Convergent Technologies: Future Perfect or Imperfect?

In this article, Philip Lee examines global trends related to convergent technologies - a combination of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science which he characterises as "transforming global society. Technological convergence is beginning to define the way societies interact and organise themselves, the way science is done and the way the global marketplace is run." In addition to identifying patterns, he asks questions related to social and economic power over such technologies: "Who will own these convergent technologies? Who will control them? Who will be ethically responsible for their application and use?" Furthermore, "what will be the long-term impact of such meta-technologies of information on our self-understanding as human beings?"

To illustrate his point that "Meta-technologies are informational and can process an ever expanding range of inputs and produce an infinite range of outputs irrevocably altering human capacities and challenging conventional concepts of instrumental, symbolic and structural power", Lee explores a number of implications of the expansion he predicts in the area of convergent technologies, including:

• The changing nature of human memory - Until recently, Lee notes, "the recording of history was essentially a political enterprise. Official histories are those that create and reinforce national identities, imperial and economic boundaries." Today, there is a genre of television programme which proposes a kind of "meeting the ancestors" - such as by depicting the digging up of an ancient village or the reconstruction of a medieval face using forensic techniques. New technologies such as these, Lee claims, increasingly offer "the opportunity to record alternative lives and points of view."
• Capturing sounds and images - Looking back, Lee traces advances in tools that people have used to visualise themselves and their world: the development of photography, the phonograph, film, radio, and television. Donning a modern lens, he points to the phenomena of game shows and "reality TV", in which "people see but a poor reflection of themselves. That 'reflection' can also be recorded and kept for posterity."
• Digital convergence - Lee notes that the first computers were developed in the USA in the 1940s, and points to the "rapid developments that followed". He discusses a trend in the use of digital technologies to store what he calls "unusual types of 'information'" that promise to produce a complete digital blueprint of a human being, as illustrated by the Human Genome Project (a worldwide research effort aimed at analysing the structure of human DNA and determining the location of our estimated 70,000 genes) and the Visible Human Project (which has created anatomically detailed, 3-dimensional representations of both the male and female bodies).
• Cyber-immortality - "By the end of the 19th century there were photographs of eminent and ordinary people. By the end of the 20th century there were digital audiotapes (DATs) of their voices and digital video discs (DVDs) of them in action. Biographies and diaries add to what we know about them, but still much remains a blank. For people of the future, all that will change. The logical outcome of convergent technologies, especially those related to the cognitive sciences, is that it will be possible to fabricate a digital replica of any person and to invest her or him with a complete biological and social life-history. Such a replica might take the form of a hologram that can dialogue about its/his/her life and even replicate certain abilities (such as dancing or playing chess)."

Lee concludes by describing a global responsibility to protect human beings from "the excesses of scientific achievement" - a duty he feels must be within the purview not only of scientists, but of ordinary people. He stresses that the general public must take steps to learn about scientific advances, communicate their concerns, and campaign for ethical decisions. He suggests that the mass media can lead the way in this process by "informing, alerting, and raising the public stakes. Only when people are fully informed about - and fully able to respond ethically to - scientific advances should decisions be taken that, in the short or long term, will profoundly affect the whole of humanity."

Editor's note: This document is not currently online (2014). Please consult the WACC website.