The future of human nature: a symposium on the promises and challenges of the revolutions in genomics and computer science, April 10, 11, and 12, 2003

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Conference Series, a publication series that began publishing in 2006 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. This was the Center's Symposium on the Promises and Challenges of the Revolutions in Genomics and Computer Science took place during April 10, 11, and 12, 2003. Co-organized by Charles DeLisi and Kenneth Lewes; sponsored by Boston University, the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.This conference focused on scientific and technological advances in genetics, computer science, and their convergence during the next 35 to 250 years. In particular, it focused on directed evolution, the futures it allows, the shape of society in those futures, and the robustness of human nature against technological change at the level of individuals, groups, and societies. It is taken as a premise that biotechnology and computer science will mature and will reinforce one another. During the period of interest, human cloning, germ-line genetic engineering, and an array of reproductive technologies will become feasible and safe. Early in this period, we can reasonably expect the processing power of a laptop computer to exceed the collective processing power of every human brain on the planet; later in the period human/machine interfaces will begin to emerge. Whether such technologies will take hold is not known. But if they do, human evolution is likely to proceed at a greatly accelerated rate; human nature as we know it may change markedly, if it does not disappear altogether, and new intelligent species may well be created

ATM and cashpoint art: what’s at stake in designing against crime

When Hammersmith Police approached the Design Against Crime Research Centre (DACRC) at the University of Arts London, for help in dealing with theft and fraud linked to users of ATM’s, the DACRC team looked sideways, beyond traditional ‘security solutions’, collaborating with artist Steve Russell, to help find some new and creative ways of influencing behaviour around “cashpoints”. Hammersmith Police contacted DACRC because Prof. Lorraine Gamman, who directs the Centre, has written about design against pickpocketing and bag theft, and works closely with businesses in her role as advisor to the Home Office’s “Design Technology Alliance Against Crime

Dysfunctions of highly parallel real-time machines as 'developmental disorders': Security concerns and a Caveat Emptor

A cognitive paradigm for gene expression in developmental biology that is based on rigorous application of the asymptotic limit theorems of information theory can be adapted to highly parallel real-time computing. The coming Brave New World of massively parallel 'autonomic' and 'Self-X' machines driven by the explosion of multiple core and molecular computing technologies will not be spared patterns of canonical and idiosyncratic failure analogous to the developmental disorders affecting organisms that have had the relentless benefit of a billion years of evolutionary pruning. This paper provides a warning both to potential users of these machines and, given that many such disorders can be induced by external agents, to those concerned with larger scale matters of homeland security

Moral Courage in Organizations

{Excerpt} Moral courage is the strength to use ethical principles to do what one believes is right even though the result may not be to everyone’s liking or could occasion personal loss. In organizations, some of the hardest decisions have ethical stakes: it is everyday moral courage that sets an organization and its members apart. Courage is the ability to confront danger, fear, intimidation, pain, or uncertainty. Physical courage is fortitude in the face of death (and its threat), hardship, or physical pain. Moral courage, the form the attribute nowadays refers to, is put simply the ability to act rightly in the face of discouragement or opposition,possibly and knowingly running the risk of adverse personal consequences. Springing from ethics—notably integrity, responsibility, compassion, and forgiveness—it is thequality of mind or spirit that enables a person to withstand danger, difficulty, or fear; persevere; and venture. Comprehensively—as said by Christopher Rate et al., it is awillful, intentional act, executed after mindful deliberation, involving objective substantial risk to the bearer, and primarily motivated to bring about a noble good or worthy enddespite, perhaps, the presence of the emotion of fear

The future of human nature: a symposium on the promises and challenges of the revolutions in genomics and computer science, April 10, 11, and 12, 2003

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Conference Series, a publication series that began publishing in 2006 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. This was the Center's Symposium on the Promises and Challenges of the Revolutions in Genomics and Computer Science took place during April 10, 11, and 12, 2003. Co-organized by Charles DeLisi and Kenneth Lewes; sponsored by Boston University, the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.This conference focused on scientific and technological advances in genetics, computer science, and their convergence during the next 35 to 250 years. In particular, it focused on directed evolution, the futures it allows, the shape of society in those futures, and the robustness of human nature against technological change at the level of individuals, groups, and societies. It is taken as a premise that biotechnology and computer science will mature and will reinforce one another. During the period of interest, human cloning, germ-line genetic engineering, and an array of reproductive technologies will become feasible and safe. Early in this period, we can reasonably expect the processing power of a laptop computer to exceed the collective processing power of every human brain on the planet; later in the period human/machine interfaces will begin to emerge. Whether such technologies will take hold is not known. But if they do, human evolution is likely to proceed at a greatly accelerated rate; human nature as we know it may change markedly, if it does not disappear altogether, and new intelligent species may well be created

Asian Roboticism: Connecting Mechanized Labor to the Automation of Work

Abstract This article reconsiders the present-day automation of work and its transformation of who we are as humans. What has been missing from this important conversation are the social meanings surrounding Asian roboticism or how Asians have already been rendered as “robotic” subjects and labor. Through this racial gendered trope, I assess whether industrial automation will lessen, complicate, or exacerbate this modern archetype. By looking at corporate organizational practices and public media discourse, I believe that Asian roboticism will not simply vanish, but potentially continue to affect the ways such subjects are rendered as exploitable alienated robots without human rights or status

Foxes, hounds, and horses : Who or which?

Writers of English can choose whether to mark a high level of sentience in a nonhuman animal by selecting the word who rather than which. An examination of texts relating to foxhunting on the world wide web showed that, in reference to the nonhuman animals involved in foxhunting, writers were most likely to use who in reference to foxes, and least likely to use it in reference to horses. Those who support foxhunting are more likely to recognize the sentience of the fox than those who oppose foxhunting. This may be because those who enjoy foxhunting present the fox as an active creator of the hunt, and as a worthy opponen