Nanotechnology in Society's Context

While the public has been told numerous times that medicine will, for example, cure cancer, extinguish infant mortality, and wipe out other major diseases, no field before nanotechnology has promised to cure all the ails of the body, deliver immortality, and solve problems of the planet. Medical science increasingly allows us to enhance appearance, change body shape, or restore failed organs. We are talking today presumably because it's just a matter of time until scientists will be able to assemble molecules to build or create virtually anything. In the case of biomedical science and nanotechnology, the ³anything² we are targeting, is ourselves. Nanotechnology is supposed to enable us to transform everything, especially ourselves.

As Joel Garreau noted, "we have started a wholesale process of aiming our technologies inward. They have started to alter our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our personalities, our progeny, and perhaps our souls. The shift is so profound that serious people are calling it radical evolution."ⁱⁱ

Nano is unlike other revolutions. It has no discernable boundaries, so we are its new frontier. Nanotechnology and genetic technologies are promising to take enhancement to the next level, offering repair for defective genes, organ regeneration, tissue replacement, cognitive enhancement, memory enhancement, aging cessation, and augmentation of physical strength. How we understand ourselves, and how we relate to others, however, is not something we can engineer in a laboratory. While genetics are implicated in behavior, genes don't account for nearly as much variance in behavior as some might hope.ⁱⁱⁱ Ironically, the public has an increasing sense of genetic determinism - even while researchers are finding that there are multiple genetic and environmental influences that exist in a complex interplay in which single gene effects are less important than quantitative trait loci or gene systems.^iv Genetic science is forging ahead, driven by the hope and idea that if people had perfect genes, then they would be problem free.

However much we may change ourselves in appearance and in health, the problems of the culture that arise because of our essential human condition, problems like poverty,^v illiteracy,^vi violence,^vii addiction,^viii relationship instability, corruption, and the like^ix will probably persist. Lest you wonder if these are real problems, some data are presented in notes below.

Furthermore, enhancement's past record, even in the relatively uncomplicated realm of health and beauty, has not always been correlated with improvement. For example, gastric bypass surgery to diminish obesity is not a panacea. Ironically, significant proportions of persons who have this surgery have substantial long-standing side effects, regain their original weight^x and develop loss of control of their eating.^xi While surgery results in initial weight loss, it does not result in improvements in attendant depression and low self-regard.^xii How many of you are aware that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predict that depression will soon be among the top ten leading causes of death in America? Suicide, linked to depression, is now the eleventh leading cause of death. The history of human use of substances and devices to maintain functioning, recover functioning, augment functioning, enhance functioning, or change functioning, spans across time.

Let us pause on the notion of enhancement and advances for just a moment. It seems, consistent with our human tendencies, that we jump to conclusions before we even have discoveries and we become embroiled in the mere prospect of something new, which in turn becomes imbued with possibility, subsequently resulting in disappointment and fueling more vigorous improvement seeking. Perhaps we should intervene on this vicious cycle rather than on our bodies.

It is unclear if many of the advances predicted to emerge from nanoscience will occur, or whether we should even label or think of the various outcomes as advances a priori, rather than faddish opportunities for personal expansion or decoration, or something else: perhaps distractions or simple wishful thinking. With regard to advances, have you noticed how much of our workday we spend on nothing? Now we call this e-mail; most of us could spend our entire day on email without accomplishing any real work.

It is important to question whether or not so-called "advances" should, de facto, be considered advances or enhancements,^xiii or if we should suspend our judgment and enthusiasm, cast them as interesting items, to be approached with curiosity and patience until we observe and learn more. Most of the research to date on human issues in technology is focused on increasing people's acceptance of and adherence to technological advances^xiv not on the question of whether or not such items are advances, or the question of what they are advancing.

Moreover, it is incumbent on all of us to remember that steep discovery trajectories, such as those we are experiencing with biomedical advances, have attendant error trajectories. When you tackle organs like the brain, the error risk has serious implications and consequences. If we change one part of the body or mind, how will this impact other functions or behavior? It is imperative to recall that when scientists conceive of discovery for the benefit of, and from the perspective adopted by, the average person that in many respects, they are not themselves, "average." This renders scientists, and people like us in this room, particularly ill-suited to conceive of the ways that the average person might benefit from, be harmed by, or generally use any particular invention, and it exemplifies the need for careful planning, assessment, and reflection.

Nanoscience is promising to be the vehicle for the delivery of perfection, by perhaps enhancing memory, problem solving and capacity for computation, logic, reasoning, and the like. However, altering one of these skills, or raw ingredients as it were, may tax other human capabilities. Even highly intelligent people can make very poor decisions if self-interest, distorted perspectives, erroneous conclusions, intense emotion, or biased and unclear judgment co-exist. But what exactly is perfect and from whose perspective? We may make our body look perfect - what ever that is - but what of our character? We may have the capacity for retinal display of our e-mail and the ability to send millions of messages a day but speak with no one.

Moreover, technology in general, and nano technology even more so, is propelling us into a "fix-it" mentality. A view wherein it doesn't matter what we do, because technology can fix it if it turns out poorly. Nanotechnology promises to provide the grand do-over with which we can undo our pollution, for example, or escape the responsibility of our actions through a makeover ‹no matter the extent of harm we may have brought to our bodies or our world because this technology promises to deliver the replacement parts. There is no need to worry because technology will save us from ourselves.

This unending drive to find the silver nano bullet that will deliver improvement and achievement of a unitary image of perfection may be distracting us from other more important tasks, like figuring out how to live well, and work together in the face of all of our various foibles, differences, and human problems, or determining how to tackle problems like violence, poverty and literacy. This fix-it attitude is coupled with a rising reactivity in the culture as exemplified by new words and pithy labels like "road rage," "hooking up," "hyperdating," "flaming," and "just-in-time lifestyle."^xv

Our tendency to want things now, right this moment, is increasing, and it has an attendant corollary of action in which we act and react in the moment, occasionally without sufficient latency for considered thought. Our media fuel this by delivering news in real time in which unfolding events take on snapshot meaning so that conclusions are sometimes reached prematurely and incorrectly. Actions taken on the basis of ill-conceived conclusions can be problematic and will amplify existing human problems, not diminish them.

The drama of life that emerges from this reactive approach overshadows the substantial challenges we must navigate, plunging us into a life mode akin to a stone skipping across water - without any real attachment or investment. Technology drives lifestyle and it appears that there is no person driving, just a device, and yet it is in the context of relationships that life enhancement occurs. It is fundamental human attachment and support that has been shown, time and time again, to promote health and mental health.^xvi

As a culture, we have become less and less inclined to take the time to find things out, than to be proactive, forward looking, get a leg up, engage in scenario planning, invent the future, hit the ground running, be cost effective, time efficient, and take calls during dinner, on the train, or in the wash room. The implications of our actions ripple out, but we are no longer in the same place to even notice. It is sometimes more important, for the sake of our daily lives and relationships and for the sake of our well being, to sleep on matters, as it were, rather than bang out a response in the moment.

Our capacity to wait and postpone action is diminishing, so too is our sense of time being truncated, although the gravity of this may not be evident. If we are always acting and reacting, but seldom being or reflecting, it is difficult to achieve integrated understanding. Perspectives can, and do change in the fullness of time when they become disconnected from the heated moment of the event. Still, we tend to jump to believe that the next great invention will be the invention that changes the world and helps us escape the problems of the present day.

As a culture we tend to overestimate the positives associated with change and also the negatives associated with change. By and large, our levels of happiness are stable,^xvii and if we are looking to nanotechnology to make us happier, it probably will not happen. In a diverse, global world, taking time to consider events, our actions, others, and ourselves becomes even more important if we are to live peaceably with a celebration of differences. Conflict resolution depends, in large measure, on the ability to take the perspective of another. Relationships are healing, and relationships take time and require shared, real space. This sharing must occur in real space, not in My Space (for those of you who know what it is) ‹ but rather in real-time physical space.

Perhaps we should take the position that our nanotechnology should be focused on making a difference on culturally-based problems rather than our bodies or our appearance. After all, many of our illnesses are associated with our lifestyle, not with pathogens. The ability to interact productively with others, to function well in a dynamic world, to engage fully in the activities of daily life across the multiple demands of work, home, school, and family, requires a deeper set of skills and abilities.

The drive to enhance human capability, presumably, is to make a better world. A vision for a better world, however, requires extraordinary perceptiveness, deep understanding, and wisdom. The risks of enhanced raw intelligence in the face of unchanged emotional intelligence, executive functioning and other skill areas, in combination with human foibles, may not result in the outcomes that inventors and scientists seek.

It has been suggested^xviii that machines help us manage our lives and compensate for human frailty; it has been stated that: "We make our technologies and our technologies make and shape us."^xix The recognition that the environment in which we live exerts a bi-directional influence is important and should compel us to examine the course we are on. We need to look up from the pursuits to achieve perfection, immortality, and sameness, step back from our work and tendency for action, and reflect on how we might use nanotechnology to better be ourselves, embracing the perspective that our real dilemmas rest with our lifestyle, our behaviors, and our relationships ‹ all of which need our attention.

Perhaps, instead of increasing intelligence, we need to promote mindfulness and the capacity to remain centered on what is important to human flourishing. Perhaps we should adopt the view that nanotechnology priorities should aim at human problems not human foibles.