Issues of ethics, morality, and criminality: In my post last Friday, I quoted Cascio's observation that with our emerging ability to 3-D print human organs and use synthetic biology in astonishing new ways, we may be acquiring capacities "reserved to the deity," but "what we haven't been developing as swiftly is the wisdom to know what to make and what not to make."

The interesting question, as several panelists observed, is whether we are developing a moral and ethical framework as quickly as our technological capacities are evolving. Is our current moral and ethical framework compatible with the maker movement?


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One view is that it's not—that people involved in creating and making things get removed from these bigger concerns by the need to develop ideas quickly, to beat potential competitors to market, and they don't think about the ripple effects of their actions. As Jules Pieri says, in the makers' entrepreneurial ecosystem, speed is everything. "It's always, go go go! They're not on the planet to think about the big issues." Thinking through the potential consequences of creating product x, y, or z is not high on their agenda.

Cascio agreed. He pointed to the "Internet of Everything," which is being propelled forward by hackers and makers, who are the ones imagining and designing the networking of everyday things, but (in his view) haven't done a very good idea of thinking through security aspects. Cascio cited several examples, including that of a computer virus intentionally introduced into a digital picture frame by a mischief-maker.

And, of course, the arrival of synthetic biology into the hackerspace raises all sorts of scary scenarios involving accidents and bad intentions, both serious mischief and criminal behavior. Cascio asks: "Who's going to use these technologies to break things? Who's going to use this for crime? Who's going to use this as a way of changing their status?" Who's going to do the wrong thing in pursuit of profits?

"What happens," he asked, "when people take something that is legal, and something that gives them power—and then put them together to come up with something that is terrifying for some people?" Cascio pointed to a company ("it's basically one guy") called Defense Distributed that has come up with an open-source 3-D print model for firearms. "Basically, you can get everything except the firing pin. It works. And with the open-source distribution of this 3-D print gun design, you've in one stroke wiped out any gun-control law in the world."

So, there are plenty of reasons for concern and alarm, in that view.

On the other hand, Pieri also sees signs of hope. Where? In the Millennial generation. "They think about legacy, about the future. It's natural to them to think positively. They expect more from business in terms of who's behind it, the sustainability of an enterprise, the legacy that they are creating with their purchases. ... So, they're thinking of their impact. That's something older generations didn't think about until they were near death."

Cascio agrees. While he sees many dangers and risks on the horizon, he says it's not all doom and gloom. "The maker movement may be one of the better engines for developing a set of ethical guidelines, because we don't have the kind of experience that can really teach us. We have myth. We have classic traditions, and religions, and ancient philosophies that are useful and need to be examined and embraced. But, the kind of power—the kind of ability to create and recreate—that we increasingly have access to, will necessitate moving beyond what we were thinking about 2,000 years ago. It will necessitate a re-examination of where our responsibilities lie—and to whom we are responsible. And from contact I've had with people in the open-source bioscience movement ... I see that people really are really thinking hard about the responsibility we have to fellow humans, to ecosystems, to the planet, and to the future."
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/04/the-dilemmas-of-maker-culture/390891/?utm_source=SFFB