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Genies Galore
Early in March a conference was held to fathom how the genies unleashed by today's onrushing sciences and technologies can, by some governance processes, be made to perform their magic predominantly for social good. "Living with the Genie-Governing the Scientific and Technological Transformation of Society in the 21st Century" was organized by Columbia's Center for Science, Policy, & Outcomes, which supports this column, and a California organization called The Funders' Working Group on Emerging Technologies, an association of foundations concerned about the environmental, cultural, and political implications of new technology. About 350 people came, filling the rotunda floor of Columbia University's Low Library. The organizers tried to apply a special innovative quality to this conference, a special way of approaching critical issues that have essentially no borders. Big meetings about big problems are nothing new and are often platitudinous and pretentious (see those cynically regarded Davos economic meetings). This one tried to be new in its design and in its focus on the governance of knowledge, which is to say taming of genies. There's no easy way to wrap one's arms around clouds of knowing and unknowing in conferences like that, much less in a world of genies. But they tried, and this little column, begging the reader's indulgence, likewise takes its stab. The genies under examination included those being bred by the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information technology, or the Big Three. The Three have impact on all the other technical sectors and thus upon human life in general-from biomedical research on the genome, to environmental and ecological toxicities of mysterious origin, all the way over to neuro-techno-genomic means of reducing the murder rate by such concepts as implanting tiny, preventive, electronic devices early in a potential murderer's life. The general topics covered consisted of questions and included: What could be learned form past scientific and technological transformations of society? What could be said about the world that is now being made through science and technology? What research should the system now be doing? What is wanted from science and technology? How are the products of science and technology appropriated and distributed? How should scientific and technological progress be governed in the modern world? No one, to this observer at least, tried to define governance, which goes back to the Greek word, steersman. But the assumption was that governance meant doing good things with knowledge, and anticipating and preventing the not so good, the bad, and certainly the evil. So ethics and a certain amount of lecturing on it came in heavily. Behind it all loomed the question: why can't such smart people like scientists extend their minds and broaden their concerns into doing a better job at making the world a better place? That issue has been intensely debated in certain quarters since Hiroshima. The conference tried to give it a refreshed urgency, knowing at the same time that there are activist scientific organizations who make a gutsy profession of caring, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Federation of American Scientists. What the conference was groping for were ways of implementing a change in the mind-sets (or the self-governance) of technical people that would enable them to pursue cutting edge research in their fields and while tackling human problems through extensions of the research work they already do. In other words, they would continue to be free to do their highly enjoyable competitive thing in science while keeping a keen eye toward applications. Louis Pasteur was the model for that kind of approach to research. A whole book has been written on that topic, Pasteur's Quadrant, by the late Donald Stokes of Princeton University. It is a textbook for critics of the current do-my-own-thing way of doing research. As many conference speakers said or alluded to, the dangers of the Big Three, which are intensely research-based, have to do with the relentless increase in the invasions of human privacy, biology, and psychology, as well as the vulnerability of entire systems that support modern society. These are technologies that are largely in the control, and thus governance, of private capital, are highly profitable, and are therefore-outside of the clear public distaste for human cloning-subject to almost no public governance. The current Administration's reformed bioethics commission, under Leon R. Kass, is, however, applying humanistic measuring sticks to these new genomic problem areas. Indeed, the noted classicist, Roger Shattuck, in his 1996 book, Forbidden Knowledge, draws on traditional mythologies to raise the question of whether some areas of science simply ought to be left alone via some inbred, instinctive sense that keeping a distance from some forms of power is sometimes a wise course. Scientists, constructing their own modern mythologies, will hear none of that, of course. For the Big Three have the potential for doing, if done ethically and compassionately, an awful amount of good, which is why governments support research on them. Nevertheless, there is reason for pause. Ecological mischief through the manipulation of agricultural gene pools raises deep and justified worry. The technological dominance of the West, chiefly the United States, is another bothersome matter, particularly to those in the poorer countries. Those countries are rapidly receding in the knowledge race, one reason for activist protests against globalization. The poor, they say, get what the rich only deign to dole out, and what is doled isn't often liked. So the governance of S&T is activist territory and activist organizations were well represented at the conference. Academics were there, too. A few-too few-government people attended but almost no one from industry, which was a shame. What this conference tried to do was not only to raise the level of discourse about new technologies and the research leading to them but also to send people home motivated to form wider networks that would lead to some cultural changes that transform the politics of a society or at least their institutions. There was a sense that time was running out and a new discourse at all institutional levels needed a kick-start. But governance was the theme, in all its expressions and nuances, and such heavy going was needful of the light touch. That meant producing an ambiance for people to smile, munch, and casually talk. Teas, coffees worth drinking, pastries, and fresh fruit were always in reach. Musical performances warmed up the crowd before each of the six sessions. And new and playful communication art forms (words of significant meaning merging, splitting, skimming across computer screens and the like) were displayed here and there to help keep minds on the edge of playful surprise. Careful design of process was all-important for a conference like this and a certain conviviality ran through a crowd that was hearing a lot of thought-provoking gloom and intricate diagnostics. The program's black cover, also distributed as a big souvenir poster with an odor that provoked, featured a striking vortex made up of the conference title strung repeatedly in swirls until the words converged into the blackness of the center. Around the vortex were constellations of terms such as "protection," "culture," "interference," "alternatives," "legitimate"-words that frequently come up when people get together to talk about lofty topics. Rigidity was out at this two-and-a-half day salon. The audience was swept into the flume via discussion groups following on-stage dialogues among the featured principals, and the ideas were fed back to conference organizers and facilitators by note cards, remarks spoken to monitoring staff, and laptop computers placed around the edges of the rotunda. The whole point was to make the two and a half days fully experiential, participatory, mind-bending, fun, and a path to some form of higher and effective cultural and political consciousness. The question around all such gatherings is what good they in the end can do. If this one reflects a growing public concern about technological change, then there will be much followup needed. The organizers have retained some carryover funds to support such ventures. Whether it all worked or not depends on what kind of thoughtful discourse actually can work in a time of short attention spans, galloping change, sensory entertainment that often passes for news and discourse, and a conservative mainstream politics that is overtly hostile to prescriptions even slightly smelling of the word, "liberal." So, anyway, that was the setup for the whole conference. Ideas flew freely and it is of course too much to note them all in a short space. But here are a random few. Writers Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb) and Alan Lightman (The Diagnosis) were two of the panelists. Rhodes focused mainly on public health and the understanding of violence throughout society as one big approach to helping people deal with change. Care for the physical and mental health of people and their communities and a lot of the consequences of new technologies will be taken care of through extending public health concerns toward these areas, was Rhodes' major message, at least to these ears. With public health, he said, you couldn't find a better model of a system where research is embedded in practical outcomes. Lightman for his part didn't like what he was seeing in the modern communications technologies with their take-in-more, go-more-quickly, beat-the-competition character. He in fact dealt with that very issue in his latest book, The Diagnosis, about a financial dealer who, infected with information overload, loses his marbles. Indian anthropologist Shiv Visvanathan reprimanded Westerners for stressing their own idea of progress and paying too little heed to the intelligence and the simple concerns of human beings in other parts of the world. It was classical Indian rebuke of the West, but part of a chorus that current events can promise won't shut up. Susan Greenfield, a British physiologist and many broader things besides, championed science, downplayed worry, and said the solution to premature and future grief lay in solid programs on the public understanding of science. Teach the kids and the public how to think and understand the world around them, she essentially said, and soon enough they'll be equipped to handle most problems. Ray Kurzweil, who wrote The Age of Spiritual Machines, said everything-brain research, broadband communications, genomic research-is moving very fast and presents "vastly more powerful technologies than those of the 20th century." He said that those technologies will merge with "super intelligent entities" brought on by developments in nanotechnology. His was one of scarier sets of observations. Everyone agreed that tremendous stress will be put regulatory systems, another important form of governance. Those examples provide some of the flavor of the totality. The aim, again, was governance of the genies, which covers a lot of territory that includes peer review processes within science, law, regulation, public opinion, international treaties, peer pressures, patent law, and any sets of forces that change the behavior of people. A session almost entirely devoted to changes in patent law and practice, moderated by Michael M. Crow, Columbia's executive vice provost and founder of CSPO, was especially engaging. Speakers spent the time challenging present patent law practice, which emphasizes monopoly and profiteering rather than the disclosure and spread of ideas as intended by the Constitution in its establishment of a Patent Office. Daniel Sarewitz, who manages CSPO and with Christina Desser of the Funders' group was the conference's architect, says he is hoping that the people who attended went home maintaining their interests by establishing new networks of like-minded folks and thereby establishing a culture that will eventually transform the mind-sets of most people who perform or have influence over research. As for scientists themselves, some will probably get it, most probably won't, but some may try. Past government programs have offered funding for scientists willing to steer their research toward some public need. The National Science Foundation tried it in a big way during the 1970's and 80's, but the bulk of the scientific community wouldn't sign on. Columbia chemistry professor Nick Turro is trying another approach with a colleague at Arizona State University. Both are working in the field of nanochemistry and both are planning to conduct a form of social science research on the research they are doing. That is, they will examine the content of their research through the lens of social implications. Turro says he doesn't know how it will all turn out, but that the two, with a post doc helping them, could come upon some discoveries that could make a difference in new ways scientists could go about performing their research. He says he successfully integrated his basic studies with improving graduate and undergraduate education and so the basic idea could be transferable to sets of social concerns. He figures that if 15% of the country's scientists can jump aboard and make that kind of effort a trend, the battle could well have been won. Genies, geniuses, and governments have been around for a long time and the world, given all the killing over the last 100 years, still has a few problems. Now the crises are more diverse, diffuse, and pernicious than ever. And they are coming right out of the labs. The topics at this conference implied some kind of sequential process that will eventually lead to as heightened sense of moral and technical stewardship through governance. As Sarewitz tells this friendly and sympathetic column, the beginnings must take place at the personal level and move eventually to culture which in turn affects politics. The entire conference can be viewed and heard on Genie website, http://www.livingwiththegenie.org/. End |