Alphabet/Google Isn’t Evil but Genetically Modifying Mosquitos Might Be
By Mic Wright,
The Next Web
| 08. 25. 2015
Untitled Document
Blah blah don’t be evil blah blah blah. At some point, Google’s unofficial motto became like the message printed inside a stick of British seaside rock (see here for details, international readers). It’s a glib thing and chewing down on it too hard is apt to rot your teeth or perhaps your brain.
Google isn’t evil, anymore than any other corporation is evil. Watch the documentary, ‘The Corporation’ and you’ll hear a compelling argument that companies behave in a manner that is similar to sociopaths, but the individuals within Google/Alphabet genuinely do believe they are engaged in important, world-changing work – even the ones shovelling ads at your eyeballs.
But there’s a problem with people convinced they are engaged with a noble purpose. The old cliché that everyone is the hero of their own story and that no villain truly sees themselves as one is worth thinking about when it comes to boundary-pushing science.
In science fiction, we’re often confronted with inventors and experimenters who do something horrific because they thought they were acting in the interests of the greater...
Related Articles
Not the species, certainly, but the Institute of that name, which was founded by transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2005 as a research group at Oxford University. According to a recently posted Final Report, its goal was “to pursue the big questions in a transdisciplinary way” by pulling together “researchers from disciplines such as philosophy, computer science, mathematics, and economics.” This evolved before long into the study and promotion of “effective altruism” and “longtermism” as...
By Yelena Biberman and Jonathan D. Moreno, Bioethics Forum | 04.16.2024
A quiet biological revolution in warfare is underway. The genome is emerging as a new domain of conflict. The level of destruction that only nuclear weapons could previously achieve is fast becoming as accessible as a cyberattack.
Now for the...
By Tristan Manalac, BioSpace | 04.02.2024
Verve Therapeutics has suspended enrollment in the Phase Ib Heart-1 study evaluating its lead gene editing program VERVE-101 following a serious adverse event, the company announced Tuesday.
A patient, who received a 0.45-mg/kg dose of VERVE-101, developed a grade 3...
By Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres, First Monday | 04.14.2024
The stated goal of many organizations in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) is to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI), an imagined system with more intelligence than anything we have ever seen. Without seriously questioning whether such a system can...