A Dangerous Master: How to Keep Technology from Slipping Beyond Our Control

New technologies offer the lure of potentially improving human lives, but this thoughtful polemic convincingly argues that “In striving to answer the question ‘can we do this?’ too few ask ‘should we do this?’ ” Wallach (Moral Machines), of Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, admits that while no one immediately understood the dangers of such items as X-rays or asbestos, in other instances obvious dangers were brushed aside because proponents assumed that the benefits exceeded the risks. He emphasizes that every new technology passes through an “inflection point” where the general public, policy planners, and scholars can reflect on its impact before it enters the marketplace and develops a momentum of its own. Unsettling chapters describe what we should be—but mostly aren’t—discussing about transformative technologies such as genetic manipulation, radical life extension, killer robots, and computer-guided medical care. The obligatory how-to-fix-it conclusion urges legislators to ignore ideology, the lay public to use common sense, and engineers to design for responsibility as well as performance. Readers will admire this astute analysis while harboring the uneasy feeling that the barn door seems stuck open. [em](June) [/em]