Living Technology

Philosophy and Ethics at the Crossroads Between Life and Technology

Armin Grunwald

• Editore: Jenny Stanford Publishing
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000346527
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Filosofia
• Categoria: Filosofia etica e morale

The boundaries between inanimate technology and the realm of the living become increasingly blurred. Deeper and deeper technological interventions into living organisms are possible, covering the entire spectrum of life from bacteria to humans. Simultaneously, digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) enable increasingly autonomous technologies. Inanimate technologies such as robots begin to show characteristics of life. Contested issues pop up, such as the dignity of life, the enhancement of animals for human purposes, the creation of designer babies, and the granting of robot rights.

The book addresses the understanding of the ongoing dissolution of the life/technology borders, the provision of ethical guidance for navigating research and innovation responsibly, and the philosophical reflection on the meaning of the current shifts. It offers three specific perspectives for understanding the challenges and providing orientation. First, the dissolution of the boundaries between technology and life is analyzed and reflected from both sides. Second, the search for orientation is not restricted to ethics but also involves philosophy of technology and of nature, as well as anthropology. Finally, instead of restricting the analysis to specific areas of life, e.g., bacteria or animals, the book presents a comprehensive look at the entire spectrum of living organisms—bacteria and viruses, plants, animals and humans—and robots as possible early forms of emerging technical life.

Chapter 1

What You Will Find in This Book?

This brief introductory chapter offers a guided tour through the book. Starting with the basic observations (Sec. 1.1) and unfolding its objectives (Sec. 1.2), it provides an overview of the nine chapters (Sec. 1.3) and their background (Sec. 1.4).

1.1 The Point of Departure: Observations

The scientific and technological advance has made the traditional boundary between inanimate technology and the realm of the living more permeable. Developments in, e.g., synthetic biology, genome editing, human enhancement, and germline intervention demonstrate huge advances in science and technology. Deeper and deeper technological interventions into living organisms are possible, covering the entire range of life, from bacteria through plants and animals to humans. Living organisms are increasingly regarded as the point of departure to investigate and understand them at the micro-level, to modulate them as technically functioning systems, and then to rebuild or replace natural processes with technical ones, according to human intention. Far-ranging change and manipulation of natural organisms has become possible.

Simultaneously, a complementary development is ongoing. Recent developments in the field of digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) make increasingly autonomous technologies possible: robots for customer service, intelligent prostheses, autonomous cars, and social bots on the Internet. In this line of development, traditional technology is empowered by capabilities known only from living organisms: self-organization, recognition of its environment and adaptation to changes, the capability to move in an unknown territory, to develop problem-solving strategies on its own, and to learn from experience. Inanimate technology begins to show properties of life.

Therefore, my first observation motivating this book is: We are on the track, metaphorically speaking, to create living technology and technical life. The boundaries between life and technology are currently becoming more and more permeable from both sides. We are witnessing deeper and deeper technological intervention in life and are experiencing technology acquiring more and more attributes of life (e.g., Funk et al., 2019; Giese et al., 2014; Lin et al., 2012; Sternberg, 2007).

A plethora of new opportunities opens up, e.g., for overcoming diseases and disabilities but also for applications in energy supply and industrial production, for mobility, and in the military. The scientific and technological advance empowers humans to manipulate living organisms to a formerly unknown extent, e.g., by genome editing or enhancement technologies. Autonomous and intelligent technologies can replace humans for dangerous or boring routine activities, thereby also increasing economic efficiency. New services and systems combining technicalized life and living technology can be designed, serving human needs and creating new markets. The health system, agriculture, production, industry, environmental protection, and other areas will benefit. Expectations are high in many fields.

However, concerns as to the possible risks involved are posed, building on earlier debates on the risks of genetically modified organisms (GMO) and food (GMF) for health, the environment, and related social issues. Some of them touch upon specific issues, while others are visionary and more speculative. Artificially produced or technologically modified life could develop further according to the principles of self-organization and could potentially reproduce and get out of control. Challenges to distributional justice and equity could arise, together with questions about the carriers of responsibility in cases of increasingly autonomous technology. Autonomous robots which are able to move independently in an unknown environment, to learn, and to behave similarly to humans motivate and fuel new debates around responsibility, new human–machine interfaces,¹ control, and the moral status of the robots themselves.

Therefore, the second observation guiding this book is the emerging need for orientation in coping with all the new opportunities and dealing with the challenges and risks responsibly. Contested issues such as the dignity of life, limits to enhancing animals for human purposes, interventions into the human germline, control and power, as well as distributional justice with regard to harvesting the benefits of the new opportunities provide a vast field of challenges for responsible deliberation, decision-making, and action. Applied ethics, in particular bioethics, medical ethics, and the ethics of technology are called for (e.g., Comstock, 2000; Buchanan, 2011; Paslack et al., 2012; Gunkel, 2018; Li et al., 2019).

Furthermore, transgressing the boundaries between life and technology is a deep challenge beyond morality and applied ethics. It affects the traditional cultural, religious, philosophical, and ontological order that has emerged over the course of human history. While living beings have traditionally been regarded as having their origin in nature, in evolution, or in God’s creation, artificially produced or deeply manipulated living beings would be human creations. In particular, the relations of technology and life, as well as between humans and technology, need to be reflected. Core notions of the human perception of the world, such as “life” and “technology,” must be reconsidered.

Accordingly, the third observation fueling this book is that dissolving the boundaries between life and technology needs deeper philosophical understanding, beyond applied ethics. Questions about reviewing and sharpening core issues of human perception of the world, and our self-conceptions, lie behind many of the tasks for ethical reflection. Therefore, philosophy of nature, philosophy of technology, and anthropology also have to be engaged in achieving a better understanding of the ongoing fundamental changes in human civilization driven by science and technology (e.g., Winner, 1982; Glees, 2005; Habermas, 2005; Sandel, 2007; Savulescu and Bostrom, 2009; Hurlbut and Tirosh-Samuelson, 2016).

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¹ Throughout this book, gender neutral and non-binary language will be used.

1.2 The Mission: Targets and Objectives

The diagnosis of dissolving or even disappearing boundaries between technology and life as well as the resulting far-ranging orientation needs for science, philosophy, policy-making, and society require clarification and substantiation. According to ethical and philosophical guidance, conclusions must be drawn in order to shape the technological advance and make the best use of it while avoiding unbearable risks. This book follows three major objectives related to the observations mentioned above:

• (1) Substantiating the diagnosis: The diagnosis of dissolving boundaries will be underpinned by in-depth case studies. Within these studies, I will analyze various highly dynamic fields, which lie between biology, medicine, and technology, with respect to the process and shape of the dissolution, the state of the art of science and technology, the intended applications and challenges, and the perspectives and visions ahead. This will be conducted in the fields of synthetic biology, animal enhancement, human genome editing, human enhancement, and autonomous technologies. Obviously, a whole book could be dedicated to each of these fields, while the space available in this volume is limited. Therefore, I will focus on those aspects specifically related to the changing boundary between technology and life (e.g., Chopra and Kamma, 2006; Tucker and Zilinskas, 2006; Boogerd et al., 2007; Adamatzky and Kosiminski, 2009; Gutmann et al., 2015).
• (2) Providing ethical guidance: In order to meet the demand for orientation, ethical guidance for navigating responsibly into and through the age of living technology will be provided. While the scientific and technological advance offers a vast range of new opportunities, it simultaneously leads to debates, controversies, and even hard conflicts with two different origins. First, unintended side effects have accompanied the entire techno-scientific advance (Grunwald, 2019a), which applies to the fields considered in this book, too. Uncertainty and risk are therefore an inherent part of their development as well as of public and scientific concern. Second, the moral status of living organisms, e.g., animals, could be affected or even violated by technical intervention, e.g., by animal enhancement or human genome editing. The philosophical approach to responsibility will be applied as the overarching concept to make ethical reflection in both directions operable and to support the creation of responsible pathways to the future (e.g., Miller and Selgelid, 2006; Merkel et al., 2007; Owen et al., 2013; Cussins and Lowthorp, 2018; Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 2018).
• (3) Reflecting anthropological shift: While ethical and responsibility reflections are without any doubt needed to provide orientation for action and decision-making for the next steps toward the future, they cannot cover all the demands for orientation. New interfaces and crossroads between life and technology and the transgression of the former strict boundary affects human perception and conceptualization both of the outer world and of human self-images. This book, therefore, is also dedicated to reflecting the concepts of life and technology, including their generally strict separation, at least in Western reasoning. Because these have deeply shaped human mind and thought for centuries and even millennia, new accentuations or shifts of meaning are of the highest importance and have to be investigated. To this end, philosophy of nature, philosophy of technology, and anthropology will be involved, beyond ethics (e.g., Searle, 1980; Grunwald et al., 2002; Reggia, 2013; Wallach and Allen, 2009).

While many books and edited volumes are available dedicated to specific areas of the dissolving boundaries and newly emerging interfaces between life and technology, this book offers three specific perspectives, conceived along the observations it is based on:

• Most of the books available look either at technical interventions into living systems, such as animals or humans, or at technical artefacts like robots receiving more and more autonomy, which was formerly a property of life only. Considering and reflecting the dissolution of the boundary between technology and life from both sides, as is done in this book, is specific.
• While ethical inquiry in the fields touched upon sticks to the respective sub-disciplines of applied ethics, such as bioethics, animal ethics, ethics of technology, or risk ethics, this book goes further. It provides deeper scrutiny with respect to philosophy and anthropology in order to achieve better understanding of the dissolution processes at the boundaries between life and technology and the emergence of new crossroads.
• Usually, books focus on specific areas of life, e.g., on gene editing of plants, on interventions into the human germline, or on artificial intelligence showing some properties similar to life. This book, however, p...