Error or Terror: Controlling Emerging Technology
By John Drzik,
CNBC
| 01. 15. 2015
Innovation is vital to progress. Advances in science, have propelled economic and societal development throughout history. Today's emerging technologies have the potential to increase global prosperity and tackle major global challenges.
However, innovation also creates risks. Understanding the hazards that can stem from new technologies is critical to avoiding potentially catastrophic consequences.
The recent wave of cyber-attacks exemplify how new technologies can be exploited for malicious ends and create new threats to global safety. Risk governance needs to keep pace with advances in scientific innovation.
Synthetic biology and artificial intelligence are two examples of the "next cyber"; emerging technologies with the capacity to deliver enormous benefits but which also present significant challenges to government, industry and society.
Take synthetic biology: creating new organisms from the building blocks of DNA offers the potential to fight infectious disease, treat neurological disorders, alleviate worries about food security and create biofuels.
The flipside is that the genetic manipulation of organisms could also create significant harm, through error or terror. The accidental leakof dangerous synthetized organisms, perhaps in the form of deadly viruses or plant...
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