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The Ominous GNR RevolutionThe Biotech Age brings new and terrifying scenarios. How might the explosion of knowledge of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (GNR) change our world?by Mario SeiglieHow many people in the year 1900 could have foretold some of the amazing scientific inventions of the 20th century? Only a very few. Perhaps visionaries such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells could have imagined a world of flying and submersible machines or spaceships going to the moon. But certainly even they could not have envisioned a world driven by computer and atomic power. Now, in the year 2000, it is indeed an intrepid soul who dares to predict what the 21st century will hold. Yet some scientists are already boldly drawing a rough outline of the future. "The past hundred years began with the horse and carriage, the ink pen and ledger," reports the French Agency Press (AFP). "Knowledge was confined to libraries and a tiny elite, and diseases, epidemics and deformities could brutally truncate lives. It ends with robot emissaries from the earth to the farthest bound of the solar system; e-mail and live satellite TV; the democratization of knowledge through the Internet; and medical breakthroughs that have made the plague, smallpox and cataracts the stuff of Bible stories. And more miracles are in the pipeline, as the century of physics yields to the century of biotechnology" (November 28, 1999, emphasis added throughout). The Biotech Age is upon us, whether we like it or not. Perhaps as early as this month, the human genome, which contains all the genetic information that makes up a human being, will be completely mapped. Some scientists are already comparing this feat with the creation of the periodic table of elements. Now there will be a table of genes that, for the first time, will give man the knowledge not only to shape matter, but himself. "In just a few short years," comments science writer Mark Ridley, "we will have moved from knowing almost nothing about our genes to knowing everything. I genuinely believe that we are living through the greatest intellectual moment in history. Bar none" (ibid.). A terrifying dimension "Yet there is also a dark side," the same AFP article cautions. "The 20th century began promisingly, with a shining faith in science as a vehicle for human progress. As Jules Verne optimistically declared, 'Whatever one man is capable of conceiving, other men will be able to achieve.' But two World Wars and a Cold War harnessed many brilliant minds to the business of destruction rather than progress. On the brink of the 21st century, the attitude towards what goes on behind laboratory walls is frequently [tainted] with fear and cynicism. "Two of the greatest breakthroughs in knowledge—atomic fission and DNA—have brought two of the greatest perils: the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the risk of human cloning. 'Science has increased man's control over nature, and might therefore be supposed likely to increase his happiness and well-being,' the philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote. 'This would be the case if men were rational, but in fact [we] are bundles of passions and instincts'" (ibid.). Intelligent bio-robots Another warning voice comes from Bill Joy, chief scientist and cofounder of a leading technology company, Sun Microsystems. He is one of the privileged few who is on the cutting edge of the biotech business. Why is he so concerned about the future? He has an interesting story to tell. After delivering a lecture at a conference on technology, Bill Joy listened as Ray Kurzweil, the inventor of the first reading machine for the blind, predicted that the accelerated improvement in technology will produce superintelligent robots in the decades just ahead. "I already knew that new technologies like genetic engineering and nanotechnology [the building of microscopic-size machines] were giving us the power to remake the world," commented Bill Joy, "but a realistic and imminent scenario for intelligent robots surprised me.... We already have our first pet robots, as well as commercially available genetic engineering techniques..." ("Why the Future Doesn't Need Us," Wired, April 2000). He continues, "The 21st century technologies-genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (GNR)-are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them. "Thus we have the possibility not just of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but of knowledge-enabled mass destruction (KMD), this destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self-replication. I think it is no exaggeration to say that we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals" (ibid.). Can GNR tech be controlled? As we acquire the most powerful form of physical knowledge yet conceived, GNR technology, what can be done to avoid its evil use? The 20th century witnessed what happened after atomic energy was discovered. It was used for both good and evil. First it was used to build two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan and effectively ended World War II-but started the dangerous nuclear arms race. Afterwards, this same atomic energy was used to generate electricity for the masses. Moreover, several times during the rest of the 20th century, the world was on the brink of using nuclear weapons again. Thankfully, treaties, regulations and plain "luck" have to this point prevented the nuclear nightmare from becoming reality. Will the same hold for the GNR revolution? Unfortunately, it will not be as easy to harness GNR technology as it is to control nuclear arms. "International treaties between nations," writes Michael Elliott for Newsweek, "may prohibit the development of GNR technologies into instruments of war, just as they have in the case of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. But those 20th century weapons are made from rare natural resources like uranium; GNR technologies, on the other hand, depend on nothing more than the manipulation of weightless information" (March 27, 2000, p. 2). So the type of governmental control of powerful technology that worked relatively well in the past will be difficult to implement in the GNR revolution. How genetics, nanotechnology and robotics are merging During the 21st century, not only will atomic power continue to be a present danger, but now the GNR revolution brings a potential for an even greater danger. It could be our undoing. Already the cloning of animals and human body parts is a reality. "Using a different form of cloning, a scientist in America produced a human ear on the back of a mouse," reported BBC correspondent Ian Kirby (May 21, 2000). As genetics, nanotechnology and robotics combine, man could eventually create something smarter and more powerful than himself. "For Bill Joy," adds the Newsweek article, "the real danger from GNR technologies comes from the fact that they have the ability to produce matter that is 'self-replicating'-in other words, that can breed. That leads to the possibility of true horror, that an organism accidentally created could simply obliterate all other life on the planet" (ibid.). Two Frankenstein scenarios Bill Joy envisions two possible scenarios, when computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do things better than human beings. Already, an IBM machine has beaten the world's top player at chess and the chess master has declined to challenge the computer again. A machine is now smarter than any human being in this intellectual pursuit. How long will it be before another machine will also exceed its creators in a much more vital area of knowledge? The first scenario in Bill Joy's nightmare is that these supremely intelligent machines will be allowed to make their own decisions. Will humanity be at the mercy of these machines, and become so dependent on them they can't be turned off? The idea that man can create something that eventually outsmarts him is called in scientific jargon "the gray goo problem." It is the nightmare scenario of accidentally creating a GNR organism that can reproduce and that eventually succeeds, like the IBM machine against the chess master, in defeating humans. To preserve itself, it may decide to eliminate other forms of life on the planet. "Gray goo would surely be a depressing end to our human adventure on earth," reflects Joy. "And one that could stem from a simple laboratory experiment. Oops" (op. cit., Wired). The second possibility is that humans will manage to retain their control over these superintelligent machines. Joy quotes robot-builder Hans Moravec as predicting that our main job in the 21st century will be "ensuring continued cooperation from the robot industries" by passing laws decreeing that they be "nice" and don't try to conquer us. Moravec then goes on to describe how dangerous a human can be "once transformed into an unbounded superintelligent robot" by downloading his consciousness into these machines. All of this is still only a possibility, not a reality, but scientists like Joy are truly frightened. "In designing software and microprocessors," Joy ponders, "I have never had the feeling that I was designing an intelligent machine.... But now, with the prospect of human-level computing power in about 30 years, a new idea suggests itself: that I may be working to create tools which will enable the construction of the technology that may replace our species. How do I feel? Very uncomfortable" (ibid.). Is this how man's history ends? As a species that accidentally creates a GNR organism that eventually outwits and destroys its intellectually inferior creator? What can be done? What happens now, as man opens another bottle of select knowledge and unleashes an unknown genie upon the world? If this knowledge turns out to be too powerful and destructive, will he be able to put the genie back in the bottle? Bill Joy expresses it this way: "The new Pandora's boxes of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics are almost open, yet we seem hardly to have noticed. Ideas can't be put back in a box; unlike uranium or plutonium, they don't need to be mined and refined, and they can be freely copied. Once they are out, they are out" (ibid.). Joy's answer to this dilemma is establishing a policy of relinquishment-a voluntary ban on certain technological areas that are simply too dangerous to pursue-signed by nations, commercial organizations and scientists. But, as Michael Elliott notes, "Verifying such relinquishment would be a nightmare, partly because any regime of inspection would have to exist partly in cyberspace. (By contrast, detecting nuclear tests is child's play.) It follows that any regime to control the development of GNR technologies would inevitably imply a massive invasion of privacy" (Newsweek, March 27, 2000, p. 2). On a practical level, this solution does not appear very promising, but it appears to be what governments will try to do. As Professor Alan Linton of Bristol University has written, "'Evolution is a manmade theory to explain the origin and continuance of life on this planet without reference to a Creator.' It is because of our inability or refusal to accept the existence of a guiding hand that nature has come to be regarded as a system that can be engineered for our own convenience or as a nuisance to be evaded and manipulated, and in which anything that happens can be fixed by technology and human ingenuity" (op. cit., Reith Lectures). Enter the Creator God The Bible describes a scene very reminiscent of the present society, where "many shall run to and fro [a description of worldwide travel], and knowledge shall increase [science and technology expand]" (Daniel 12:4). Daniel wanted to know more. "Then I said, 'My lord, what shall be the end of these things?' And he said, 'Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand" (Daniel 12:8-10). God prophesied that man is destined to go through some terrible punishments for rebelling against Him and putting the earth at risk. He has shown in the past that He will intervene just before human beings destroy themselves. "And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened" (Matthew 24:22). When mankind defiantly built the Tower of Babel and tried to reach up into the heavens, God showed He was a hands-on Creator. Unifying knowledge without submitting to the Creator and His laws will eventually produce chaos and destruction, so God limited man's ability to acquire knowledge by separating man by languages. When sin reached universal levels during Noah's day, universal punishment came in the form of a worldwide flood, thus leaving only righteous Noah and his family to renew God's culture on the earth. He also intervened in Sodom and Gomorrah when sin again reached crisis proportions and forcibly eliminated this moral plague that threatened to spread its sinful virus to the rest of the world. Man's final destiny Thankfully, God has looked into our future and "gray goo" is not the outcome of man's history. He said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). Gray goo certainly is not made in God's image, nor is it the final purpose God has for mankind. But if mankind would be left on its own, who knows what eventually would turn out due to man's unbridled desires? Fortunately, God will not leave man's destiny in his own hands. He has said, "Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure'" (Isaiah 46:9-10). Nothing man will do can alter what God has predestined for him, for He has promised to intervene when it is necessary to carry out His master plan-establishing the Kingdom of God. So, as we find ourselves in the midst of a new knowledge revolution, let's not forget to include God's knowledge revolution—the one described in the pages of the Bible. Of all the different types of knowledge, the most important is the one that not only has to do with this life, but also the next. The Bible puts man in his place by saying, "Thus says the LORD: 'Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight'" (Jeremiah 9:23-24). It is comforting to know God is on our side, and that He will see us through this new and dangerous phase of history. Considering the future, how much more should we pray, "Thy kingdom come!" WNP |
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