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6 Going Beyond Initial A Priori Analysis
Pages 212-229

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From page 212...
... The analytical framework described in Chapter 5 is based on the idea that undertaking a systematic search for ethical, legal, and societal issues that could come up in the context of a given technology or application will surface more possible issues than if no such search is undertaken. That is, there is value in an a priori consideration of ELSI concerns before a technology or an application is developed.
From page 213...
... The situation may have analogies with different and competing traditional situations. We find ourselves in a conceptual muddle about which way to understand the matter in order to formulate and justify a policy.1 6.2  LIMITS OF A PRIORI ANALYSIS 6.2.1  The Limited Utility of Technology Forecasting Anticipating ethical, legal, and societal issues associated with applications that may -- or may not -- lie in the future should, in principle, be enhanced by good technology forecasting.
From page 214...
... Underestimation of long-term effects reflects the substantial difficulties in making predictions with long time horizons -- and it is in the long term that many actual real-world consequences that raise ELSI concerns will become manifest. 6.2.2  Sources of Uncertainty in Technology Forecasting What helps to explain the limited utility of technology forecasting in addressing ethical, legal, and societal issues in advance of their appearance?
From page 215...
... Benner and A Michael Sismour, "Synthetic Biology," Nature Reviews Genetics 6(7)
From page 216...
... Such factors include politics, budgets, the state of the economy, the availability of appropriate human capital, and so on. To take one example, Moore's law is often cited as an example of the inexorable development of information technology (in its most basic form, Moore's law states that the areal density of transistors on a chip increases 6 Jennifer Chu, "A Safe and Simple Arsenic Detector" January 25, 2007, MIT Technology Review, available at http://www.technologyreview.com/news/407222/a-safe-and-simplearsenic-detector/.
From page 217...
... Second, Moore's law is at least as much an economic statement as a technological statement -- the fact that the areal density of transistors has followed an exponential growth curve with a doubling time of 18 months reflects the investments that semiconductor and semiconductor equipment manufacturers have made in new fabrication plants, and they have been able to financially justify such expenditures of capital. If they did not believe that they were capable of extracting appropriate value from such expenditures, they would not have made them in the first place -- and the doubling time would no longer be 18 months.9 Building on this example, economics is often one of the most unpredictable and powerful influences on technology evolution.
From page 218...
... If the new application for performing a task affords no advantages over existing ones that perform the same task, there is no compelling reason for anyone to adopt it. When the new application offers only incremental advantages over existing applications, there is often uncertainty about whether those incremental advantages are sufficiently important, although during times of national emergency (such as being in a war)
From page 219...
... enemy soldiers at long range; furthermore, by inflicting serious injury on enemy soldiers but not killing them, such weapons could have seriously increased the logistical burden on the enemy to care for injured soldiers. However, despite such operational advantages, the United States promulgated policy that prohibited the use of lasers "specifically designed to cause permanent blindness of unenhanced vision"12 and later signed on to an international treaty banning such use, in part for ethical reasons.
From page 220...
... Deliberative processes were described in a 1996 report of the National Research Council entitled Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society.13 The study committee responsible for that report was originally charged with developing an approach to risk analysis structured to enable making better and more broadly acceptable governmental decisions regarding regulatory actions. The report noted that risk characterization involved "complex, value-laden judgments" and required "effective dialogue between technical experts and interested and affected 13 National Research Council, Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society, National Academy Press, Washington D.C., 1996.
From page 221...
... design decision processes that allow for explicit examination, consideration, and weighing of social, ethical, and political values that cannot be addressed solely by analytic techniques." • From an instrumental standpoint, the report argued that "broad public participation may decrease conflict and increase acceptance of or trust in decisions by government agencies" and that "mistrust is often at the root of the conflicts that arise over risk analysis in the United States." Furthermore, the report said that "providing people an opportunity to learn about the problem, the decision making process, and the expected benefits of a decision may improve the likelihood that they will support the decision" and/or "clear up misunderstandings about the nature of a controversy and the views of various participants. And it may contribute
From page 222...
... More recently, Worthington et al. argued that ordinary citizens should have a role in shaping technologies that pervade society, and that they can and should play a role in technology assessment.14 They further note that in the past two decades, participatory practices have expanded considerably in a number of dimensions, including greater racial and gender inclusivity of the people who constitute the professional workforce in scientific and engineering fields; increased involvement in research by ordinary people (e.g., through citizens collecting data for scientific analysis or through the origination of scientific research projects in citizen concerns)
From page 223...
... Second, the use of deliberative processes may help to defuse potential future concerns and possibly head off protracted and politically dangerous controversy in the future that could delay to an even greater extent or even kill promising and useful technologies. Two relevant examples of a failure to anticipate controversy may be the Total Information Awareness program and the Policy Analysis Market program of DARPA (Box 6.1)
From page 224...
... "This was a hugely unpopular pro gram with a mission far outside what most Americans would consider acceptable in our democracy," said Timothy Edgar, a legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union office in Washington, D.C.3 By 2003, continued privacy concerns raised by a number of groups encouraged Congress to act. First, Congress passed a law ordering a report detailing the project in Public Law 108-87.4 The requested report was to: include a detailed explanation for each project and activity of the Total Information Awareness program -- the actual and intended use of funds; the schedule for proposed research and development; and target dates for deployment.
From page 225...
... 6 Report to Congress Regarding the Terrorism Information Awareness Program, 2003, avail able at http://hanson.gmu.edu/PAM/govt/DARPA-report-to-congress-5-20-03.pdf. 7 Electronic Frontier Foundation, "Total/Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA)
From page 226...
... 10 Electronic Frontier Foundation, "Total/Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) : Is It Truly Dead?
From page 227...
... propose that adaptive policies should contain a variety of policy options, some of which are intended for immediate implementation and others held in reserve as contingency plans to be activated only if and when certain things happen. That is, adaptive policies involve taking 15 For more information on anticipatory governance, see Daniel Barben, Erik Fisher, Cynthia Lea Selin, and David H
From page 228...
... An adaptive approach to addressing ethical, legal, and societal issues may prove valuable as well. Even if the analytical framework presented in Chapter 5 is augmented through the use of the deliberative processes described above, it is highly unlikely that all relevant ethical, legal, and societal issues will be identified before any given technology or applications development begins.
From page 229...
... Note, however, that in practice, real human thinkers generally do not take these extreme views; indeed, one philosopher-ethicist -- William David Ross -- proposes the notion of prima facie duties, a concept that allows for the possibility of consequences overriding deontological duties if the consequences are horrific enough but that also stresses the importance of giving such duties weight and not being overridden simply because there happens to be some consequentialist payoff.19 Last, adaptive planning is by assumption arguably less stable than traditional planning, which generally does not admit the possibility of midcourse corrections at all. Without adaptation, a priori planning may fail because the discrepancy between what was assumed and what is actually happening becomes too large.


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