Managing the dangers of knowledge

Scientists recently called for a moratorium on research on a technique that could alter hereditable genes. That research certainly raises disturbing possibilities: we’re talking about ways to make particular lineages them smarter and healthier – or maybe more aggressive, or more passive and accepting of authority. Surely we need to get a handle on the possible consequences and how they would be managed.

The scientists call for some kind of discussion and development of guidelines among themselves. But that would hardly be enough. Biologists are not experts in ethics, and they don’t represent most of the population; there's no reason to believe they would make the right moral decisions. And if they did set limits on themselves, there would be no means of enforcement beyond moral suasion. That could work only as long as the community of researchers remains small and tight; but increasingly this kind of knowledge is spreading far beyond the familiar Western bastions of academic knowledge, to nations and actors who move in very different circles.

This puts me in mind of the response to the development of the atom bomb. Many of the scientists involved in its creation, including Albert Einstein, were horrified at the potential consequences of what they had wrought, and they appealed to President Roosevelt and other political figures to put a stop to it. It didn’t work then: the pressures of fear, mistrust, ambition, and conflicting goals were far too great to allow space for reasoned dialogue.

Now we have to succeed where even Einstein failed. We have escaped destruction from the atom bomb so far, by the skin of our teeth – but that threat will soon return, magnified, as more and more nations, and non-nation actors, gain in technical capability. Indeed, they will get even more terrifying capabilities: for creating new diseases, more dangerous chemicals, computer attacks that can penetrate homes and schools as well as governments.

We can’t manage these dangers through the mechanisms of the past -- the balance of power, the protection of dangerous knowledge. We escaped the atom bomb while only two actors really had the possibility of using it, because they could establish a balance of terror. But when dozens or hundreds of players can use it, the chances will become overwhelming that one of them will try to get away with it. There is simply too much knowledge out there. That tide can’t be rolled back. Our only hope is to channel it.

We can only avoid destruction the peoples of the world agree on the path forward, and act to bring it about – restraining themselves from taking advantage of each other, sanctioning deviants in their midst, pulling in the same direction. That requires the kind of discussion that the scientists are calling for in genetic modification, only on a much wider and larger scale, including people at all levels of society, all the way to the neighborhoods where terrorist cells are sheltered.

This seems like a forlorn hope. But the Internet, which spreads the dangers of knowledge, also spreads interaction and understanding among peoples. It can be used in creative ways to build broad conversations and shared visions. We need to explore that road, and in a hurry.