Making Policies about Emerging Technologies

Abstract

Can we make wise policy decisions about still-emerging technologies-decisions that are grounded in facts yet anticipate unknowns and promote the public's preferences and values? There is a widespread feeling that we should try. There also seems to be widespread agreement that the central element in wise decisions is the assessment of benefits and costs, understood as a process that consists, at least in part, in measuring, tallying, and comparing how different outcomes would affect the public interest. But how benefits and costs are best weighed when making decisions about whether to move forward with an emerging technology is not clear. Many commentators feel that the weighing is often inadequate or inappropriate. Those who argue for a "precautionary" approach to the weighing do so precisely because they feel the need for a restraint on the dominant decision-making tools and processes for assessing outcomes. This Hastings Center special report examines those tools and processes, taking the method known as cost-benefit analysis as a starting point. In U.S. governance, CBA, sometimes informed by risk assessment, is the most widely used and extensively studied method, and authoritative reports on genetic and reproductive technologies often use language suggestive of cost-benefit analysis. There is also a long-running debate about the role of values in CBA and other formal impact assessment mechanisms-and about how those mechanisms compare to the precautionary principle. The guiding idea in the report is to engage in a close examination of the strengths and limits of CBA for ensuring that emerging technologies are used in ways that square with the public's values, drawing on applications of synthetic biology to illustrate and sharpen the analysis and then considering corrections to CBA and some alternative methodologies that handle values differently.

Speculating About Robot Moral Standing: On the Constitution of Social Robots as Objects of Governance

“…Based on the discussion and analysis of different emerging technologies throughout the years, a useful body of literature has developed discussing the particular status of emerging technologies in policy-making. ( Bonnin Roca et al, 2017 ; Dorbeck-Jung and Bowman, 2017 ; Kaebnick and Gusmano, 2018 ). First of all, as previously mentioned, emerging technologies often have the potential to cause effects on a broad scale in society ( Rotolo et al, 2015 ).…”

Responsible innovation in neurotechnology enterprises

“…The International Brain Initiative (IBI) is a new global body that has formed to coordinate the activities of the major brain initiatives around the globe. 4 The vision of the IBI is catalysing and advancing ethical neuroscience research through international collaboration and knowledge sharing, by uniting diverse ambitions to expand scientific possibility, and disseminating discoveries for the benefit of humanity. Working groups have been formed to coordinate global neuroethics, an inventory of projects across the initiatives, data sharing, tool and technology dissemination, education and training and communication and public outreach.…”

Recalibrating Bioethics for the Reality of Interdependence: The Challenge of Collective‐Impact Problems

“…What should be done when the views of various publics are in conflict or when facts are contested-either appropriately or due to manipulation and purposeful campaigns to sow distrust? The Hastings Center has addressed these and related questions in several reports, including one on how best to align cost-benefit analysis with public values, 10 another on public deliberation in the context of gene editing in the wild, 11 and a third on ways to strengthen the capacity for civic engagement and a sense of common purpose in the United States' highly polarized and contentious society. 12 However, as a field, we must expand.…”