| Washington
D.C. - November 17, 2008
Can we be Pro-Tech and Pro-Human?
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Dr. Nigel Cameron, President of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies, Research
Professor and former Associate Dean at Chicago-Kent College of Law in the
Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), lead the group in a discussion
centered upon:
“Can we be Pro-Tech
and Pro-Human?”
The revolution in communications
technologies has revealed its double-sided character:
- emails, texts
and IMs help us to communicate far more than we used to;
- yet these
various advances can challenge our very humanity.
- We email
colleagues instead of walking down the corridor;
- our teens text
and sit at screens when they could be face-to-face with their
families and friends;
- and corporations are instituting
email-free periods so their staff can focus better.
These are all
technologies that we already take for granted,
and certainly make us more efficient. Now the question becomes:
What comes next?
Transhumanists say we could soon
be living for ever on hard drives.
Luddite critics want to
call a halt. Is there a middle way that would allow us to welcome
technology? —to "humanize" it—and to enable inventors
and investors to shape a future that welcomes us humans?
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