>H The puzzling future of intelligence

[Andrew Hennessey <pegasus@easynet.co.uk>]

Transhuman Mailing List

From: "Dan S" <ds1999@subdimension.com>

From The Boston Globe,
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/266/oped/The_puzzling_future_of_intelligen
ce+.shtml
-
The puzzling future of intelligence

By Maxwell J. Mehlman, 09/23/99

Moral and political philosophers play a game in which they ask their
students to imagine there is a pill that can make people very smart. The
problem is that the pill is very expensive. Should only the rich get to buy
it?


With the announcement that scientists have genetically manipulated mice to
make them more intelligent, this game has taken a big step toward reality.


When the announcement was made, researchers were quick to point out the many
beneficial aspects of their achievement. For example, if it can be
reproduced in humans, it may alleviate symptoms of disorders that impair
mental functions. It could even eliminate the deficits caused by some forms
of mental retardation.


However, some commentators have called attention to the dark side: The
technology could be used by people with normal intelligence to give them a
decisive advantage in competitions such as admission to Ivy League colleges,
the award of government research grants, or even everyday business
transactions. Worse, the cost of genetically enhanced intelligence would
likely to place it beyond the reach of all but the wealthy.


Like the philosophers challenging their students, society must ask itself
how it should respond. Two extremes can be dismissed out of hand.


We cannot afford to do nothing: that is, allow the market for genetically
enhanced intelligence to operate without restraint. The result would be too
destructive to the fragile belief in equality of opportunity. If
substantially greater intelligence were coupled with already existing wealth
in the same individuals and families, those who were neither wealthy nor
especially intelligent might retain little hope that they or their children
could ever attain positions of power or prestige.


The other extreme - to ban genetically enhanced intelligence - is
unrealistic. As a practical matter, regulators will not be able to permit
therapeutic use while prohibiting enhancement use. But neither Congress nor
the FDA would want to withhold therapeutic benefits from people with serious
mental deficits. And if the technology were banned entirely, its
desirability would spawn a sophisticated black market.


In any event, even if we could effectively ban genetically enhanced
intelligence, we would not want to do so. We are not likely to want to forgo
the social benefit that people with genetically enhanced intelligence could
provide.


Instead of trying to prevent anyone from becoming genetically enhanced, a
better solution might be to find ways to channel the behavior of enhanced
individuals in socially useful directions. An appropriate analogy is
professional licensing, which allows certain individuals unique privileges
so long as they act within socially approved boundaries. We could require
people who desire to purchase genetically enhanced intelligence to obtain a
license, as we now do with physicians and lawyers and other professionals.


In addition, we might condition their possession of the license on
performing certain such socially desirable functions as medical research or
public service and on not taking advantage of their nonenhanced patients or
clients. Failure to fulfill the terms of the license would lead to
sanctions, including forfeiting the right to purchase enhancement substances
or reversing the effects of other forms of genetic interventions.


In addition to a licensing scheme, we would need a way to ensure that
everyone, not just the wealthy, had an opportunity to obtain genetically
enhanced intelligence. Subsidizing the technology for everyone would be too
expensive. The alternative might be to provide everyone with an opportunity
to obtain it. This could take the form of a national lottery in which
everyone would automatically be entered to win whatever package of
enhancement technologies was currently available on the open market. In
order to take home the enhancements, the winner also would have to take home
a license.


A successful licensing program, as well as any other regulatory effort to
cope with the social challenges of genetically enhanced traits, would depend
on one key technical capability: detecting when someone is genetically
enhanced. The lack of assured detection methods plagues current efforts to
regulate performance-enhancing drugs in sports and will create similar
problems in regulating enhancements in other settings.


This kind of future society is bound to strike many as shocking. Will we
accept the invasion of our privacy represented by widespread
genetic-enhancement testing? Could we ever establish a national enhancement
lottery? Will we undertake the effort to create and enforce a novel
enhancement licensing program?


The enhancement of mouse intelligence makes it obvious that we will have to
begin to confront these kind of questions. The answers will determine what
kind of society we will become.


Maxwell J. Mehlman is c o-author of ''Access to the Genome: The Challenge to
Equality.''


This story ran on page A23 of the Boston Globe on 09/23/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.

--
Dan S


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