Your Grandchildren Redesigned
Description
Biotechnology is moving fast. In the coming decades, advanced pharmaceutical, bioelectronic, genetic, and epigenetic technologies will be used not only to heal the sick but to boost human physical and mental performance to unprecedented levels. The results will no doubt be mixed. People will live longer, healthier lives, enjoying a wide range of radically new capabilities, but these technologies also threaten to create new kinds of societal divisions and ethical challenges. They may further widen the rift between rich and poor; some of them may profoundly blur the boundary between “person” and “product,” forcing people into constant upgrades merely to keep up: Humans 95, Humans XP, Humans 10. This lecture will survey the moral questions raised by these cutting-edge forms of human enhancement, exploring the space for human agency in dealing with the unprecedented problems and opportunities that these technologies will present.
Location
Fowler Auditorium
Start Date
9-26-2017 5:30 PM
DOI
10.5703/1288284316608
Your Grandchildren Redesigned
Fowler Auditorium
Biotechnology is moving fast. In the coming decades, advanced pharmaceutical, bioelectronic, genetic, and epigenetic technologies will be used not only to heal the sick but to boost human physical and mental performance to unprecedented levels. The results will no doubt be mixed. People will live longer, healthier lives, enjoying a wide range of radically new capabilities, but these technologies also threaten to create new kinds of societal divisions and ethical challenges. They may further widen the rift between rich and poor; some of them may profoundly blur the boundary between “person” and “product,” forcing people into constant upgrades merely to keep up: Humans 95, Humans XP, Humans 10. This lecture will survey the moral questions raised by these cutting-edge forms of human enhancement, exploring the space for human agency in dealing with the unprecedented problems and opportunities that these technologies will present.
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