Daffodil International University
Science & Information Technology => Science Discussion Forum => Latest Technology => Topic started by: arefin on May 19, 2015, 10:50:58 AM
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For decades, technology has been fundamentally changing the way we live our daily lives — and in recent years, the pace of change has become truly mind-boggling. Today’s dazzling new technologies will, in the very near future, become the mundane stuff of everyday life. The World Economic Forum recently released their list of the top 10 emergent technologies for 2015. They include driverless cars, 3D printing, fuel-cell vehicles, more precise genetic engineering technologies, and advanced AI that can produce synthetic brains smart as our own.
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But these emerging technologies don’t come without serious ethical issues. When you earn a Master of Technology Management, you’ll learn not only how to work with new and emerging technologies, but how to grapple with and resolve the often-heavy ethical issues attached to them. Today’s emerging technologies could have ethical ramifications that cross legal, political, socioeconomic, and even international boundaries.
Driverless Cars Could Widen the Gap Between Rich and Poor
Google’s driverless cars are now road legal in three states: Florida, Nevada, and California. Driverless cars are expected to make the roads safer, and free up the time once spent driving so that all passengers can chat, read, watch films, surf the Web, or enjoy hobbies. “Connected vehicles” would communicate with one another, and with traffic lights and other elements of roadside infrastructure, to cut down travel times, minimize emissions, increase fuel efficiency, and reduce traffic jams.
But some worry that the advent of driverless cars will make it even more difficult for lower-income people to access transportation, since they might not be able to afford the new technology. As technology advances it will be important for companies to hire graduates who studied technology and business ethics to ensure that such future tech, like driverless vehicles, is accessible to people of all social classes.
Advanced AI Could Create a New Underclass
As the field of robotics advances, engineers are giving robots a greater capacity to react to stimuli without relying on their programming. This means that soon, robots will possess biologically-inspired neuromorphic chip technology that helps their computer-brains work the same way ours do, using synthetic neurons and synapses. This could give robots and computers the ability to learn and create new memories. One application could be in a surveillance drone, which would use its neuromorphic chip technology to recognize new objects and environmental elements and remember them for later. With time, robots and computers could develop neural capacities to rival those of their human creators.
However, the prospect of intelligent, thinking, learning computers raises some disturbing ethical concerns. Do robots and computers that can learn and think have rights similar to those of humans? It’s not just a question of redefining what are currently considered “human” rights to encompass artificially intelligent objects. There’s also the question of whether intelligent computers will recognize our rights in return. The proliferation of AI could create a new underclass of subjugated citizens — and as some have pointed out, that underclass could be us.
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3D Printing Could Increase Access to Weapons and Drugs
At the moment, 3D printing is largely the province of artists, designers, and researchers in labs. But while 3D printing promises to create a future in which new, viable human organs can be manufactured at the push of a button, or consumer goods can be custom-crafted in the home without the need for a manufacturing and distribution infrastructure, it’s dangerous to assume that no one will take advantage of this technology for nefarious purposes.
3D printing could make it easier than ever to obtain guns and other weapons, made with materials that can easily foil metal detectors and other common security protocols. In fact, 3D-printed plastic guns are already a real threat. 3D printers could be used to create custom new drugs, creating new addictions and dependencies and perhaps even a Brave New World scenario in which citizens have constant access to a supply of pharmacological drugs that stave off any negative feelings whatsoever. 3D-printed organs based on individualized genetic data, as well as other genome-based treatments, could eventually make our very genetic data as vulnerable to data breaches and cyber security attacks as our financial data is today.
Emergent technologies promise to make our lives better in every way, but just as they will pave the way for new modes of transportation, new medical treatments, and new ways of doing almost everything, they’ll also pave the way for serious new ethical dilemmas. Finding solutions to those ethical dilemmas is the price of progress – but it’s a price worth paying if it fosters continued innovation.
Source: Google+