Development Ethical and Societal Issues Satyen Baindur PhD

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Stewardship in Nanotechnology Development: Ethical and Societal Issues SATYEN BAINDUR, PHD Ottawa Policy Research Associates, Inc. OPRA Report 2006-4-1 Issued April 2006 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nanotechnology is therefore not unique in giving rise to concerns regarding privacy; similar concerns having arisen before in the context of other technologies. Both biotechnology and information & communication technologies gave rise to similar concerns, and that continues to be a concern in respect of how both technologies are evolving today. The fear is greater when these technologies are foreseen to converge, and most of the concerns arise from simple extrapolation of technological possibilities. While the technological possibilities cannot be dismissed out of hand, the actual realization of the possibilities is a social process. Therefore the appropriate way to address such concern is also through social processes, including consultation, dialogue, democratic inclusion and transparency in decisionmaking, combined with a forward-looking policy framework and an informed policymaking mechanism. 20 Economic Impact Another oft-expressed concern deals with the impact nanotechnologies might have on the economic system, and the labour market in particular. This type of concern – which is finding voice in the context of nanotechnology today, also attended the arrival of earlier technologies such as the steam engine, electricity and atomic energy. Many of these concerns are also expressed under the assumed premise that technological development and deployment is an unstoppable juggernaut, proceeding with its own logic, unmediated by social or ethical concerns – a view that may be called ‘technological determinism’. The lesson from the past is not that the manner in which technologies such as atomic energy developed was uniformly benign and that there was no reason for concern whatsoever. Rather, the lesson is that the most significant concerns that did manifest themselves were not the ones that had been anticipated, and that technology and society interacted subsequently in interesting and subtle ways both to constrain development of the technologies and to advance them along unforeseen directions. For example, atomic energy was initially projected as becoming all pervasive, with devices from planes to 20
Stewardship in Nanotechnology Development: Ethical and Societal Issues SATYEN BAINDUR, PHD Ottawa Policy Research Associates, Inc. OPRA Report 2006-4-1 Issued April 2006 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ trains to automobiles and even toasters being atomic-powered. It was also projected to become so cheap that it would not need to be metered. Some of these possibilities were not realized because they proved technically infeasible. Others could not be commercialized because of a variety of reasons. There are some similarities in the projections made about nanotechnology today, in the pervasiveness that is held out for nanotechnology, and also in the oft-repeated assertion that the nanoscale is the most basic length scale at which all interesting phenomena occur, and that ‘biology, chemistry and physics’ all come together at this scale. It is further claimed by some that therefore, nanotechnologies will also revolutionize science education by properly emphasizing the importance of the nanoscale, doing away with traditional distinctions between scientific disciplines. While there may be a grain of truth in this, such assertions mostly just add to the hype surrounding nanotechnology today, since similar things were one said about atomic science, space science or computer science. That said, it is undoubtedly true that future development of nanotechnology will likely lead to a decline in employment in some sectors of the economy, that others might operate with different raw materials or use them less intensively, and some entirely new sectors will also evolve. This has happened with virtually all technologies. Seen in this light, nanotechnologies would be different from other technologies only in the details of which sectors and skills are impacted. This assertion is, however, somewhat weakened if it is realized that nanotechnology is explicitly conceived today as a transformative technology designed to change the basic dynamics of all economic sectors. By contrast, the Internet, when conceived, was designed merely as an emergency communication medium. That it has had a much broader impact today, simply underlines the fact that long-term techno-socio-economic projections have significant uncertainties. For this reason, even though the stated aim of nanotechnology is to impact all sectors, it may prove to be less than that – or it may prove to be far more than even its strongest supporters envision today. 21 21
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Development Ethical and Societal Issues Satyen Baindur PhD

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