If we should ever abandon the Constitution’s protections for the distinctively and universally human, it won’t be because robotics or genetic engineering or computer science have led us to deeper truths but, rather, because they have seduced us into more profound confusions. Science and technology open options, create possibilities, suggest incompatibilities, generate threats. They do not alter what is “right” or what is “wrong.” The fact that those notions are elusive and subject to endless debate need not make them totally contingent upon contemporary technology.
Predictor: Tribe, Laurence H.
Prediction, in context:The 1997 book “Computers, Ethics, and Society,” edited by M. David Ermann, Mary B. Williams and Michele S. Shauf, carries a reprint of the Sept./Oct. 1991 The Humanist magazine article “The Constitution in Cyberspace” by Laurence H. Tribe. Tribe, a Constitutional scholar, suggests a Constitutional amendment that would clarify the relationship between new technologies and fundamental constitutional protections. He writes: ”If we should ever abandon the Constitution’s protections for the distinctively and universally human, it won’t be because robotics or genetic engineering or computer science have led us to deeper truths but, rather, because they have seduced us into more profound confusions. Science and technology open options, create possibilities, suggest incompatibilities, generate threats. They do not alter what is ‘right’ or what is ‘wrong.’ The fact that those notions are elusive and subject to endless debate need not make them totally contingent upon contemporary technology.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1991
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: Ethics/Values
Name of publication: Computers, Ethics, and Society (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: The Constitution in Cyberspace
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 216
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne