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Converging Technologies and Their Impact on the Social Sciences and Humanities (CONTECS)

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Converging Technologies and Their Impact on the Social Sciences and Humanities (CONTECS) Converging Technologies and their impact on the Social Sciences and Humanities (CONTECS) An analysis of critical issues and a suggestion for a future research agenda Final Report May 2008 Daniel Andler, Simon Barthelmé, Bernd Beckert, Clemens Blümel, Christopher Coenen, Torsten Fleischer, Michael Friedewald, Christiane Quendt, Michael Rader, Elena Simakova, Steve Woolgar Project Bernd Beckert and Michael Friedewald, Co-ordinator: Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, Breslauer Straße, 76139 Karlsruhe, Germany, E-Mail: [email protected] http://www.isi.fraunhofer.de Partners: Research Centre Karlsruhe, Institute for Sys- tems Analysis and Technology Assessment, Karlsruhe, Germany Contact: Michael Rader http://www.itas.fzk.de/ University of Oxford, Said Business School, Oxford, UK Contact: Steve Woolgar http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/ Institut de l'Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France Contact: Daniel Andler http://www.iens.ens.fr/ Project http://www.contecs.fraunhofer.de Web site: If this report (or extracts from it) is used in the preparation of other reports, documents or publications, electronic or otherwise, the CONTECS consortium would appreciate acknowledgement of this report as a source. We suggest a citation like this: "Andler, Daniel; Barthelmé, Simon; Beckert, Bernd; Blümel, Clemens; Coenen, Christopher; Fleischer, Torsten; Friedewald, Michael; Quendt, Christiane; Rader, Michael; Simako- va, Elena; Woolgar, Steve (2008): Converging Technologies and their impact on the Social Sciences and Humanities. Final report of the CONTECS project. May 2008. Online: http://www.contecs. fraunhofer.de". CONTECS i Table of Contents Executive Summary ...........................................................................................I Selected Proposals for Science Policy Action ............................................. VI 1 Introduction: The concept of convergence and its relevance for the Social Sciences and Humanities.........................................................1 2 Presentation of the CONTECS project and method.................................5 3 The agenda: SSH research and technological convergence ..................7 3.1 Tracing the origins of the convergence debate and sketching impacts on R&D ...........................................................7 3.2 The Role of Cognitive Science...................................................13 3.3 Interdisciplinarity: The common denominator of CT?.................17 3.4 Ethical questions and the technology assessment view.............22 3.5 Natural science taking over SSH domains: New deterministic models of man ......................................................27 3.6 The role of enhancement and other narratives of convergence ..............................................................................35 3.7 A non-exhaustive list of relevant SSH fields...............................40 4 Summary and outlook ..............................................................................43 Literature..........................................................................................................47 Appendices A R&D Trends in Converging Technologies (Authors: Bernd Beckert, Clemens Blümel, Michael Friedewald, Axel Thielmann) ii The agenda: SSH research and technological convergence B Cognitive science within Convergence: Key issues in the European context (Authors: Daniel Andler, Simon Barthelmé) C The Ontological Politics of Convergence (Authors: Steve Woolgar, Christopher Coenen, Elena Simakova) D Current trends in RTD policy on Converging Technologies (Authors: Michael Rader, Christopher Coenen, Torsten Fleischer, Beate- Josefine Luber, Christiane Quendt) CONTECS I Executive Summary The project CONTECS (Converging Technologies – and their impact on the Social Sciences and Humanities) was a Specific Support Action (SSA) funded by the Euro- pean Commission to assist the Commission in setting up a research agenda in con- nection with converging technologies. Items on this agenda can either be related to research on the process of convergence itself or to research supporting technological convergence. In the current decade, a new concept of "Converging Technologies" (CT) has become a buzzword in research and technology policy expert circles. This concept differs from older notions of CT which are used, for example, in the computer and media industries. At the core of the new concept are relations, synergies or fusions between broad fields of research and development, such as nanoscience and -technology, biotechnology and the life sciences, information and communication technologies, cognitive science and neurotechnologies. Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and other fields of research and development (R&D) are also taken into account in the discussions. The debate on con- verging technologies has therefore been characterised as a "forum for exploring the future impact of all science and engineering" (George Khushf at a CONTECS work- shop). The starting point of the discussions about the CT was a 2001 research and technology policy initiative in the US which has often (and, in a way, incorrectly) been regarded as a major official US initiative. This so-called NBIC initiative (nano, bio, info, cogno) put emphasis on the aspect of "improving human performance" and, in particular, on the issue of "human enhancement", i.e. the technological augmentation of human capabili- ties and modification of human corporeality and intellect. Despite reservations about the strong military focus of the NBIC initiative, other aspects of the concept resonated strongly in other parts of the world, including Europe where the European Commission set up a High-Level Expert Group: "Foresighting the New Technology Wave". The major findings of this expert group reflected the intention to develop a different approach to technological convergence to that pursued by the US initiative. While the latter focuses strongly on enhancement of the individual human being, the European concept of "Converging Technologies for the European Knowledge Society" (CTEKS) adopts a demand-driven approach in which CT respond to societal needs and de- mands. A major theme in both the US and European approaches is cooperation be- tween the disciplines: the European approach makes a special issue of interdisciplinary cooperation and its specific conditions and problems, whereas the US approach argues II The agenda: SSH research and technological convergence for a new unity of science underpinned by reductionism enabled by the possibility of tracking virtually everything down to the nano-level. While the research policy activities on convergence, which until recently have largely been confined to foresight projects, reflect the international diversity of agendas, the debate on CT, even in the European Union, still exhibits a clear focus, namely tech- nologies that can be used for "human enhancement", for a massive modification of human bodies in terms of a possible "reconstruction of man", or even for the creation of "posthuman" beings. These wide-ranging visions which have not only accompanied, but, in a way, determined the discourse on CT have already sparked debates in research fields such as the ethics of technology, technology assessment, utopian studies, theology, and in diverse subfields of science and technology studies (STS). There is therefore a growing body of scholarly literature on the CT topic, although the CT concept is not yet very apparent in the pertinent natural sciences and engineering fields. In the policy context, several actors have embraced the new concept of convergence, most forcefully the European Union which, for example, has installed "converging sciences and technologies" as a central concept in its funding activities on nanotech- nologies and nanosciences. In general, one can observe that most of the new political initiatives on CT are distancing themselves from the original NBIC initiative, at least when it comes to the more visionary aspects, in particular in the field of "human en- hancement". In the scholarly literature on CT, which is together with a rather small number of foresight and innovation reports, the main manifestation of the new dis- course on convergence, three tendencies can be observed: First, the discussions and research activities on the CT topic have broadened and intensified, leading, for example, to the publication of several CT special issues in academic journals and a stronger presence of the convergence issue at academic conferences. Second, the accompanying research on CT has shifted its focus to less visionary topics such as potential new modes of inter- and transdisciplinarity, of science and society inter- relations as well as empirical aspects of processes of technoscientific convergence. Last but not least, the previously largely ethical analysis of the topic of "human en- hancement" has been supplemented with studies on the historical, cultural and policy contexts of the visionary discourse on convergence and of related discussions. However, the social sciences and humanities (SSH) still lack a comprehensive and integrated agenda with regard to CT. The development of ideas for such an agenda was the main task of the CONTECS project on behalf of the European Commission. All pertinent policy initiatives agree about the profoundly transformative character of the ongoing and emerging processes of technoscientific convergence. They also agree CONTECS III that not only the ethics of technology, but a wide range
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