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A Dangerous Master - 9780465058624

Un libro in lingua di Wendell Wallach edito da Basic Books, 2015

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We generally associate scientific research and technological development with the promise of innovation and productivity?the goal is to create tools that will make our lives better, easier, and happier. Yet recently there has arisen widespread concern that technological development has become a juggernaut beyond human control. New tools such as 3-D printing, autonomous robots, cyberwar, synthetic organisms, toxic nano particles, big data and surveillance, designer babies, geoengineering, and complex financial computers threaten to not only outpace our understanding but also disrupt the structure of society?and even threaten humanity at large.

In TK, ethicist Wendell Wallach offers a nuanced consideration of these fears and answers the question: What responsibility do we have for the technologies we build? He tells the story of the risks, harms, and social impact of new technologies, the drivers of a scientific revolution that appears to be beyond control, and reflects on how we might give form to the future we are creating. Wallach includes in his critique emerging technologies such as genomics, life extension, robotics, and military applications of the same. He asks what these technologies are for, what they can do that they are not meant to do, and what it will take not just to control them, but to even begin asking the right questions so that we might be able to control them.

The dangers of unbridled technological development are real. But, as Wallach argues, many of those dangers can be significantly reduced, freeing us to reap the rewards of scientific progress. What we need is a little foresight and the willingness to make hard choices. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that we or our governments have the will, intelligence, or intention to make them. Indeed, there are reasons to believe that crises are inevitable, that the pace of calamities involving new and older technologies will accelerate, and that the capacity to give direction to the future of humanity is being lost. To counter this trend, Wallach proposes a shift in course, including recognizing the inflection points where it is still possible to give form to the adoption of new tools, and instituting policies for monitoring, managing, and modulating the development of emerging technologies.

A major reconsideration of the dangers and benefits of our technological future, TK forces us to confront the purpose, human and moral, of ourselves and the things we build.

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