While the typical narrative of how unmanned drones have affected warfare typically runs somewhere along the lines of “they’re soulless robots” or “they turn war into a video game” (promoting human detachment), William Saletan makes the opposite argument, based on a handful of reports: “A drone pilot can think more clearly and at greater length before firing.” More »
Flu vaccines in a matter of hours. Bioengineering facilities the size of San Francisco. Cells and DNA, upgraded like living software. This is the future microbiologist Dr. Craig Venter sees as inevitable, and it’s only a few years away. More »
Is it ethical to pirate ebooks of texts you already bought in a bookstore? Randy Cohen, the New York Times Magazine ethicist who weekly presides over readers’ matters of morality, says yes, yes it is. More »
Here is the scenario: you are playing a video game (board game, foosball, nerf battle…whatever) vs. a sick 10 year old boy. What do you do?
A new report commissioned by the Office of Naval Research makes a grim statement about the increasing danger of combat-trained robots in the 21st century: “We are going to need a warrior code.”
