{"id":55245,"date":"2023-10-20T16:30:31","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T16:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/how-to-embrace-technology-without-dooming-humanity-to-destruction-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T16:30:31","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T16:30:31","slug":"how-to-embrace-technology-without-dooming-humanity-to-destruction-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/how-to-embrace-technology-without-dooming-humanity-to-destruction-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"How to embrace technology without dooming humanity to destruction – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
The world today is facing some serious global challenges: creating sustainable development in the face of climate change, safeguarding rights and justice, and growing ethical markets, for a start. All of these challenges share some connection with science and technology \u2013 some more explicitly than others.<\/p>\n
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We are currently witnessing a growth in traditional technology \u2013 with computers processing data in new and exciting ways<\/a>. We\u2019re also seeing the birth of transformative technology, such as bioengineering<\/a>. But the question is not about old or new technology \u2013 rather, it is about how they are being used to facilitate or change human behaviour.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Developments in information and communication technology (ICT) are vitally important to help us make better, more informed choices about how we prepare for the future. For instance, democratic governance<\/a> is about being able to articulate contesting views across society and from different parts of the government. The advent of the internet allows us to receive and spread such information. Likewise, security and public safety relies on having good information on risks and their potential threats. Consider, for example, the way police departments in New York<\/a> and Memphis<\/a> have been able to make better use of data to prevent crime.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n While science and technology are giving us the tools to improve, they \u2013 and the people who use them \u2013 are also presenting serious problems. Technology connects us, but it also makes us vulnerable to cyber-attacks. The amount of information that we produce every day through our phones and computers can help shape our environment to cater to us. But it also means that our identities are perhaps more vulnerable than ever before, with smart phones and club cards tracking our every move<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Similarly, in biology, we are able to make amazing gains in physical corrections, repairs, amendments, and augmentations, whether replacing old limbs or growing new ones. But we must also seriously consider the issues around ethics, safety and security. The debate around gain of function<\/a> experiments, which give diseases new properties to help us study them, is a good example.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n To help us grasp the shape and scope of these challenges, the Millennium Project<\/a> \u2013 an international think tank \u2013 releases an annual State of the Future report<\/a>, which outlines the major hurdles facing humanity over the next 35 years. It illustrates our complicated relationship with science and technology. Just as the beginning of the industrial revolution influenced the underlying themes of Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein<\/a>, we too are worried about the unforeseen complications that the latest developments could bring.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The report tells us of the great hopes that synthetic biology will help us write genetic code like we write computer code; about the power of 3D printing to customise and construct smart houses; of the future of artificial intelligence where the human mind and the computer mind meet, rather than conflict.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\nGood tech, bad tech<\/h2>\n
Hopes and fears<\/h2>\n