Abstract
Many technologies, particularly in the life sciences, are subject to governance regulation. Discussion of such governance tends to focus on limits on research and experimental uses and then on a decision whether, and how, to allow wide use. Two other important aspects of technology governance, one earlier and one later, have been discussed less: anticipation of technologies with important effects and the monitoring of the actual effects of adopted technologies. This article will analyzes those points of the governance process and proposes a plan to improve their functioning. The article argues first that the world would benefit from a more visible and influential approach to spotting and analyzing emerging technologies through a high profile “Horizon Scanning Group.” It then proposes a more formal approach to monitoring and assessing new developments through “Technology Audit Groups.” The article’s third section discusses complicated organizational issues surrounding these proposed groups and proposes some specific approaches.
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Notes
The discussion in this section is taken largely from CRISPR People (Greely, 2021).
Interestingly, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, which is often viewed as the originator of this story, did not actually involve any gene editing. Written twenty years before the structure of DNA was discovered, the book does manipulate the abilities of people from a very early stage but through selecting the genetic parents of particular babies, giving the fetuses different treatment in their artificial wombs (“bottles”), and providing them with vastly different training after birth (Huxley, 1932).
One might also approach human germline editing by editing the eggs and the sperm of a living person and using those modified germ cells to make a new embryo. This is technically more difficult than editing an embryo and has received little attention so far.
The WHO group also issued a report called Current Capabilities for Human Genome Editing in May 2021 and, in February 2021, a report on the possibility of establishing a “whistleblowing” mechanism to report unethical science (Perrin, 2021).
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge, and thank, his excellent research assistant, Cassidy Amber Pomeroy-Carter; two anonymous reviewers; the editors of the journal; and all of the participants in the Workshop on Global Governance of Emerging Technologies, hosted by Fudan University of June 23/24, 2022, especially Professor Li Tang for her role as discussant of this paper.
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Greely, H.T. Governing emerging technologies—looking forward with horizon scanning and looking back with technology audits. GPPG 2, 266–282 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43508-022-00045-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43508-022-00045-y