Experts seek public input on nanotechnology
David Guston believes that ordinary citizens should have a more significant voice in the development of new technologies. "And we believe that largely because the public at large are the ones who are going to be impacted," said Guston.
JB: This is Earth & Sky on nanotechnology and new ethical, legal and practical questions.
DB: For example, scientists might someday be able to introduce nanomachines – tiny devices too small for the human eye to see – into human organs or cells. Meanwhile, these devices could hunt down and destroy cancer cells. But similar devices might be used to enhance a person’s physical or mental abilities. Ultimately, might nanotechnology change what it means to be human?
David Guston: So there are questions about whether those kinds of integrations of humans and machines at the nanoscale are worth pursuing and if so, to what ends and with what kind of restrictions.
JB: That’s David Guston, Director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University. He’s planning to conduct a series of citizens’ forums across the U.S. in 2008. Groups of about a dozen private citizens each will study specific issues, ask the experts questions, deliberate, and develop reports. Guston hopes the reports will help frame the way policy–makers and scientists think about nanotechnology.
David Guston: It’s not the experts telling us what we should do and how we should live, but it’s the citizens themselves querying the experts: how is it that you intend to help us live the way we want to live?
DB: More at earthsky.org. Our thanks today to the National Science Foundation. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.
Visit the Center for Nanotechnology in Society.
Normally when decision making in science and technology happens, it’s a bunch of experts sitting around a table and they deliberate among themselves and come to a conclusion that is then directed at policy makers.
David Guston told Earth & Sky, “The idea is in some sense to turn the tables on the experts. What we’re doing in the citizens technology forums is instead making the deliberating panel a group of lay citizens. And the citizens get to frame the question and the way the experts address that question. And they get to make inquiries directly of the experts themselves who have the status before the citizens panel more of witnesses than of people doing the deliberating and recommending to the policy makers.”
Guston added that he believes ordinary citizens should have a more significant voice in the development of new technologies. “And we believe that largely because the public at large are the ones who are going to be impacted,” said Guston.
Privacy is one of the areas in which these forums might help. Nanotechnology experts have suggested that nano sensors – tiny devices too small to see with the unaided eye and able to monitor sounds and physical conditions – could be put into paint and sprayed on a wall.
David Guston told Earth & Sky, “And anything and everything that happened in the room could be observed and transmitted by those nano sensors that were painted on the wall. And this has profound implications for what we consider private versus what we consider public, how we behave, how we handle data that’s gathered through these methods that are enhanced by nanotechnology, where such sensors could be omnipresent and utterly unobtrusive.”
Our thanks to:
David Guston
Director of Center for Nanotechnology and Society
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ
