Would you Upgrade your Biology with Technology? An Ethical Overview
Much of the success of humanity may be attributed to our ability to create and use tools. From fire to the wheel to the iPhone, various generations of tools have propelled our intellectual advancement. While humans have long coupled technology with our thirst for understanding the universe, we have only recently begun to see what the combination of our physical capabilities with technology will yield. Robotic prostheses for amputees, cancer-killing nanorobots in the bloodstream, and military-grade exoskeletons are examples of recent advancements in this arena. These advancements bring with them large leaps in human ability, but also large ethical concerns.
INTRODUCTION
The human form is a beautiful thing. One of the most intricately designed things known to man, the human body has been the subject of much philosophical inquiry, from those praising its features to those who revile them to those who are seemingly indifferent on the matter. There is another camp on this topic — those that see the body as a biological starting point that can and must be improved through the use of technology. This camp is in favor of upgrading mother natures biology with technology, to enhance the natural abilities of the human.
In this post, I will expand on this in three distinct categories: (1) external augmentation, or purely physical upgrades such as robotic exoskeletons, (2) internal augmentation, or the placement of tech inside the body, and (3) robotic prostheses, essentially a combination of (1) and (2). The hacking of such devices will be expounded upon in further detail, as well, an ethical analysis on various issues will be presented throughout the essay. It should be noted, that, while it is easy to think of robotic technology strictly in terms of computerized modules, I will expand this view to encompass biological robots based on molecules. In this method, both serve the same robotic function of performing work.
EXTERNAL AUGMENTATION
External techno-biological upgrading lies in the purely physical sense — upgrading the capabilities of the human body without connecting to its controlling nervous system. In this realm lie robotic exoskeletons and suits, as well as supports such as running blades.
Robotic Exoskeletons
Robotic exoskeletons have been on the rise in popularity recently, especially with the Iron Man trilogy [1] capturing the imaginations of so many. These devices are currently prohibitively expensive, but there has been a push to release a consumer-grade version for normal use [2].
The US military has been testing exoskeletons on their soldiers to improve their performance in combat [3]. While it does not raise some of the ethical concerns that military-owned killer robots do, it does have some interesting clout. For the worlds militaries, this is obviously a beneficial move that will help its soldiers out in the combat zone. With the powered exoskeleton, soldiers will be able to cover more ground while carrying a higher load and exerting less energy.
For the naturalists and religious, however, this is clearly an attack on the human body. For, if we humans were meant to be made in Gods image, why should we compromise this with augmenting ourselves. It is interesting to note that this argument can be made for many sections of this post; this will be expanded upon this in later sections.
Robotic Suits
The extreme end of the robotic exoskeleton topic is that of the full robotic suit: e.g. Iron Mans suit or Samus Arans Varia Suit (Metroid [4]). Iron Mans suit gives him the ability to fly, be somewhat impervious to gunfire, and the ability to shoot laser beams. The Varia Suit, in similar fashion, allows Samus to crawl into a tiny ball in order to explore small spaces. When controlled for the spirit of good, these devices can be very useful, though it should be readily apparent that such technology should not end up in the hands of an ordinary civilian. The ethical questions to ask here are: (1) should governments ban robotic suits? And (2) if not, how should suit owners behave? These questions mirror a crisis going on in the US already: the gun debate. Guns are legal to buy in the US, and many Americans own guns to use for recreation. Others abuse this freedom and buy guns to murder civilians. Robotic suits may fall into the same category of debate, where one party espouses it as a means of lackadaisical recreation, and the other sees it as a death machine. If the government does ban the use of robosuits, then it will be seen as an attack on ones freedom. If there is no ban, civilians will continue to die. Quite a conundrum.
Other Forms of External Augmentation
Running blades are a type of passive robotic support that allow athletes with one or both feet missing to run in a similar way to unaffected humans. Running blades have been used at the Paralympic games for many decades in the track and field sports. This has led to several controversies in which an athlete will lengthen their blades in order to get a longer stride length (and thus faster time) [5].
There have also been cases where an athlete with blades ran against normal athletes in the regular Olympics, specifically in regards to Oscar Pistorius [6]. While not exactly an ethical argument, it is interesting to opine on the notion of fairness in such a situation. As sports have been riddled with steroid abuse, what even constitutes fairness in such a situation? The obvious answer is that a level playing field is the best way to conduct a sporting event. In this way, the athlete with the most training and quickest wit should emerge victorious. However, training can only get one so far — it is ones genes that have a large factor in determining how well one will perform in a sport.
INTERNAL AUGMENTATION
Internal augmentation refers to the placement of foreign objects into the body to either stimulate the nerves, collect and send biomarker data, or add an additional sensing modality. Devices that do this come in the form of anything from bulky electronic devices such as pacemakers to biological nanoscale robots (nanobots) delivering drugs to different areas of the body.
Grinders and Biohacking
There is a community known as Grinders who work in do-it-yourself biology [7]. Many of their projects involve subdermal implants of devices such as RFID tags, Brain-Controlled Interfaces, and various other embedded systems that either record data from the body or add an additional sense. Grinders practice their work in citizen labs that work in a similar capacity to funded research labs, except for the fact that their work is not regulated by any organization. This lack of regulation means that biohackers can practice outside of ethical considerations. Grinders commonly perform surgery on themselves, which has placed them under scrutiny by various surgeons and medical organizations [8].
Nanobots
Nanobots are computerized or biological robots that operate at the nanometer scale. Recently it was shown that a biological nanobot was able to kill cancer cells by delivering drugs directly to the tumor [9]. While it may seem that nanobots can only be a force for good, they may be able to compromise our bodys integrity and privacy.
Today, billions of humans take medication for which they are unaware of its effects. While most modern medications contain only chemicals, the introduction of biological nanobots with targeted purposes will change much of the field of medicine. We must ask ourselves: what happens when one of the nanobots does not target what is supposed to? Rather instead of killing cancerous cells, it starts killing white blood cells. How would we put a stop to this? Who will be responsible? Currently, nanorobotic research is being funded by the NSF and DARPA in the U.S. Unfunded research in this area is prohibitively costly, meaning there is less of a chance for rogue scientists to develop dangerous devices [10]. This does not mean that funded research labs will accidently create a nanobot that will self-replicate or deconstruct all materials (leading to a Gray Goo Scenario [11]). The creation of even a single nanobot archetype that does not do exactly what it is supposed to do may open up a Pandoras box of diseases.
In regards to concerns on bodily privacy, it is not difficult to imagine computerized nanobots that log and send data to your healthcare provider. Under the guise of attempting to predict diseases, these companies may change your rates depending on how healthy you are, or worse, sell your data to an ad agency without your permission [12]. On the one hand, this technology will be able to tell you if that mole on your hip is cancerous, but on the other hand, advertisers will be able to target skin lotion for your eczema. In a world that is increasingly conscious about privacy, this is a problem that needs to be discussed at large.
ROBOTIC PROSTHESES
There are between 1.7 and 2.1 million amputees living in the United States. Many of these persons opt to receive plastic prostheses, in an attempt to not be viewed as different in society. Most of these prostheses are inflexible, simply for show, with others displaying limited functionality. In the last two decades, research in the fields of neurobiology and robotics has realized different types of brain-controlled robotic prostheses. These prostheses consist of a two-part neural decoder and controller. The first part decodes the intent (direction, grasp, etc) either directly from the brain or from nerves in the muscle near the amputated limb. The second part feeds the intent into a robotic limb. While robotic prostheses are currently slow, they are relatively accurate for various tasks [13]. Further research will see a full product come to market in the next decades.
As a tool for good
Those living without necessary limbs such as arms and legs have a higher chance of not holding a job, and are at a much higher risk for depression. In the worst cases (such as tetraplegia), amputees require full-time care by another person. Many live in deep depression. Giving amputees the autonomy to live life on their own accord is hugely beneficial to both themselves and society. These persons will be able to hold better jobs, and thus lead a fulfilling life.
As a tool for bad
While robotic prostheses are still a relatively nascent technology, it is not hard to imagine what effect they will have on the world once they become better than human limbs. Particularly in sport, where we prize the training of a particular athlete, robotic prostheses on a human will give them the upper hand. It is almost certain that robotic prostheses (that is, active prostheses, unlike the passive running blades) will be outlawed by major sports leagues in a similar manner to dopants and steroids.
Supernumerary Limbs
The first parts of this section have assumed that all robotic prostheses will match the anatomy of the human, but that is not necessarily the case. Neurons in the brain and muscle nerves are wired in tandem, as the closed loop control of the motor cortex (vision as feedback) strengthen the neuronal connections that are required for a specific task. This system allows different groups of neurons to control various parts of the body with varying levels of dexterity. For many amputees, this neural control system must be retrained for use with the robotic prosthesis [13]. Thus, it is possible to map parts of the brain that do not exist biologically. In fact, it has been theoretically and experimentally validated that control of supernumerary limbs is possible via external measurements [14]. Brain-based controls of various keyboards has also been shown [15]. While this is quite astounding, no studies are known to have been run with brain-controlled supernumerary limbs at the time of this writing.
Persons with supernumerary limbs will be able to perform superhuman tasks, such as climb mountains at record speed and play Bachs Sonata in A Major (a four-hand piece) by ones self. This latter point is tangentially interesting in relation to the piano scene in Gattaca [16] in which a mutated individual with six fingers was able to play a very technical piece. Of course, most musicians will object to such a performer, as their entire careers will be invalidated.
These points must necessarily call into the question whether or not a normal person will want to have a supernumerary limb. There will definitely be objections by the religious, as it is inherently unnatural, but those wishing for an advantage in a particular domain will no doubt flock to it. Similar to the adoption of any fledgling technology, there will be detractors until it reaches critical mass, at which point, the individual must adopt and acclimate or risk becoming irrelevant.
HACKING ROBOTIC DEVICES
Much of this paper has focused on the media through which humans may be upgraded. One aspect of this endeavor that has been conspicuously left out is the prospect of attackers hacking the devices. Hackers can attack any part of the upgrading stack and can focus on either Denial-of-Service (DoS, a.k.a. malfunctions) or data exfiltration. These two prospects are very real concerns in our current and future society. Throughout the discussion of the various attack vectors presented below, it should be obvious that attempts to secure upgrading devices must be the top priority of device manufacturers as well governmental organizations.
Hacking External Devices
Hacking devices meant for external augmentation will lead to mildly terrifying results. Take the case of a military exoskeleton. The devices are powered and thus have a computer module for physics and motor processing. If a hacker could gain root access to the device, he could take control of the exoskeleton. The human operator would be trapped inside and forced to do the hackers bidding. Now this is where things get interesting. Suppose the black-hat hacker has a thirst for blood and wants to use his puppet to do the work for him. In the event of a murder, who would be liable in this case? Companies often take the blame for when a hack or data breach occurs, so one would imagine that the manufacturer would accept responsibility here. Does the fact that a security loophole in their device change anything?
The principle rule of computer security is that no device is completely secure. This begs the question if we should even use the device in the first place, as it has the possibility to do so much damage. Capitalists and technologists will say yes here, as technological progress must not be stopped at all costs. Naturalists will be vehemently opposed to this, and may gain some traction for their cause, although history has always sided with the progressives in cases of technology [17].
Hacking Internal Devices
Hacking implantable devices may make for a more dastardly scenario. As stated before, most implanted devices are meant to stimulate nerves, collect data, or add an additional sense.
Recently, the medical device security field has demonstrated attacks on subdermal pacemakers that allow for both data logging of various biomarkers as well as manipulating the circadian shock cycles [18], [19]. Pacemakers are certainly a fantastic piece of technology, allowing people to extend their lives for years, but using them with the assumption that they may be hacked seems to be a dangerous gamble. An attacker may easily apply a deadly shock pattern remotely, with knowledge of the architectures of both pacemaker and programmer [18]. Who is responsible in this case? The manufacturer may posit that they were unaware of the fault in the software. There is precedent to blame them, nonetheless, as manufacturers of the infamous Therac-25 radiation device killed dozens of people through a race condition in the code [20]. The attacker in this situation is left unmarked, as the process is done wirelessly (though still in close proximity). Thus, the ability to commit a crime and get away with it becomes much easier.
For a less ethically ambiguous example, there are companies who are in the works of creating implantable devices specifically to log data back to the network. The data will be used to diagnose health problems as well as predict susceptibility to various diseases [12] In this day and age, the world is becoming more privacy conscious. People love what machine learning and big data technology adds to their lives, but also understand that their privacy is being compromised in the process. There is an analogue here to the Cambridge Analytical scandal, where the company bought data from 3rd party Facebook apps and sold it to the Trump campaign in order to target advertising to citizens. Opening more doors for this type of behaviors is highly unethical, and thus secure defenses must be put in place to stop this from happening in the future. With this scandal still in the minds of U.S. citizens, I believe many will be hesitant to use such a product.
Hacking Robotic Prostheses
As robotic prostheses can be thought of as a combination of both internal and external augmentors, the hacking of such a system will be incredibly dangerous to society.
Take the case of a prosthetic robot arm. If an attacker can position herself between the neural decode stage and the arm input stage, she can have full control over the arm. If she has a devilish mindset, she can use this power to choke the victim to death. She may also, in a similar way to the exoskeleton, choose to kill others (though in this case, the victims body must be restrained). Perhaps the attacker wishes you to type the address of a malicious site that will allow her to steal all of your personal data — while you, the victim, are asleep! Even more heinous would be the hacking of a superintelligent cyborg. Such a being should only be used sparingly, even by the military, but if a black-hat hacker can take one over, the destruction she can inflict is incomprehensible. There are a number of attack vectors in this arena, and as the security community is always preoccupied in one fad or another, this subfield has not received much attention or thought.
ETHICAL ARGUMENTS
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Upgrading our natural biology with technology can be argued to have its roots in basic tools themselves. Many say that smartphones are already a form of biological augmentation in that they expand our access to information in a much larger scope than a single human brain can hold. What happens when humans link up our collective intelligence via brain-machine interfaces in such a way that all the worlds knowledge comes as fast as ones own thoughts? Would people opt into such a program? Will such a technology attempt to sell us ads in the same way that social media does?
Animal Testing
There is a lab in Singapore that has been implanting electrodes in beetles [21]. These electrodes are carefully placed in various nerves in the beetles body, and, through functional electrode stimulation, the researchers are able to control its various movements and flight patterns [22]. There is a room in which researchers fly the beetle against its will, using a Bluetooth-enabled Wii video game controller [23]. This lab has produced impressive results from a neurorobotics standpoint, but, in doing so, are violating the free will of the beetle. The functional electrode stimulation overrides the beetles own muscle commands, leaving it powerless, essentially trapped inside its own body. The media covering this research has been largely glorifying of the technology, and it is difficult to find any correspondence on the ethics of the situation. The researchers are creating this technology with a human-friendly purpose; it will be used in rescue mission scenarios. Is it right to exploit other creatures in such a way for our own benefit? Why use a beetle when low cost drones and quadcopters will suffice? For the author, these answers are obvious, but many in power are blindsided by possible results.
Most labs who work on neural signal decoding use monkeys as research subjects. This is due to the fact that human subjects are hard to come by, most humans who sign up have severe cases such as tetraplegia. The monkeys in these labs undergo neurosurgery in order to have an electrode array implanted. The monkeys have no say in whether or not they will participate, and the prospect of research findings is too great to not use the monkeys. With brain-machine interfaces becoming more of a reality every day, we must ask ourselves if we should be subjecting monkeys to these conditions in order to provide a better future for humans.
Technology as an Amplifier
It has been described in several contexts that technology can be thought of as an amplifier for various human behaviors [24]. The argument strikes a chord when talking about the already large wealth gap in the world. Even now, those born in countries with access to the internet have a large advantage over those without in terms of becoming successful on the world stage. What will happen when biological upgrading becomes a fully-fledged product? History has shown that it is the rich who are the first to benefit from new technologies, and so we will see a large adoption of these technologies by those who are already successful. Evolutionarily, this will allow the rich to live longer and thus have a greater advantage in life over poorer citizens. This begs the question: should we even introduce this technology with the disparity in the worlds wealth already so staggeringly high? The answer is always a resounding yes, as the price of technology tends to drop low enough such that the average consumer can purchase it. However, this process may take decades, and the attainment gap may cause further social unrest.
Mutually Assured Destruction?
The prospect of superintelligent cyborgs running the earth The prospect of superintelligent cyborgs running the earth is hard to comprehend outside of the realm of science fiction. Once enough people have access to this technology, however, the scales of power are tipped entirely in their direction. As a society, we must treat such beings as weapons and restrict their access to special uses. If one of these cyborgs goes rogue, we may as well be letting off a nuclear warhead on the masses. As the cyborg will most likely be built on top of computational devices, it is possible for the manufacturer to put in layers of failsafes. This is not a foolproof method, however, as it was noted before that all computational devices are amenable to being hacked.
The Religious Argument
While it is not necessarily kosher to bring up religion in a scientific framework, most of the world practices one form of religion and thus their views on science and ethics must be regarded here [25]. Religious persons tend to lie more on the conservative side of life, embracing a traditional lifestyle. Many are hesitant to embrace technology, unaware of how it will affect their faith in their higher power [26]. It appears that upgrading our biology will have the same taste of reprehensibility. These people might also be right. Who are we to be the masters of our own destiny? If a higher power created everything in the world, who are we to change that? This argument can be repeated even from the standpoint of evolution and natural processes. Why should we disrupt the relative stability of our lives to make room for complicated machinations? There are no real answers to these questions, as different people will have different opinions.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Some fields in biological upgrading have undergone extensive research into the ethical implications of their technology (esp. nanotechnology). Most fields would do well to incorporate ethical considerations into the designs of their technologies. In the early stages of development, it will be necessary to chart out the ethical implications, and attempt to enforce regulations on research in order to yield a constructive path for the future. New protocols must be developed by computer security researchers that take into account the computers interaction with the human body. For example, a robot arm may only only work with a two-factor authentication protocol that prevents an attacker from gaining immediate access. As well, as the technology matures, new laws concerning their usage must be enacted to protect normal citizens.
CONCLUSION
It is clear that upgrading our biology through technology will have a profound effect on our society. We will be equipped with superpowers: indestructibility, superintelligence, flight. Diseases will be mostly eradicated. Perhaps we will live forever. Such power comes with a great price, however. These devices may be hacked to commit crimes without the accord of the user. Our privacy may be invalidated as companies sell our data to the highest bidder (much like what is currently happening). Superintelligent cyborgs may destroy the world with their superior might and intellect. As upgrading technologies are still relatively nascent, it will be a while before humanity must truly reckon with these questions, however, we must all take part in the discussion to ensure that their introduction does not mean the destruction of the planet.
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