Human Security and NBICS by Gregor Wolbring December 30, 2006

Human security (the theme of this column) and social cohesion (the theme of the next) seem to be fitting concepts to sum up this year’s columns and begin my columns for next year. Both are impacted by the social discourse around changes in science and technology that I have covered so far.

What is ‘human security’? How does it relate to NBICS? People may relate the term to war and military applications of NBICS (this will be a column in 2007). Some may relate it to surveillance-related security problems (see my column on smart dust). However the term is more often used in a much broader way.

The Commission on Human Security says in a report published in 2003: "Human security is concerned with safeguarding and expanding people’s vital freedoms. It requires both shielding people from acute threats and empowering people to take charge of their own lives. Needed are integrated policies that focus on people’s survival, livelihood and dignity, during downturns as well as in prosperity."

The Commission identified economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security, political security, freedom from fear, and freedom from want as primary concerns. It is significant that it included social well being in the interpretation of ‘health security’. "Good health," it said, "is both essential and instrumental to achieving human security. It is essential because the very heart of security is protecting human lives. Health security is at the vital core of human security -- and illness, disability and avoidable death are ‘critical pervasive threats’ to human security. Health is defined here as not just the absence of disease, but as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.’ Health is both objective physical wellness and subjective psychosocial wellbeing and confidence about the future. In this view, good health is instrumental to human dignity and human security. It enables people to exercise choice, pursue social opportunities and plan for their future."

From the Commission’s writings it is evident that education security (security of access to education) is also essential to its vision of human security.

My columns show how science and technology impacts all of the areas of human security identified by the Commission. Lack of discussion or coverage of the consequences of science and technology advances, and the limited diversity of social groups involved in the related discourse is therefore a concern.

My columns also show that there is a need to expand this concept. NBICS and other emerging sciences and technologies will (individually and together) lead to products that pose new challenges to human security such as ability security and self-identity security -- going beyond traditional threats and hopes.

Looking at proposed and ongoing NBICS research, one can envision a variety of paradigm changes and impacts on human security. These include:

• moving from species-typical functioning to beyond species-typical functioning;
• moving from curative to enhancement medicine;
• moving from human rights to sentient rights;
• moving from ableism towards transhumanization of ableism;
• moving towards the creation of a new social groups (techno poor disabled) and towards an ability divide;
• moving from natural commodities such as copper to nanoformulated commodities, and atomic commodities (molecular manufacturing);
• moving from understanding life to designing life;
• moving from dissecting life towards building life from the bottom up, base-pair by base-pair;
• moving towards an increasingly longer lifespan;
• moving towards the modification of animals (especially enhancements in particular giving them cognitive abilities);
• outsourcing reproductive tasks from the human body (artificial womb);
• moving towards lifelong learning;
• moving towards global learning and teaching;
• moving towards personal enhancements (drugs, devices) to increase the learning ability of students and to facilitate the knowledge increase of students;
• moving towards global electronic group work (one meaning of collective intelligence); and
• moving towards a borg hive mind? (a vision of collective intelligence for some, rejected by others).

All of the above are possible and to some extent are already happening. This will increasingly impact human security as we know it today. It will also lead to the need to expand our understanding of what human security means.

In my ableism column, I discussed how NBICS R&D products allow the appearance and functioning of the human body to be modified beyond existing norms and species-typical boundaries -- creating an ability divide. As a consequence, we need to add 'self-identity security' to the list. This is a subset of personal security which means we should not be forced (physically or by circumstance) to accept a perception of ourselves we do not agree with. (This happens in many ways to disabled people today and will happen in the future to the techno poor disabled.) (2;3). ‘Ability security’ means that we are accepted, and are able to live our life with whatever set of abilities we have, and that we will not be forced to have a prescribed set of abilities to live a secure life.

The November 2006 World Transhumanist Association newsletter identifies three new action programs. The scope and focus of two of them have direct consequences for a variety of human securities.

The Campaign for Longer Better Lives advocates a multinational research program to develop therapies to slow aging. If we are indeed able to extend the time span of living in a substantial way (50 years or more) it will lead to a variety of consequences one has to think about. Would this create overpopulation, stagnation and perpetual boredom? How would it change our society, our culture, our values, and our spirituality? Which areas of human security would be negatively impacted? How could these negative impacts be prevented, if at all?

The Campaign for the Rights of the Person is a "campaign to modify national laws and international human rights conventions to establish (a) that bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, and cognitive liberty should be explicitly recognized and protected, (b) that universal access to enabling technologies is a right in itself, and a precondition for all other rights, and that (c) personhood, sentience, and capacity for having morally relevant interests are the bases of rights-bearing, not humanness or the human genome."

Point (c) questions the very concept of ‘human security,’ since being human is not seen as relevant anymore. Indeed, the very term ‘human security’ would be seen as specieism that the preceding description seems to reject. The content of human security will change depending on how one defines the terms ‘personhood’, ‘capacity’ and ‘morally relevant interests.’

The impacts of point (b) will differ depending on whether the term ‘right’ in the sentence "universal access to enabling technologies is a right in itself, and a precondition for all other rights" is seen within a positive or a negative framework.

So far, science and technology advances have been seen mostly within a negative rights framework -- that is, one in which others are to refrain from interfering with the attempt of someone to obtain something -- and not within a positive rights framework, which would create a moral obligation for someone to do something so that someone else can obtain something.

The Campaign will likely follow a negative rights framework -- not prohibiting access to science and technology for those who can afford it, without taking care of any divides that will be created in the process. Such divides will have an impact on human security.

The Choice is Yours

My first column about synthetic biology stated: ”Today's scientific news seems to become yesterday's news… fast replaced by even more astonishing news. One field of science is chased by another at an ever-increasing speed.” This has consequences for human security.

This field needs to engage very seriously in foresight exercises -- as the military, health sector, and industry are increasingly doing. Paradigm changes can happen very quickly. If molecular manufacturing comes to pass, for example, we might see a rapid move from natural commodities such as copper to atomic commodities created through molecular manufacturing -- with immediate economic impacts and implications for nearly every area of human security. As with a Tsunami, we should have our plans ready ‘just in case.’

Since all areas of human security are increasingly linked, not only do we need transdisciplinary teamwork -- each of the actors must bring a transdisciplinary perspective and capability to the debate.

We need to monitor whether NBICS creates new human security issues -- determining early on if it does and acting to prevent it. It is troublesome that the Millennium Development Goals won’t be met as outlined a few years ago. A lot of work will have to be done to reinforce human security and prevent future erosion. It will be important to address the social context in which NBICS is used. If we don’t, these technologies are more likely to lead to a decline in human security. The choice is yours.

Gregor Wolbring is a biochemist, bioethicist, science and technology ethicist, disability/vari-ability studies scholar, and health policy and science and technology studies researcher at the University of Calgary. He is a member of the Center for Nanotechnology and Society at Arizona State University; Member CAC/ISO - Canadian Advisory Committees for the International Organization for Standardization section TC229 Nanotechnologies; Member of the editorial team for the Nanotechnology for Development portal of the Development Gateway Foundation; Chair of the Bioethics Taskforce of Disabled People's International; and Member of the Executive of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. He publishes the Bioethics, Culture and Disability website, moderates a weblog for the International Network for Social Research on Diasbility, and authors a weblog on NBICS and its social implications.

Resources

Commission on Human Security. Human Security Now. 2003, 0-9741108-0-9. Index and Final Report. Wolbring, G. "Solutions follow perception: Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno-technology (NBIC) and the concept of health, medicine, disability and disease." Alberta Health Law Review. 12, 3 41-47 (2004). Wolbring, G. HTA Initiative #23. The triangle of enhancement medicine, disabled people, and the concept of health: a new challenge for HTA, health research, and health policy. 2005. ISBN 1-894927-36-2 (Print); ISBN 1-894927-37-0 (On-Line); ISSN: 1706-7855.

Please contact the author for information on this reference or for additional future references at gwolbrin@ucalgary.ca