The nanoethics of human enhancement

Filed in archive Society & Ethics on April 24, 2006

The Nanoethics Group has weighed in on nanotech's potential for human enhancement with a new report entitled, "Nanoethics and Human Enhancement: A Critical Evaluation of Recent Arguments".

Authors Patrick Lin and Fritz Allhoff consider our ability to use technology to enhance our bodies and minds, exhibited in everything from MIT's Institute for Soldier Technologies, working on exoskeletons and other innovations that increase human strength and capabilities, to far-term predictions of Longevity, nanomedicine, artificial intelligence and other issues.

Nanotechnology, they suggest, might give us implants that enable us to see in the dark, nano-computers imbedded into our bodies in order to help process more information faster, even bring us to the point where man and machine become indistinguishable.

They realize that nanotech enhancements will force us to rethink what it means to be human. And they present a broad range of opinions on where we should go from here without advocating openly for one particular direction.

It's an important discussion and a good read. Better to proactively decide today what we want nanotech to do for us than realize tomorrow we don't like what it's done to us. (photo Nanoethics Group)