SAGW.berthoud.utopia

The Techno-Utopia of «Human Performance Enhancement»

Gérald Berthoud

Summary

In two official documents (United States and European Union), we find a discussion on the present state and the prospect of the combination, and even the unification, of what is viewed as promising technologies, that is nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive sci-ence. This desirable horizon of a unifying technoscience is based on the possibility to reach, at a nanoscale, the so-called basic building blocks of matter. More precisely, atoms, genes, and neurons could constitute a new infrastructure allowing «material unity» and «technology integration».

With this major development of technologies, social and political uto-pias are largely replaced by what may be termed «techno-utopias». Every-thing, from body, mind, cognition, emotion, to social communication, can be engineered. Everybody can be repaired, modified, improved, and finally augmented. This «technologization» of human life is seen as the only way to be adapted to an evolutional process of a growing complexity less and less humanly controllable. The challenge revolves around the question of the «enhancement of human performance», or the «augmentation», in one way or another, of physical, mental and social abilities.

The proclaimed goal of technoscientific research and development is to improve the conditions of living. However the demiurgic vision to produce a physically, mentally, and socially engineered human being is, to say the least, very hazardous. With such a program, the positive utopian expecta-tion is transmutable into counter-utopian or dystopian views, at least for those who still believe in the urgent necessity to humanize the present world.

292 The Techno-Utopia of «Human Performance Enhancement»

1. Introduction

Modernity is generally viewed as a movement to free human beings from all kinds of transcendence. More precisely, revelation and authority are radically questioned resulting in a kind of tacit agreement, widely accept-ed, that modernity fundamentally results from a process of «disenchant-ment», to follow Weber’s well-known expression. What is at stake is lib-eration from the primitive and traditional universe of «magical» ideas and practices. The positive counterpart of such a destructive process is the strong belief in the progressive rational mastery of the world (see Castoria-dis 1990). Key terms like reason and progress are indisputably used to define this widely accepted transformation. They are considered to be pow-erful protection against obscurantism, tradition, and religion. One of the major consequences of such a rationalization is that humans can no longer find an external principle (God or any other sacred entity) to legitimize their political organizations. In this context, in its fight against ignorance and illusion, knowledge tends to be assimilated in science. As such due to its power to measure everything, it must discover the «law of nature» and even the so-called «law of history» (see Crosby 1997). To know is thus fundamentally to calculate, which is viewed as the best way of avoiding any discussion. At least it is expected that the world can be organized for the benefit of the whole of mankind.

Today the centrality of knowledge is such that it defines what appears to be a new type of society (see Berthoud 2002 and Berthoud/ Kündig/ Sit-ter-Liver 2005). Although this is expressed by various terms, «knowledge-based society» is increasingly used to express this idea. This way of con-sidering modern times means that in being able to free itself from the confusion of «enchantment», humanity should have reached the highest degree of rationalization. Within a so-called disenchanted world, humanity is fully responsible for what it invents and produces. Societies should be considered as the very result of human actions. A well-established agree-ment between economic and political elite is that technoscience, as the «technicization» of human beings and society, is the main, if not the only, agency shaping the future of humankind in order to improve its condition. But this belief is not absolute. In the public debate, the potential qualities of science and technology are generally reduced to a dichotomous presen-tation opposing a number of quite heterogeneous terms such as optimism – pessimism, benefit – risk, hope – fear, and even dream – nightmare or paradise – hell.

But each of these pairs is not composed of equal notions. The positive terms are highly valued, whereas the negative ones are not seriously con-sidered by a large number of specialists. Or they may be used to criticize

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various positions amalgamated within the same ensemble labeled as «tech-nophobia». Therefore, there is no doubt that the orthodox view on science and technology is so dominant that it imposes its rule on practically any-one. What legitimizes technoscientific action is the emancipation of human beings from natural limits so that they can become independent subjects.

2. Aunifyingtechnoscience?

To avoid being trapped within superficial generalizations, some major doc-uments should provide convincing evidence of the irreducible utopian ele-ments of which the more advanced technosciences are composed. Three reports will be considered: First, a report of the National Science Founda-tion and the Department of Commerce (USA) entitled «Converging Tech-nologies for Improving Human Performance»1. This report, including the contributions of a large number of scientists, was followed by the publica-tion of 17 articles in the «Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences», with the general title «The Co-evolution of Human Potential and Converg-ing Technologies» (Roco/ Montemagno 2004). In response to these two documents, the European Commission Research appointed a High Level Expert Group to carry out the task defined as «Foresighting the New Tech-nology Wave». Among other reports, this group of 25 experts produced a report entitled «Converging Technologies: Shaping the Future of European Societies»2.

The American document is the result of a workshop with participants from academia, industry, and government. More than fifty contributions have been discussed on the present state of and the prospect of the combi-nation, and even the unification, of what are viewed as promising technolo-gies, that is, nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC)3.

The original contribution of the document produced by this workshop lies in the question of convergence. More clearly, to speak of «convergent technologies» means «the synergistic combination of four major ‹NBIC› (nano-bio-info-cogno) provinces of science and technology, each of which is currently progressing at a rapid rate: (a) nanoscience and nanotechnolo-gy; (b) biotechnology and biomedicine, including genetic engineering; (c) information technology, including advanced computing and communica-tions; (d) cognitive science, including cognitive neuroscience» (NBIC, p. 1).

This desirable horizon of a unifying technoscience is based on the pos-sibility of reaching the so-called basic building blocks of matter at a na-noscale. More precisely, atoms, genes, and neurons could constitute a new


infrastructure allowing «material unity» and «technological integration». One of the main effects of this unification is to ever increasingly merge organism and machine. The units of information technology (IT) must be added to these three building blocks, that is, bits – a contraction of binary and digit – as this is an elementary measure of information that can be treated, manipulated, and transmitted. As a common denominator of the four «nano-bio-info-cogno» domains, this polysemic notion gives rise to a worldwide culture of information. Everything can be reduced to various forms of information, that is, matter, living beings, knowledge, social links, etc. In spite of its protean aspect, information is not only presented and widely accepted as the key to explaining and understanding the world, but also to transforming it. What counts with such a vision is not materiality in general, or the human body as such, but code, organization, and order. The centrality of the informational building blocks can be seen in the fact that IT provides all other technosciences with enormous computing capacity able to reduce everything to information.

In the belief that the European report is a pure copy of the American re-port, only the latter has been considered so far. Surely there are some dif-ferences, although for both reports the future of humanity is uncondition-ally shaped by the limitless possibilities of technoscientific research and development. And above all, the notion of convergence is the keyword for technological innovation in the present order of world competition. There-fore, the general theme for the European expert group is «converging tech-nologies for the European knowledge society» (CTEKS)4. The aim is to make a contribution to implementing the «Lisbon strategy». This political decision was approved by the members of the European Union in 2000, and by 2010 it is to put Europe in the position of «the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion»5.

3. Autopiandimension?

«Converging technologies» confront mankind with the advanced and so-phisticated domains of technoscience. This process of rationalization seems to be the only way to improve the human condition. Surely in order to con-tinue living or to survive, humanity is subject to functional and instrumen-tal constraints. But it should be obvious that any human being cannot live without believing in something that is viewed as superior. There must be an ideal showing the way to a meaningful life. Thus all kinds of phenomena are provided with social meanings, a distinctive attribute linked to imagi-nation. This human ability is split into a conservative part and an innova-


tive one. Both are related to the question of temporality, which is a constituent of human experience, being based on the tripartition of past – present – future. To follow St Augustine (354–430), rigorously speaking the past does not exist any longer and future is not yet there. The past should be equated with memory, and future with expectation. Therefore, three modalities of the present exist: the present of the past, the present of the present, and the present of the future (Koselleck 1985, pp. 271–276 and Ricoeur 1991 [1983], pp. 24–35).

Utopia can be defined within this schematic conception of human tem-porality. It is a particular way of expressing expectations within the present time. But more precision is necessary in order to avoid the classical defini-tion of utopia as being pure illusion to escape from reality. In quite a more complex way, utopia is a polysemic term, and not simply an ideal place found nowhere. Firstly, utopia implies a radical change in the existing con-ditions of individual and collective life, whereas ideology contributes to the maintenance of the present situation (see Mannheim 1936 and Ricoeur 1986). Therefore, even if utopia may be equated with unrealistic expecta-tions, it must also be viewed as a critical assessment of the status quo and simultaneously as what should be possible. But if utopia is oriented toward the future, what is missing or not even considered is the transition between the present time and this ideal future. Narratives like Thomas More’s «Uto-pia» have already used the image of an island as a symbol to express a rupture, a mutation, or a radical discontinuity lacking any relationship be-tween past, present, and future. In other words, utopia is generally accepted as a way to (re)enchant the world with promises based on great optimism. But this ideal future foreseen by utopia is reversible. Instead of the possible good life, a totalitarian order could develop. Such is the lesson of negative utopia, dystopia, or counter-utopia, showing how a dream might be trans-formed into a nightmare. It suffices to mention three well-known novels: Zamyatin’s We, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four.

With the major development of technologies, utopia, with a social and political ideal, is largely replaced by what may be termed techno-utopias6. Within modernity, technology is not only instrumental, but is also highly valorized; it is a source of meaning. A growing number of scientists and engineers, who publicly express their positions on the development of their domains, have no hesitation in defending a utopian vision in order to con-vince people of the potential of their inventions. Several of them defend a point of view that explores or even goes beyond the limits of technoscien-tific imagination. Imagination is certainly a component in the way of think-ing and acting of scientists and engineers. Paradoxically, the enchanted modernity does not result so much in the nostalgic comeback of religious


beliefs as in the advancement of technosciences. Today the superficial im-pression is that we live in a present without memory. Similarly, there are apparently no explicit expectations. Nevertheless, how can a society with-out shared values legitimized within a cultural tradition, and without an effective vision of the future, orient its members to give a meaning to their existence and allow them to live together? With the exception of a post-modernist vision, it would be pure illusion to consider that every individu-al has complete control of his or her own life within an extreme pluralism of values. Against this potentially destructive disorder, and in the absence of a mobilizing horizon, forces are in action aiming to impose a meaningful order. Several scientists and engineers, participating in the material con-struction of an ever changing world, are not satisfied with a pragmatic justification of their technoscientific activities. They predict a favorable future for everyone everywhere as long as a radical transformation of soci-ety and more fundamentally of mankind is fully accepted.

The American (NBIC) and the European (CTEKS) reports are highly relevant to illustrating how utopian thought in these documents is an intrin-sic part of the most advanced domains defined as «converging technolo-gies». Such a synergetic combination of major scientific and technological fields is viewed as a «new renaissance» (NBIC, esp. pp. 1–4) with the po-tential to radically change everything and everybody. But, as would be expected, the term «utopia» is almost never present, except in a few cases with the pejorative meaning of «pure illusion». However, initial evidence of this utopian dimension is found in the various critiques expressed against the NBIC reports. These have been viewed as «mixing science and science fiction», as «a strategy of hope and hype»; they have also appeared as «a slippery slope to a Brave New World», as «visions of ‹transhumanist› and dystopian scenarios», or as a «new technofuturistic utopianism» (see Coenen et al. 2004 and Coenen 2005; also Coenen 2003). These sharp views are surely arguable. But they express the huge gap between the achievements of emerging technologies to date and promises quite remote from the present situation. But, before critically interpreting these NBIC and CTEKS reports, an understanding of them is required through an ex-ploration of their implicit vision of human beings, society, and nature.

4. Anengineeringmodeofthinking

This vision may be described as an «engineering paradigm». Nothing could and should escape from the expertise of scientists and engineers. With this demiurgic attitude, the control of external nature is increasingly extended to humans themselves. Following on from converging technologies, ex-


pansion of the engineering perspective seems to be illimitable. To some extent, machines are the measure with which to evaluate human achieve-ment. This is particularly obvious with so-called «intelligent machines». Comparatively, mankind is very limited. Humans themselves are therefore a problem and machines are the solution. The dream would be to build a world functioning like a machine, free from specific human characteristics such as particular cultures, or the symbolic dimension of social links, all replaced by technical mediations. There is no doubt that a great many sci-entists and engineers concerned with converging technologies do not have an optimistic impression of «human nature». For them, it is a good thing to transform humanity as it is worse than is generally believed, but also to replace it with more efficient machines when judged necessary. Every-thing, including body, mind, cognition, emotion, and social communica-tion can be engineered. Everybody can be repaired, modified, improved, and lastly augmented. This «technologization» of human life is seen as the only way of adapting to an evolutionary process of growing complexity increasingly less humanly controllable.

To think in terms of «engineering» is the best way to disenchant the world. But this commonplace view is valid only for technical devices fully accepted by the majority of people. However, utopian promises are present with new technologies. Such was the case in the 19th century with the new means of communication (railway and telegraph), and in the middle of the 20th century with the development of information technology. Today the same phenomenon is experienced with converging technologies. Although the means are different, expectations remain the same. They continue to refer to similar ideals. The American documents fully confirm the power of this utopian horizon constituent of modern science and technology. Four quotations provide sufficient evidence:

1. «The twenty-first century could end in world peace, universal pros-perity, and evolution to a higher level of compassion and accomplishment. It is hard to find the right metaphor to see a century into the future, but it may be that humanity would become like a single, distributed and intercon-nected ‹brain› based in new core pathways of society.» (NBIC, p. 6)

2. «Nanoscale science and engineering must be designed to lead to bet-ter understanding of nature, improved wealth, health, sustainability, and peace. This strategy has strong roots, and, it is hoped, may bring people and countries together.» (NBIC, p. 80)

3. «In the long run, the development of intelligent machines could lead to a golden age of prosperity, not only in the industrialized nations, but throughout the world.» (NBIC, p. 257)

4. «Understanding of the mind and brain will enable the creation of a new species of intelligent machine systems that can generate economic


wealth on a scale hitherto unimaginable. Within a half-century, intelligent machines might create the wealth needed to provide food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, a clean environment, and physical and financial security for the entire world population.» (NBIC, p. 259)7

As for the European documents, the expectation of a golden age or a «promised land» is not so explicit. There is a tendency to try to balance risks and advantages. But positive views prevail over negative consider-ations. Therefore, the utopian component is far from being absent, although not so easy to abstract. Generally speaking, what is expected is a «Euro-pean knowledge society», with a strong emphasis on «engineering for the mind and for the body […] or medical self-monitoring» (CTEKS, p. 3). For example, information technology combined with other technologies will form «an artificial environment» with «the promise for greater and more equal access to knowledge and information, new therapeutic interventions, improved environmental monitoring, greater safety and security, expanded communicative capacities» (CTEKS, p. 7).

In spite of obvious differences between American and European experts, both groups make engineering projects the most important.8 They struggle to attain the highest possible level of control over nature and humanity. On this condition only, the whole of humanity could reach the promised hori-zon. Within such an instrumental approach, the achievement of an age of harmony, prosperity, and happiness should be based on adaptability, im-posed by the dynamics of converging technologies. The improvement of mankind no longer seems to be founded on education, but on technological solutions. More than ever, the future of humanity is fully conditioned by the limitless possibilities of the unified technosciences.

As far as these possibilities concern human beings, the challenge re-volves around the question of the «enhancement of human performance», or the «augmentation» of physical, mental, and social abilities in one way or another. On the basis of NBIC and CTEKS documents, the prediction of human improvement can be roughly classified into two steps. Considered in an abstract way, these steps could be singled out as successive stages of the same evolutionary movement. In fact, they have been imagined, dis-cussed, and presented simultaneously by various scientists and engineers for several decades. Their common aim is to produce a «new human be-ing», or even a «posthuman». Converging technologies are at least par-tially a project of a directed self-improvement, not through educational efforts, but by external and internal applications derived from the most advanced technological inventions.9

According to the CTEKS report, the first step would be to build a Euro-pean society as an «artificial environment» to support humans. Several terms are used to express this goal: «pervasive computing», «ubiquitous


computing», «smart space», «networked computing», «invisible comput-ing», and yet again «ambient intelligence».10 One of the main reasons to go in this direction is the fact that humans are viewed as being unable to take suitable decisions. To overcome such limits, so-called intelligent «artificial agents» such as genuine assistants with a «global conscience» are devel-oped.11 On the American side we are also told that mankind has trouble initiating and maintaining relationships with others. Again, a technical so-lution will be available, taking the form of The Communicator. It is suc-cinctly presented as «a mobile system designed to enhance group commu-nication and overcome barriers that currently prevent people from co-operating effectively» (NBIC, p. 244).

The improvement of physical, mental, and social abilities assumes the integral computerization of society equating to a system of connections between humans and non-human agents, such as PDAs (personal digital assistant). Human beings, robots, and things will be linked within a global network through omnipresent and invisible devices. Obviously, naturally imperfect human beings should be enhanced by technological means in order to be ever more efficient. The utopian horizon of this generalized optimization is to connect the whole of humanity within a unified system in order to shape a global networked society, assimilated in «an intercon-nected virtual brainof the Earth’s communities searching for intellectual comprehension and conquest of nature» (NBIC, p. 80).

The next logical step, already fully discussed by many scientists and engineers, is to increase human efficiency by using genetic engineering, new medicines, and implantable electronic devices. The possible being re-sulting from these processes is more and more popularly known as a cy-borg. This hybridized figure is a matter for imagination, prediction, and anticipation. For some, it is pure speculation; for others it is certainly the living being of the future. With such a Promethean perspective, the ten-dency is to somehow reduce humankind to raw material which scientists and engineers can enhance. This possible transformation is called «aug-mentation». This term «refers to the enhancement of human performance to superhuman levels. Anyone who is a candidate for therapeutic human performance enhancement will want augmentation as well.» (Canton 2004, p. 195) Therefore, what is needed to reach such an objective is «prostheses for human cognitive vulnerabilities», such as «selective and defective» memories, an ability to decide based on «simplistic models», or emotions that «cloud our judgements» (Horn 2004, p. 216).

With the idea of human augmentation, the usual distinction between what is a therapeutic action and a process aiming at improving human abil-ities is becoming ever more blurred. Or considered through time, the limit is moving. Today’s improvement will be tomorrow’s therapeutic treatment.


Surely within engineering thought processes this movement is unquestion-able. The challenge is no longer a problem of boundary considering the level of technoscientific development, but of finding a balance between human and machine. For the most visionary scientists and engineers, the task is to produce «appropriate silicon as the intelligence medium to aug-ment our wetware (brain) […]. Further Darwinian evolution could then lead to a creeping carbon-silicon mix.» (Cochrane 1997, p. 7)

However, so far there are two engineered ways to transcend the limita-tions of human beings, although this dichotomy is more formal than effec-tive. On the one hand there are reproductive technologies, like genetic en-gineering, stem-cell research, cloning, and on the other the development of prostheses, and artificial organs. They are all related to the improvement of the human body. Representatives of other technologies, focused on the mind, tend to argue for the fantastic vision of the ultimate disappearance of the human body, or at least for the similarity between this one and any electronic support. What is at stake with these two apparently disjointed but simultaneously opposed and complementary domains is the traditional philosophical problem of the paired concepts mind – body.

5. ConvergingTechnologiesinananthropologicallight

How can the utopian component of the American and European initiatives of converging technologies be read? What kind of interpretation can be made according to the conceptual and theoretical requirements of social sciences with their focus on the human condition?

First of all, what is to be questioned is the exclusive attention on perfor-mance. To reduce the complexity of the human being to a single dimension is at best a partial representation focussing on function and utility. With this insistence on instrumentality, humans and machines are increasingly re-garded as competitors. With this functional analogy, comparison of their respective performances becomes normal procedure. The way is therefore open for human beings to be treated as an instrument or a resource. Within this simplistic vision, everybody is forced to adapt themselves so that they are ever more efficient. But viewed in this way, humans are obviously marked by a defective nature. Consequently, converging technologies are imagined, conceived, and developed to surpass such human limitation. However, although driven by a spirit of technoscientific conquest, such technologies can also be seen quite differently. For instance, a sharp polar-ization is developing with regard to nanotechnology, and more particularly to «molecular manufacturing».12 «Those who consider this radical view of nanotechnology to be feasible are divided as to whether it will lead to a


positive or negative outcome for society. This debate takes it for granted that nanotechnology will have a revolutionary effect on society, and the contrasting visions are correspondingly utopian or dystopian.»13

If a more humane attitude were adopted, the promise of converging tech-nologies could be reversed. A dismal future could take the well-known form of totalitarianism. A fully connected society could be composed of humans who might be reactive agents totally dependent on technology (see Kündig 2005). The obvious risk is to lose the ability to take individual and collective decisions, and therefore be replaced by machines or a hybrid «techno-elite».

This movement of deprivation is clearly attested to in various reports, but viewed positively it is liberating. For example, «Socio-tech – the ac-cumulation, manipulation, and integration of data from the life, social, and behavioral sciences using approaches and tools provided by science and technology – will raise our ability to predict behaviors. It will allow us to interdict undesirable behaviors before they cause significant harm to others and to support and encourage behaviors leading to greater social goods.» (NBIC, p. 142) When values on which utopia is based, such as order, har-mony, or security, are carried to their ultimate limits, the idea of the «good life» is transmuted into the worst aspects of a generalized control.

The most extreme form of threat of a dystopian horizon is not really present in both the NBIC and CTEKS reports. But, for a small number of scientists and engineers – although very influential – the end of the human species is inevitable. A more intelligent artificial species would replace humans as in the total robotization suggested by the engineer H. de Garis with his «artilects», or «artificial intellect»,14 and in the self-organizing machine by Truong (2001) named «Successor». Genetic engineering could be considered to be another way of eliminating the present humanity (De-bré 2000). To paraphrase a critique, humans have no future in all these cases (Joy 2000). Humans are thus intentionally rejected as being one step in the evolution on a technological basis of ever-increasing intelligence. Such a technoscientific approach can no longer be equated with the modern ideal of a rational mastery of the world. On the contrary, it is legitimate to wonder if some visionary scientists and engineers are not playing the dan-gerous game of the sorcerer’s apprentice.15 The responsible researchers of the most advanced projects no longer seem capable of controlling what they are really achieving.

It is not particularly certain that the initiatives of «converging technolo-gies» are not concerned with this imaginable future. Too often significant threats can outweigh conjectured promises. The proclaimed goal of techno-scientific research and development is to improve living conditions. How-ever the demiurgic vision to produce a physically, mentally, and socially


engineered human being is, to say the least, a very hazardous program. This situation is made more acute with the idea of a convergence of do-mains each considered to be a «technology-enabling scientific knowl-edge».16 The result aimed at is a «unifying science» where knowledge is regarded as expertise. In particular, in terms of technological expertise it is imagined that humans are objects to be transformed so that they can adapt themselves to an ever changing environment.

Within such a cultural context, with their engineering attitude, experts seem to distance themselves from the scientific imagination. Paradoxically, these same experts provide sketchy accounts of a future without any rela-tionship with the present. This radical discontinuity is typical of utopia as a general notion. There are positive and negative utopias. These two forms are not necessarily separated, one describing a possible nightmarish future, and the other a dreamlike one. A negative utopia or a counter-utopia can also be a critical assessment of a positive utopia, showing the totalitarian dimension behind the apparent attractiveness. These contrasting views, im-plying a change of meaning with the same contents, depend on how the human condition is considered. With the initiatives of «converging tech-nologies», the positive utopian expectation is transmutable into counter-utopian or dystopian views, at least for those who still believe in the urgent necessity to humanize the present world.

Notes

1 http://www.technology.gov/reports.htm (USA, June 2002, 424 pages; consultation 02.08. 2006).

2 http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/research/conferences/2004/ntw/index_en.html (2004, 64 pages for the main report, plus 4 specific reports, and six other documents; consultation 12.06. 2006).

3 The acronym NBIC will be used for any quotation drawn from this report. 4 The acronym CTEKS will be used for this European report. 5 Lisbon European Council 23 and 24 March 2000: Presidency Conclusions, http://www.

europarl.europa.eu/summits/lis1_en.htm; consultation 05.08. 2006. 6 Although the first techno-utopias appear in the 19th century with the new means of com-

munication (railway, telegraph), Francis Bacon, with his utopian narrative «New Atlantis» (1627), can be considered to be a relevant major ancestor.

7 The futuristic views presented in the NBIC documents have already been developed by several scientists and engineers in the 1990s (see, e. g., Dyson 1998, Paul/ Cox 1996, Hayles 1999, Kurzweil 1999, Moravec 1999).

8 A meaningful difference between the American and European reports relates to the ques-tion of artificial implants to increase physical, mental, and social abilities. In the futuristic vision of the NBIC document, the goal is «engineering of the mind», whereas for the Eu-ropean experts, it is a question of «engineering for the mind», in order to preserve human identity. However, this humanistic approach should be contrasted with the domain of re-search «Human augmentation» included in the general theme «Future and emerging tech-nologies» of the Sixth Framework Programme of the European Union.


9 Wiener was already convinced half a century ago that «we have modified our environment so radically that we must now modify ourselves in order to exist in this new environment» (Wiener 1954, p. 46).

10 See the «Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development» (FP 6, European Union, 2002–2006), and more particularly the domain «Information So-ciety Technologies» (IST). Thus, «[t]he concept of Ambient Intelligence is used where intelligence is pervasive and unobtrusive in the surrounding environment […] This space needs to be engineered so it has predictable behaviours, so that services can be offered through it, and so it can manage complicated many-to-many relationships.» («Report of the IST Advisory Group concerning Strategic Orientations and Priorities for IST in FP 6», 2002, pp. 16–17)

11 See note 2, specific report «Converging Technologies and the Natural, Social and Cultural World», p. 52. Also, in the same report, p. 71: «Humans by nature are agents which think, act and judge in a locally oriented way. From a global perspective this local orientation turns out to accumulate in disadvantageous, sometimes even desastrous effects. The col-lective damage to the environment, the collective behavior in certain traffic situations causing unnecessary congestion and accidents, collective political misbehavior of the masses like in German national socialism of the Hitler time, and the mutual misunder-standing among people are some of an unlimited number of examples familiar to every-one. System-based assistants could compensate this local human nature with globally oriented advice based on global aspects of the respective situation.»

12 See «Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology», National Science Foun-dation 2001, p. 79.

13 See note 2, document on «State of the Art Reviews and Related Papers», p. 154.14 See http://www.iss.whu.edu.cn/degaris/.15 Such was already Wiener’s fear about the atomic bomb (Wiener 1965, pp. 104–105). This

image of sorcery is also used by Dupuy 2004, p. 416.16 The number of domains included in the process of convergence may vary. For the CTEKS

report, the greatest number of disciplines is considered. But, to be really included in this process, social sciences should be «hardened» (see specific report «Converging Technolo-gies and the Natural, Social and Cultural World», p. 3 and p. 69).

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Reports:

Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, 2002, http://www.technology.gov/reports.htm [= NBIC]

Converging Technologies – Shaping the Future of European Societies, 2004, http://ec.europa.eu/research/conferences/2004/ntw/index_en.html [= CTEKS]

Converging Technologies and the Natural, Social and Cultural World, specific CTEKS report, 2004, http://ec.europa.eu/research/conferences/2004/ntw/index_en.html

Report of the IST Advisory Group concerning Strategic Orientations and Priorities for IST in FP 6, 2002, ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/ist/docs/ka4/mob_ strategic_orientations_fp6_wg60.pdf

Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, National Science Foundation Report, 2001, http://www.wtec.org/loyola/nano/NSET.Societal.Implications/

State of the Art Reviews and Related Papers, specific CTEKS document, 2004, http://ec.europa.eu/research/conferences/2004/ntw/index_en.html

SAGW.berthoud.utopia

Documents

sixth framework programme

berthoud kndig sitter

ist advisory group

human performance enhancement

positive utopian expectation

european knowledge society

human performance

widely accepted