About this episode
Last year, the U.K. and German ministries of defense released a joint statement titled " Human Augmentation: the Dawn of a New Paradigm ." The statement explored the future of technology in seeking to "enhance" people beyond the limits of biology, for military purposes. In this case, it's not a question of "whether" human enhancement is in our future. It's "when." CRISPR and other gene-editing tools, promise the ability to genetically alter human beings, turning off harmful genetic factors and turning on helpful ones. Pharmaceuticals promise, in addition to groundbreaking cures for mental illness, increased cognitive abilities. And, so-called "brain interfaces," promise the ability to "establish high-bandwidth data connections between brain and computer." "Six million years of evolution to where we are today," the authors claim, "and now we have the tools in our hands to decide how our continued evolution should be shaped." It's as if they don't even realize that there's at least half a dozen bad guys I can think of who used almost that exact line in some movie before nearly destroying the world. This time, it's not a sci-fi character making the promise he cannot keep. It's defense ministers from two major Western nations. While the authors do manage to mention ethics from time to time, it's a secondary concern at best . "The need to use human augmentation may ultimately be dictated by national interest," they write Countries may need to develop and use human augmentation or risk surrendering influence, prosperity, and security to those who will." In other words, like it or not, the cat is out of the bag. In response, bioethicist Robert Malone warned: "The arrogance and hubris in this point of view is enormous. That in one or two generations, the military industrial complex will pivot to controlling human evolution via genetic engineering and human augmentation is not only naive [and] ethically corrupt, but fundamentally dangerous." A helpful framework for thinking about what this future may entail is the difference between "Class 1" and "Class 2" problems, something articulated by Wired magazine's Kevin Kelly . Class 1 problems are when technology fails. An example would be iff someone botched an attempt at genetic editing and infected the human gene pool. Class 2 problems are worse. It's when technology works perfectly . As Gandalf put it, even the most wise cannot foresee all ends. It's possible that technology used exactly as it was intended could bring an outcome we failed to expect. To say, "it's going to happen anyway" is not an adequate ethical framework. Any ethical consideration, especially one with such consequential potential for humanity, should begin instead with the question, What does it mean to be human? Human innovation is possible because of how God made us. IFor that reason, we must distinguish between augmentation and restoration . Restoration is an amputee gets neural implants and can control a prosthetic limb with thoughts, Augmentation is an army or Olympic team outfitted with exoskeletons to make them stronger and faster. Our bodies are given to us, from our genders to our hands, feet, faces, and minds— As one moral theologian said: There are God-given limits, and if the limits are transgressed, people don't flourish. And one of those limits is respect for our bodily nature, which implies at very least that we shouldn't metamorphose that nature into some grandiose more-than-human reality. They [Christian scientists] hear in the transhumanist imperative a whisper of original sin, which is pride: "Do it and you'll be like God." The body is sacred, given purpose by God. Secularism lacks that grounding principle entirely. If everything is random, purposeless chance, then the physical "stuff" of our bodies can be shaped, molded, changed, prodded, and rearranged at our leisure or for our benefit. Other than individual desires, there are no limits on what we should do. In fact, if we can do it, we should. According to the authors of this report on human augmentation, all is justified under the guise of "national interest." It's as if they never heard of the Second World War... But good intentions cannot prevent bad ideas from having consequences and victims. Not in sci-fi films or in real life.