Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

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Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.png
Founders Nick Bostrom,
James Hughes [1]
Established2004;21 years ago (2004) [2]
MissionTo promote ideas on how technology can be used to "increase freedom, happiness, and human flourishing in democratic societies." [2]
Executive James Hughes [3]
Faculty 25 Fellows,
13 Affiliate Scholars [3]
StaffSteven Umbrello,
Marcelo Rinesi
Website www.ieet.org OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) is a technoprogressive think tank that seeks to "promote ideas about how technological progress can increase freedom, happiness, and human flourishing in democratic societies." [4] [5] [6] It was incorporated in the United States in 2004, as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, by philosopher Nick Bostrom and bioethicist James Hughes. [4] [7]

Contents

The think tank aims to influence the development of public policies that distribute the benefits and reduce the risks of technological change. [8] It has been described as "[a]mong the more important groups" in the transhumanist movement, [9] and as being among the transhumanist groups that "play a strong role in the academic arena". [10]

The IEET works with Humanity Plus (also founded and chaired by Bostrom and Hughes, and previously known as the World Transhumanist Association), [7] an international non-governmental organization with a similar mission but with an activist rather than academic approach. [11] A number of technoprogressive thinkers are offered positions as IEET Fellows. [12] Individuals who have accepted such appointments with the IEET support the institute's mission, but they have expressed a wide range of views about emerging technologies and not all identify themselves as transhumanists. In early October 2012, Kris Notaro became the managing director of the IEET after the previous Managing Director Hank Pellissier stepped down. In April 2016, Steven Umbrello became the managing director of the IEET. [13] Marcelo Rinesi is the IEET's Chief Technology Officer. [14]

Activities

Publications

The Institute publishes, the Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies (JEET), [15] formerly the Journal of Evolution and Technology (JET), a peer-reviewed academic journal. [16] JET was established in 1998 as the Journal of Transhumanism and obtained its current title in 2004. [17] The editor-in-chief is Mark Walker. It covers futurological research into long-term developments in science, technology, and philosophy that "many mainstream journals shun as too speculative, radical, or interdisciplinary." [18] The institute also maintains a technology and ethics blog that is supported by various writers. [19]

Programs

In 2006, the IEET launched the following activities: [20]

  1. Securing the Future: Identification and advocacy for global solutions to threats to the future of civilization.
  2. Rights of the Person: Campaign to deepen and broaden the concept of human rights.
  3. Longer, Better Lives: Case for longer healthier lives, addressing objections to life extension, challenge ageist and ableist attitudes that discourage the full utilization of health technology.
  4. Envisioning the Future: Collection of images of posthumanity and non-human intelligence, positive, negative and neutral, e.g., in science fiction and popular culture; engagement with cultural critics, artists, writers, and filmmakers in exploring the lessons to be derived from these.

The institute has since shifted its research away from these programs and towards research on the policy implications of human enhancement and other emerging technologies. [21] It has since partnered with the Applied Ethics Center at the University of Massachusetts Boston to focus on two specific programs:

  1. Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work, Democracy, and Conflict
  2. Cyborgs and Human Enhancement

Conferences

In late May 2006, the IEET held the Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights conference at the Stanford University Law School in Stanford, California. [22] The IEET along with other progressive organizations hosted a conference in December 2013 at Yale University on giving various species "personhood" rights. [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] Fellows of the Institute represent the Institute at various conferences and events, including the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [28] In 2014, the IEET lead and/or co-sponsored five conferences [29] including: Eros Evolving: The Future of Love, Sex, Marriage and Beauty conference [30] in April in Piedmont, California, and the Global Existential Risks and Radical Futures conference in June in Piedmont, California. [31]

Reception

Wesley J. Smith, an American conservative lawyer and advocate of intelligent design, wrote that the institute has one of the most active transhumanist websites, and the writers write on the "nonsense of uploading minds into computers and fashioning a post humanity." [32] Smith also criticized the results of the institute's online poll that indicated the majority of Institute's readers are atheist or agnostic. [32] According to Smith, this was evidence that transhumanism is a religion and a desperate attempt to find purpose in a nihilistic and materialistic world. [32] The institute's advocacy project to raise the status of animals to the legal status of personhood also drew criticism from Smith because he claimed humans are exceptional and raising the status of animals may lower the status of humans. [33]

Katarina Felsted and Scott D. Wright wrote that although the IEET considers itself technoprogressive some of its views can be described as strong transhumanism or a "radical version of post ageing", and one particular criticism of both moderate and strong transhumanism is that moral arbitrariness undermine both forms of transhumanism. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Posthumanism</span> Class of philosophies

Posthumanism or post-humanism is an idea in continental philosophy and critical theory responding to the presence of anthropocentrism in 21st-century thought. Posthumanization comprises "those processes by which a society comes to include members other than 'natural' biological human beings who, in one way or another, contribute to the structures, dynamics, or meaning of the society."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transhumanism</span> Philosophical movement

Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available new and future technologies that can greatly enhance longevity, cognition, and well-being.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Pearce (philosopher)</span> British transhumanist

David Pearce is a British transhumanist philosopher. He is the co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association, currently rebranded and incorporated as Humanity+. Pearce approaches ethical issues from a lexical negative utilitarian perspective.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humanity+</span> International non-profit organization

Humanity+ is a non-profit international educational organization that advocates the ethical use of technologies and evidence-based science to improve the human condition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Dvorsky</span> Canadian bioethicist, transhumanist, and futurist

George P. Dvorsky is a Canadian bioethicist, transhumanist and futurist. He is a contributing editor at io9 and producer of the Sentient Developments blog and podcast. He was chair of the board for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) and is the founder and chair of the IEET's Rights of Non-Human Persons Program, a group that is working to secure human-equivalent rights and protections for highly sapient animals. He also serves on the Advisory Council of METI.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Hughes (sociologist)</span> American sociologist and bioethicist

James J. Hughes is an American sociologist, bioethicist and futurist. He is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and is the Associate Provost for institutional research, assessment, and planning at University of Massachusetts Boston. He is the author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future and is currently writing a book on secular Buddhism and moral bioenhancement tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha: Using Neurotechnology to Become Better People.

Techno-progressivism, or tech-progressivism, is a stance of active support for the convergence of technological change and social change. Techno-progressives argue that technological developments can be profoundly empowering and emancipatory when they are regulated by legitimate democratic and accountable authorities to ensure that their costs, risks and benefits are all fairly shared by the actual stakeholders to those developments. One of the first mentions of techno-progressivism appeared within extropian jargon in 1999 as the removal of "all political, cultural, biological, and psychological limits to self-actualization and self-realization".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anders Sandberg</span> Swedish computer scientist, futurist, transhumanist, and philosopher

Anders Sandberg is a Swedish researcher, futurist and transhumanist. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is a former senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natasha Vita-More</span> American artist and transhumanist

Natasha Vita-More is a strategic designer in the area of human enhancement and life extension. Her interests are located within the ethical uses of science and technology and socio-political implications of revolutionary advances impacting humanity's future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human enhancement</span> Natural, artificial, or technological alteration of the human body

Human enhancement is the natural, artificial, or technological alteration of the human body in order to enhance physical or mental capabilities.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giulio Prisco</span> Italian computer scientist

Giulio Prisco is an Italian information technology and virtual reality consultant; as well as a writer, futurist, transhumanist, and cosmist. He is an advocate of cryonics and contributes to the science and technology online magazine Tendencias21. He produced teleXLR8, an online talk program using virtual reality and video conferencing, and focused on highly imaginative science and technology. He writes and speaks on a wide range of topics, including science, information technology, emerging technologies, virtual worlds, space exploration and futurology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Posthuman</span> Person or entity that exists in a state beyond being human

Posthuman or post-human is a concept originating in the fields of science fiction, futurology, contemporary art, and philosophy that means a person or entity that exists in a state beyond being human. The concept aims at addressing a variety of questions, including ethics and justice, language and trans-species communication, social systems, and the intellectual aspirations of interdisciplinarity.

<i>Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition</i> Book by Ed Regis

Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition is a non-fiction book copyright 1990 by Ed Regis, an American author and educator, that presents a lighthearted look at scientific visionaries planning for a future with "post-biological" people, space colonization, nanotechnology, and cryonics. The book emphasizes the personality and projects of Robert Truax, Eric Drexler, Gerard K. O'Neill, Chris Langton, Freeman Dyson, Hans Moravec, Ralph Merkle, Robert Forward, Keith Henson, Carolyn Meinel, Gary Hudson, Saul Kent, and a number of others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stefan Lorenz Sorgner</span> German philosopher

Stefan Lorenz Sorgner is a German metahumanist philosopher, a Nietzsche scholar, a philosopher of music and an authority in the field of ethics of emerging technologies.

The Transhumanist Party is a political party in the United States. The party's platform is based on the ideas and principles of transhumanist politics, e.g., human enhancement, human rights, science, life extension, and technological progress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Directed evolution (transhumanism)</span> Concept in transhumanist discourses

The term directed evolution is used within the transhumanist community to refer to the idea of applying the principles of directed evolution and experimental evolution to the control of human evolution. Law professor Maxwell Mehlman has said that "for transhumanists, directed evolution is likened to the Holy Grail".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transhumanist politics</span> Political ideologies based on Transhumanism

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bioconservatism</span> Cautious stance towards modifying human nature

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The Transhumanist Bill of Rights is a crowdsourced document that conveys rights and laws to humans and all sapient entities while specifically targeting future scenarios of humanity. The original version was created by transhumanist US presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan and was posted by Zoltan on the wall of the United States Capitol building on December 14, 2015.

References

  1. ↑ "Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET)". Harvard Law School . Retrieved March 7, 2016. Founded in 2004 by philosopher Nick Bostrom and bioethicist James Hughes, the IEET is an organization that seeks to understand the impact of emerging technologies on individuals and societies. One of the main topics that the organization covers is the debate over human enhancement.
  2. 1 2 About, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, (Retrieved Dec. 30, 2014).
  3. 1 2 "Staff, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, (Retrieved Jan. 9, 2015)". Archived from the original on 2016-06-16. Retrieved 2015-01-10.
  4. 1 2 "About the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies". ieet.org. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
  5. 1 2 Felsted, Katarina; Wright, Scott D. (2014). Toward Post Ageing: Technology in an Ageing Society. Springer. p. 109. ISBN   9783319090511.
  6. ↑ Joseph R. Herkert, "Ethical Challenges of Emerging Technologies", in Gary E. Marchant, Braden R. Allenby, Joseph R. Herkert, eds., The Growing Gap Between Emerging Technologies and Legal-Ethical Oversight (2011), p. 38.
  7. 1 2 Tamar Sharon, Human Nature in an Age of Biotechnology: The Case for Mediated Posthumanism (2013), p. 26.
  8. ↑ Bailey, Ronald (2006-06-02). "The Right to Human Enhancement: And also uplifting animals and the rapture of the nerds". Archived from the original on 2009-09-03.
  9. ↑ Robert Geraci, Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality (2010), p. 85.
  10. ↑ Max More, Natasha Vita-More, The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future (2013), pt. II.
  11. ↑ "Ethics and Policy Concerns in the Transhuman Transition". h+ Media. July 29, 2014. Archived from the original on April 13, 2021. Retrieved September 26, 2020.
  12. ↑ "Staff of the IEET". ieet.org. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
  13. ↑ "Steven Umbrello". ieet.org. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
  14. ↑ "Marcelo Rinesi". ieet.org. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
  15. ↑ "Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies". jeet.ieet.org. Retrieved 2021-05-07.
  16. ↑ "Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies: Publications". ieet.org. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
  17. ↑ Blackford, Russel (September 18, 2014). "Transhumanism and The Journal of Evolution and Technology". Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Retrieved February 27, 2015.
  18. ↑ "Programs and Activities, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, (Retrieved Dec. 30, 2014)". Archived from the original on 2017-02-28. Retrieved 2014-12-30.
  19. ↑ "Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies – Medium". Medium. Retrieved 2020-12-23.
  20. ↑ "Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies - Programs and Activities".
  21. ↑ Pearlman, Alex. "Philosophy". IEET. Retrieved 2020-11-29.
  22. ↑ "Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies - Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights".
  23. ↑ Dvorsky, George (December 10, 2013). "Experts Gather at Yale to Discuss Whether Animals Are People". Gizmodo . G/O Media. Retrieved September 30, 2020.
  24. ↑ Personhood Beyond the Human Conference, Kurzweil, (Retrieved Dec 30, 2014).
  25. ↑ Conference: Personhood Beyond the Human, Figure / Ground, (Retrieved Dec. 30, 2014).
  26. ↑ Personhood Beyond the Human, (Retrieved Dec. 30, 2014).
  27. ↑ "Michael Mountain, Personhood Beyond the Human, Nonhuman Rights Project, (April 16, 2013)". Archived from the original on December 31, 2014.
  28. ↑ "Events, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, (Retrieved Dec. 30, 2014)". Archived from the original on 2017-02-28. Retrieved 2014-12-31.
  29. ↑ "Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies - Programs and Activities". ieet.org. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
  30. ↑ "EROS EVOLVING - the future of love, sex, marriage and beauty". Eventbrite. Retrieved 2020-09-25.[ permanent dead link ]
  31. ↑ "Brin, Baum, Pellissier @ Global Existential Risks and Radical Futures". ieet.org. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
  32. 1 2 3 Smith, Wesley (June 6, 2012). "Transhumanism is Religion for Atheists". National Review . Retrieved February 27, 2015.
  33. ↑ Smith, Wesley (February 13, 2011). "Transhumanist Launch Campaign for Animal Personhood". National Review . Retrieved February 27, 2015.
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