IBM recognized what the future would require by showing the lack of space planned for the "K" slipping down the side of its "THINK" signs. The need to think was on display at last night's poster and presentation session given by high school students who spent their summer in science labs and departments at the University of Wisconsin.
Students needed to be willing to expend a major effort just preparing for their experiments. One young woman dragged branches, plants, and flowers to the lab to find that birds need to be motivated by an attractive, secure area in order to breed. Multiple times a young man rowed a boat into the middle of a lake at night in order to scoop up water that showed what destroyed undesirable algae multiplied faster than the invasive species that destroyed the helpful algae remover. Another student had to find a sausage factory where he could procure the pig livers he needed to test how their properties changed during heating in a microwave. Various purifying procedures were needed before testing and careful math calculations were needed before a machine could emit radiation to attack tumors. Findings, such as the dangers of the toxic nano particles lithium batteries give off as they decompose, were preliminary but important.
Heading into the future, artificial intelligence (AI); robotics, CRISPR and other medical technologies; the relationship of technology, human values, and public policy; and other technical subjects will play a major role in lives throughout the world. Yet in recent elections, electorates have cast their votes based on emotion: anger about the rich who are getting richer while they're not, anger about their countries filling up with people who don't look like them, and anger about a perceived attack on their values.
Away from the disillusioned voters back home, members of the World Economic Forum (weforum.org) met in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, this week to discuss the impact of new technologies. Their discussions need to make it back home to those have to understand how they will be affected by the good and bad impacts these technologies will have on their lives.
However, you can't help but sympathize with anyone who tries to deal with the complexity and scientific jargon in an article about a technology, such as CRISPR-Cas9. First there is a description. CRISPR-Cas9 can genetically edit cells to improve crops and fight disease. In humans, if used to alter the genetic make-up of cells in an egg, sperm, or embryo, the same mutation will be transmitted from generation to generation. In order for the latter process to work, genes injected from outside need to be accepted by cells that store the germline, the biochemical unit of heredity.
Then, articles tout the benefits of the new technology. Pig organs could be produced without the genes that prevent transplants in humans. Malaria-carrying mosquitoes could be eliminated the way genetically altered Atlantic salmon already grow double the size of ordinary salmon in half the time. Diseases could be cured, even though the complex interrelationship of genes often makes this unlikely in many cases.
Articles frequently ignore problems associated with new technologies. It is up to the reader to ask, "Couldn't a rogue scientist use CRISPR-Cas9 to inject unhealthy mutations into human cells that would be transmitted from generation to generation?" Or might only wealthy people be able: to afford the cures that CRISPR-Cas9 technology could provide. While CRISPR-altered seeds produce uniform crops that can be harvested by machines, farmers in poor countries may not be able to pay for the annual purchase of patented hybrid seeds that grow food in drought conditions.
Some call the biomedical duel between China and the United States to achieve dramatic CRISPR-Cas9 results "Sputnik 2.0." On October 18, 2016 scientists at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, used CRISPR-Cas9 technology to see whether they could disable a gene in the patient's immune cells and reprogram the lung cancer patient's cells not only to resist but to fight back against the cancer. To date, results of the test are not known and neither are side effects. At the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Dr. Carl June also is about to use CRISPR editing to enable three genes in the immune cells of 18 cancer patients, who have not been helped by other treatments, to seek and destroy their cancerous tumors.
Guarding against technology bias also needs to keep up with fast-paced artificial intelligence (AI) developments. Joy Buolamwini's Algorithmic Justice League found facial-analysis software was prone to making mistakes recognizing the female gender, especially of darker-skinned women. AI is developed by and often tested primarily on light-skinned men, but recognition technology, for example, is promoted for hiring, policing, and military applications involving diverse populations.
Finally, we all need to think about and act on the guidelines, regulations, and other checks needed to keep up with the effects of rapidly progressing new technologies.
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