significant operational value? What hard problems need to be resolved to enable such applications?

Applications

Assuming the hard scientific/technical problems described above can be resolved, what are the scope and the nature of such national security applications?

How important are the potential national security applications for the future of the technology/field/etc., as opposed to, for example, potential commercial drivers of development?

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

Ethical and Societal Issues

How, if at all, do researchers in the field identify and address ethical issues that might apply to their research? What mechanisms exist to address latent ethical issues that are not noticed by researchers? (Leave out issues related to scientific misconduct.)

What mechanisms exist for consideration, correction, or redress of untoward consequences?

What ethical and societal issues arise if the national security applications described above can be successfully deployed?

What ethical and societal issues arise in the course of conducting basic and/or applied research oriented toward national security applications? How can or should attention to these issues affect directions and outcomes of basic and applied research oriented toward national security applications?

How, if at all, have the ethical and societal issues evolved as the technology has matured?

MEETING 4

Thursday, April 12, 2012

8:00 AM - 8:30 AM

Breakfast

8:30 AM - 8:45 AM

Welcome

8:45 AM - 10:45 AM

Embedding Ethics in Research and Development

Heather Douglas, University of Waterloo, Canada

Alex John London, Carnegie Mellon University

Nils-Eric Sahlin, Lund University, Sweden

• At what point (or points) in the R&D effort is societal and ethical expertise best brought to bear? Why?

• A commonly stated desire of scientists is to ensure that societal and ethical review does not “unduly” affect the pace and nature of scientific progress. What does “unduly” mean? By what standards might one recognize a societal or ethical review that unduly affects a given R&D project?

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

• How and to what extent, if at all, do the kinds of societal and ethical expertise depend on the specific nature of the R&D being performed?

• What is necessary to facilitate respectful and honest communication between those with societal and ethical expertise and working scientists and technologists?

• How can expertise about societal and ethical matters be brought to bear on a given R&D effort?

• How can those charged with having such expertise and applying expertise to an R&D effort be kept from “going native” and being compromised?

10:45 AM - 11:00 AM

Break

11:00 AM - 12:45 PM

Risk Assessment

Paul Fischbeck, Carnegie Mellon University

Wandi de Bruin, Carnegie Mellon University

Arthur (Skip) Lupia, University of Michigan

Adam Finkel, Carnegie Mellon University

• What information do various publics need in order to judge social and ethical issues of emerging military technologies fairly?

• What organizational procedures should the sponsors of those technologies follow, in order to meet those information needs?

• What analytical methods are best suited to produce that information, considering the novelty, complexity, uncertainty, etc., of those technologies?

• What are the potential barriers to public understanding of that information, assuming that it is produced?

• How can we ensure that effective communications are created, tested, and disseminated in a timely fashion?

• What are examples of successful and unsuccessful programs for addressing these challenges?

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

• What additional research is most needed to provide a scientific foundation for risk analysis and communication, for emerging military technologies?

12:45 PM - 1:30 PM

Lunch

1:30 PM - 3:15 PM

Mechanisms, Panel 2

William Brinkman, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science

Carmen Maher, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Office of the Chief Scientist

Diana Hoyt, NASA, Office of the Chief Technologist

Edward Knipling, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

• What are some of the mechanisms (e.g., regulations, rules, institutions) that agencies have used to address ELSI concerns? What prompts agencies to put these mechanisms in place?

• What has been the impact on the course of scientific/technological research and progress when these mechanisms have been used?

• How has the research community responded to such mechanisms?

• How and in what ways, if any, could such mechanisms be usefully applied to the conduct of research with applications for national security?

3:15 PM - 3:30 PM

Break

3:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Non-U.S. Perspectives on Ethics in Science and Technology

Qiu Renzong, Chinese Academy of Social Science, China

Frans Brom, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Steven Lee, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Montgomery McFate, U.S. Naval War College

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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 purpose of this panel is to consider the following question:

With respect to issues of ethics regarding science and technology as they may be applied to armed conflict, how do the perspectives of different nations, religious traditions, and cultures compare to those of the United States?

It is recognized that the ethics of science and technology and the ethics of war and armed conflict are fundamentally different areas. Accordingly,

• Professors Qiu Renzong and Frans Brom are requested to address ethics in science and technology from the Asian and European perspectives, respectively, and to speculate, if they wish, on the implications of Asian and European perspectives on ethics in science and technology as they might apply to military matters.

• Professors Steven Lee and Montgomery McFate are requested to compare different religious (Lee) and cultural (McFate) perspectives on armed conflict and war to U.S. perspectives that are based largely on “just-war” theory, and to speculate, if they wish, on the implications of these differences for how the United States might use new military technologies.

5:30 PM - 6:00 PM

Reception

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Dinner (with speakers)

Homework:

• Make comments regarding the report summary on sticky notes for placement in the morning.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

• Each committee member will have a 3 × 5 sticky note pad to be used for recording thoughts on the material to be discussed on Friday (see Friday agenda below). Please record one thought per note sheet, and organize them by the topics below.

• If your comments don’t fit into the categories listed below, record them anyway for the “miscellaneous” category.

• Also, please think about comments on two topics from Thursday’s sessions:

—How do non-U.S. perspectives affect our report? (from Thursday)

—Embedding ethics into R&D (from Thursday)

Both will be discussed on Friday.


Friday, April 13, 2012
                             ALL FRIDAY SESSIONS ARE CLOSED.

MEETING 5

Monday, June 4, 2012

8:00 AM - 8:30 AM

Breakfast

8:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Nuclear Ethics

George Perkovich, Nuclear Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (via videolink)

10:00 AM - 10:15 AM

Break

10:15 AM - 12:15 PM

Nonlethal Weapons

David Fidler, Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, Indiana State University

Neil Davison, International Committee of the Red Cross (via videolink)

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×

12:15 PM - 1:15 PM

Lunch

1:15 PM - 5:30 PM

Closed Session

5:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Reception and Dinner

Tuesday, June 5, 2012
                                  ALL TUESDAY SESSIONS ARE CLOSED.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 283
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 284
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 285
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 286
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 287
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 288
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 289
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 290
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 291
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 292
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 293
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 294
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 295
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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.
×
Page 296
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Meeting Agendas and Participants." 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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