Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T11:35:13.071Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

More Human than Human

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2017

DAVID LAWRENCE
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Within the literature surrounding nonhuman animals on the one hand and cognitively disabled humans on the other, there is much discussion of where beings that do not satisfy the criteria for personhood fit in our moral deliberations. In the future, we may face a different but related problem: that we might create (or cause the creation of) beings that not only satisfy but exceed these criteria. The question becomes whether these are minimal criteria, or hierarchical, such that those who fulfill them to greater degree should be afforded greater consideration. This article questions the validity and necessity of drawing divisions among beings that satisfy the minimum requirements for personhood; considering how future beings—intelligent androids, synthezoids, even alternate-substrate sentiences—might fit alongside the “baseline” human. I ask whether these alternate beings ought to be considered different to us, and why this may or may not matter in terms of a notion of “human community.” The film Blade Runner, concerned in large part with humanity and its key synthezoid antagonist Roy Batty, forms a framing touchstone for my discussion. Batty is stronger, faster, more resilient, and more intelligent than Homo sapiens. His exploits, far beyond the capability of normal humans, are contrasted with his frailty and transient lifespan, his aesthetic appreciation of the sights he has seen, and his burgeoning empathy. Not for nothing does his creator within the mythos term him “more human than human.”

Keywords

humanityartificial intelligencepersonhoodnovel beingsposthumanenhancement
Type
Departments and Columns
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 476 - 490
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Neuroethics Now welcomes papers addressing the ethical application of neuroscience in research and patient care, as well as its impact on society.

References

Notes

1. Hauer R, Scott R, Fancher H, People D. Blade Runner (Screenplay) 1981. The actual lines spoken in the film, as quoted here, were improvised by Rutger Hauer in place of a longer passage.

2. See note 1, Hauer et al. 1981.

3. Such as: Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God. Vatican.va. 2002; available at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html (last accessed 17 Jul 2016).

4. McKibben, B. Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. New York: Times Books; 2003.Google Scholar

5. Eliezer, Y. Artificial intelligence as a positive and negative factor in global risk In: Bostrom, N, Ćirković, M, eds. Global Catastrophic Risks. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2008, at 303.Google Scholar

6. Lawrence DR. The edge of human? The problem with the posthuman as the ‘beyond.’ Bioethics 2016. DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12318

7. See note 6, Lawrence 2016.

8. Lawrence DR. To what extent is the use of human enhancements defended in international human rights legislation? Medical Law International 2013;13(4):254–278.

9. At least, not in the modern age, or so one would hope.

10. Agar, N. Humanity’s End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2010, at 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Prucher J. Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press; 2007, at 6–7.

12. I am not aware of this term having been used previously; however, I feel it is a phrase that requires coining should one wish to conduct serious discussion of the potential impact of such a being.

13. Kass L. The wisdom of repugnance. New Republic 1997;216(22):17–26.

14. Cellan–Jones R. Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind. BBC News December 2, 2014; available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30290540 (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).; Rodgers P. Elon Musk warns of terminator tech. Forbes August 5, 2014; available at http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrodgers/2014/08/05/elon-musk-warns-ais-could-exterminate-humanity/ (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

15. Müller VC, Bostrom N. Future progress in artificial intelligence: A survey of expert opinion. In: Müller VC, ed. Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence. Cham: Springer; 2016:553–71.

16. syntouchllc.com SynTouch - BioTac, 2016; Available at http://www.syntouchllc.com/Products/BioTac/. (Last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

17. World.honda.com. ASIMO – The Honda Worldwide ASIMO Site, 2016; available at http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/ (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

18. Boston Dynamics, Raibert M, Blankespoor K, Nelson G, Playter R. BigDog, the Rough-Terrain Quaduped Robot, 2008; available at: http://www.bostondynamics.com/img/BigDog_IFAC_Apr-8-2008.pdf (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

19. Popular Science, A Ping-Pong-Playing Terminator, 2010; available at http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/ping-pong-playing-terminator (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

20. New Scientist, Humanoid robot gets job as receptionist, 2005; available at https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8456-humanoid-robot-gets-job-as-receptionist/ (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

21. ASIMO by Honda | The World’s Most Advanced Humanoid Robot. Asimo.honda.com, 2016; available at http://asimo.honda.com/news/honda-develops-intelligence-technologies-enabling-multiple-asimo-robots-to-work-together-in-coordination/newsarticle_0073/ (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

22. Why robots are coming for US service jobs - FT.com. Financial Times, 2016; available at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cb4c93c4-0566-11e6-a70d-4e39ac32c284.html#axzz4DNsK7QYF (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

23. Meltzer T. Robot doctors, online lawyers and automated architects: The future of the professions? The Guardian, 2014; available at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/15/robot-doctors-online-lawyers-automated-architects-future-professions-jobs-technology (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

24. Russell J, Norvig P. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall; 2003, at 537–81, 863–98.

25. Langley P. The changing science of machine learning. Machine Learning 2011;82(3):275–9.

26. Cambria E, White B. Jumping NLP curves: A review of natural language processing research. IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine 2014;9(2):48–57.

27. See note 24 Russell, Norvig 2003, at 375–459.

28. See note 24, Russell, Norvig 2003, at 320–63.

29. Cycorp: Home of Smarter Solutions | Knowledge modeling and machine reasoning environment capable of addressing the most challenging problems in industry, government, and academia. Cyc.com, 2016, available at http://www.cyc.com/ (last accessed 14 Jul 2016). 11. The word: Common sense. New Scientist, 2006; available at https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025471.700-the-word-common-sense/ (last accessed 14 Jul 2016). I thank John Harris for informing me of this fascinating endeavor.

30. Hernandez D. The Man Behind the Google Brain: Andrew Ng and the Quest for the New AI. WIRED, 2013, available at http://www.wired.com/2013/05/neuro-artificial-intelligence/ (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

31. UK Wired. Google’s Artificial Brain Learns to Find Cat Videos. WIRED, 2012; available at http://www.wired.com/2012/06/google-x-neural-network (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

32. Markram H, Muller E, Ramaswamy S, Reimann MW, Abdellah M, Sanchez CA, et al. Reconstruction and simulation of neocortical microcircuitry. Cell 2015;163(2):456–92.

33. Hutchison C, Chuang R, Noskov V, Assad-Garcia N, Deerinck T, Ellisman M, et al. Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome. Science 2016;351:6280.

34. Benner SA, Sismour AM. Synthetic biology. Nature Reviews Genetics, 2005;6(7):533–43.

35. Osbourn AE, O’Maille PE, Rosser SJ, Lindsey K. Synthetic biology. New Phytologist 2012;96:671–7.

36. Boeke JD, Church G, Hessel A, Kelley NJ, Arkin A, Cai Y, et al. The Genome Project–Write. Science 2016;353:126–7.

37. Radford T, Davis N. Scientists launch proposal to create synthetic human genome. The Guardian, June 2, 2016; available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jun/02/scientists-launch-proposal-to-create-synthetic-human-genome-dna (last accessed 17 Jul 2016).

38. Liang P, Xu Y, Zhang X, Ding C, Huang R, Zhang Z, et al. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing in human tripronuclear zygotes. Protein & Cell 2015;6:363–72.

39. Cressey D, Abbott A, Ledford H. UK scientists apply for licence to edit genes in human embryos. Nature September 18, 2015; available at http://www.nature.com/news/uk-scientists-apply-for-licence-to-edit-genes-in-human-embryos-1.18394 (last accessed 17 Jul 2016).

40. Credit is due here to a sadly anonymous marketing writer. One poster tagline for the film Blade Runner read: “Man has made his match… now it’s his problem,” which sums up conservative fears rather pithily.

41. Taylor C. The Concept of a Person. Philosophical Papers, Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1985, at 97.

42. Although I acknowledge that many fears are indeed articulated related to, for example, privacy; these are born of a different set of issues entirely.

43. Bonnefon JF, Shariff A, Rahwan I. The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles. Science 2016;352(6293):1573–6.

44. Wilson G, Shpall S. Action. Plato.stanford.edu, 2002; available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/action/ (last accessed 17 Jul 2016).

45. McAdams DP, McLean KC. Narrative identity. Current Directions in Psychological Science 2013;22(3):233–8.

46. For a thorough overview of a number of these aspects as they relate to medicine, see Brazier M, Cave E. Medicine, Patients, and the Law. 6th ed. London: Penguin Books; 2016. I thank Margot Brazier particularly for her kind advice on the following segments.

47. United Nations General Assembly, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), December 10, 1948, 217 A (III).

48. Without ignoring the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, which although brought into existence through disagreements with the UDHR, was made in the same spirit.

49. See note 47, UDHR 1948, Preamble. Emphasis added.

50. United Nations General Assembly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), December 16, 1966, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 999.

51. Council of Europe, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as amended by Protocols Nos. 11 and 14, November 4, 1950.

52. I give special thanks to Margot Brazier for providing and explaining this valuable thought in conversation.

53. Witting, C, ed. Street on Torts.14th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2015, at 7.Google Scholar

54. See note 53, Witting 2015, at 5–10. For a modern example of the right to bodily integrity as protected by trespass to the person, see Re T (adult: refusal of treatment) [1992] 4 All ER 649 CA

55. Coke CJ. Coke’s Institutes 1628 Pt III, Ch 7: 47.

56. Although an excellent and fascinating one is to be found in a draft (at the time of writing) paper: Brazier M. What or Who is Human: A Conundrum for the Law. Forthcoming.

57. See note 50, ICCPR 1966, Article 14.

58. See note 47, UDHR 1948, Article 2.

59. See note 6, Lawrence 2016

60. Deutscher Bundestag. Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1949 Art. 20a; available at http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/BJNR000010949.html (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

61. Taylor R. A step at a time: New Zealand’s progress toward hominid rights. Animal Law 2001;7:35–41.

62. Singer, P, Cavalieri, P, eds. The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity. London: Fourth Estate; 1993.Google Scholar

63. Emiliano Giménez S. Orangutan granted controlled freedom by Argentine court. CNN, 2016; available at http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/23/world/americas/feat-orangutan-rights-ruling/ (last accessed 17 Jul 2016).

64. State of New York Supreme Court, December 4, 2014 518336 THE NONHUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT, INC., on Behalf of TOMMY, v PATRICK C. LAVERY; available at http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/ad3/Decisions/2014/518336.pdf (last accessed 14 Jul 2016).

65. MATTER OF NONHUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT, INC. v. Stanley, 2015 N.Y. Slip Op 31419 (Sup. Ct. 2015); available at http://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/other-courts/2015/2015-ny-slip-op-25257.html (last accessed 17 Jul 2016).

66. McKinley J. Judge Orders Stony Brook University to Defend Its Custody of 2 Chimps. Nytimes.com, 2015; available at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/nyregion/judge-orders-hearing-for-2-chimps-said-to-be-unlawfully-detained.html (last accessed 17 Jul 2016).

67. India Bans Captive Dolphin Shows as ‘Morally Unacceptable.’ Ens-newswire.com, 2016; available at http://ens-newswire.com/2013/05/20/india-bans-captive-dolphin-shows-as-morally-unacceptable/ (last accessed 17 Jul 2016); Dvorsky G. No, India did not just grant dolphins the status of humans. Io9.gizmodo.com, 2013; available at http://io9.gizmodo.com/no-india-did-not-just-grant-dolphins-the-status-of-hum-1149482273 (last accessed 17 Jul 2016).

68. So as to differentiate from the historic treatment of women, slaves, and other races as nonpersons, which may have had some philosophical argument but which is patently false.

69. Goodman MF. What is a Person? Clifton, NJ: Springer Science & Business Media; 1988

70. Agar, N. Truly Human Enhancement: A Philosophical Defense of Limits. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2013, at 162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71. See note 1, Hauer et al., 1981. From the title sequence’s in-mythos “‘New American Dictionary,’ Copyright 2016,” a forecast that makes me somewhat wistful given the time of writing.

72. One of Roy’s companions, Pris, is described as “a basic pleasure model,” a designation that tells its own story.

73. See note 1, Hauer et al. 1981.

74. See note 1, Hauer et al. 1981.

75. Android | Definition, meaning & more | Collins Dictionary. Collinsdictionary.com, 2016; available at http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/android (last accessed 17 Jul 2016).

76. See note 11, Prucher 2007, at 6–7.

77. See note 1, Hauer et al. 1981.

78. For a thorough and thoughtful analysis, see note 70, Agar 2013, at 161.

79. Searle, J. The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1992, at 44.Google Scholar

80. Searle uses this term to refer to the type of conscious mind I am discussing here.

81. Or to give it its true, spectacular title: Alder M. Newton’s flaming laser sword. Philosophy Now 2004;46:29–32.

82. As a term of art.

83. See note 13, Kass 1997.

84. Bremner C. Even robots have human rights, say legal experts. Thetimes.co.uk. June 4, 2016; available at: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5fe3d4d6-29be-11e6-832e-ae3a7e82d7c7 (last accessed 17 Jul 2016).