From tablets to smart phones and Apple watches. Our technology is changing rapidly and so are we, the users. Media critic, Marshall McLuhan told us that the tools we use are not neutral. We tend to believe that the only thing that matters is how you use a thing which makes it good or ill. McLuhan asked us to recognize that our technology always alters us, often in ways we are not aware of.
Caterina Fake is the host of a new podcast called Should This Exist. She is the co-founder of the online photo sharing website Flikr. Her podcast interrogates the deep influences of some exciting and troubling technologies on the horizon.
On the podcast website, it says:
“It’s the question of our times: How is technology impacting our humanity? On Should This Exist? we invite creators of radical new technologies to set aside their business plan, and think through the human side: What is the technology’s fullest potential? And what could possibly go wrong?”
This is exactly the kind of things that we want to explore here at Flesh and Blood Bioethics, the interplay of technology and human nature.
As of this writing, July 19, 2019, there are ten episodes but we hope there will be many more to come. Episode topics thus far include growing meat in vats so that no animals are killed in producing the steaks you so enjoy, using genetic modification technology to alter entire animal species in the wild, and an electric brain stimulation device that makes it easier for you to learn. Should these things exist? I’m not sure and the podcast offers no conclusive answers but we can all agree that it is a question worth asking.
Robot Therapist
All of the episodes merit your attention but I want to focus especially on two of them, the second and the ninth. The second episode is entitled Woebot: A Virtual Therapist Powered by AI. It’s an artificial intelligence app for your your iPhone that does cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) with you. You text the bot your problems and it converses with you, walking you through some of the basic principles of CBT.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy operates on the principle that your moods and feelings result to a large extent from your thoughts, the ongoing mental conversation you have with yourself. You might feel worthless because there is a tape recording on a loop in your brain that focuses on your failures. If you can recognize distorted or exaggerated thoughts early in the game, you can intervene and replace automatic negative thoughts with more accurate and more positive ones. “I never do anything right. Really, never? Actually, you are like everyone else in that you do some things well and some things less well. Step away from all or nothing thinking.” To an extent, this is a process that an AI bot can perform.
The question is not can this be done, but should it? Perhaps a person who is struggling with anxiety or a mood disorder should not be encouraged to spend more time looking at his phone. Maybe there is something intrinsically beneficial from a face-to-face conversation with a therapist that will be lost with apps like Woebot. The developers are quick to note that the app is not meant to replace talking to a live therapist but that it could be a useful supplement for times in between appointments. Woebot is not a substiute for human interaction but merely a booster in case of a 2 a.m. anxiety attack. I think there could be a lot of good in an app which focuses on DIY mental coaching but the continual move away from real human interaction toward more “personal” exchanges with the machines is concerning.
Radical Life Extension
The ninth episode is called How to Hack Your Way Out of Aging and it is about a company that is developing pharmaceuticals which hope to increase our healthy lifespans dramatically. Greg Bailey of Juvenescence asks us to think about what it might be like to live healthy to age 150 or 200. How would you change your life today? Would you be willing to work at your job for another fifty years? Would you take a gap decade instead of a gap year? It’s hard to say for sure but people have been searching for the fountain of youth since the beginning. There will certainly be a market for products from companies like Juvenescence if they can be shown to be more than the snake oil tonics people have been hawking for ages.
I typically teach undergraduates in their late teens and early twenties. When I do this thought experiment with them, I usually find that the class is divided between those who would definitely take the long-life pills and those who would not. Some people cite concerns about an over-crowded planet and whether there will be enough resources to go around once people live to 200 or more. Others are more philosophical in their approach and wonder if there is something important in having a definite time limit as opposed to living indefinitely. My hunch is that the responses might skew more favorably if I were addressing a group in their 50s instead of a group in their 20s.
In case you are skeptical, there is some science to support this effort. Scientists have unlocked ways of extending the lifespans and “health-spans” of worms, mice, and fruit-flies. Applications for human beings might be down the road a ways but it appears to be theoretically possible to drastically slow aging for living organisms or even reverse its effects.
Christians can be confident that their days are ultimately in the hands of God. It’s this reliance upon the Creator who continues to sustain the world that is lacking. Some researchers and theorists have a troubling inability to recognize and appreciate human limitations and this could lead them to dangerous scientific overreach. Extending the human life/health span is not problematic but rather the attitudes toward life and the Life-giver sometimes are.
I hope you will give Should This Exist a listen. It probes a lot of important questions, not offering definitive conclusions, but helping us along the way.