Good grief.
The Pentagon is apparently trying to develop immortal synthetic organisms for military use. Of course, they’ll build in a ‘kill switch’ so the power of these machines will be contained…sort of like how the destructiveness of the sub-prime mortgage crisis was contained.
Of course, anyone who has watched The Terminator knows what happens when we tamper with artificial intelligence and the like. (I say this half-jokingly.)
Seriously though…this raises plenty of bio-ethical issues. Oh yeah, and the whole ‘immortality’ thing might be a small challenge too.
Bill Joy wrote his concerns to Ray Kurzweil on the lack of ethical guidelines in relation to the development of artificial intelligence and/or nanotechnology quite a while back. (Wired 8.04: “Why the future doesn’t need us”)
Like anything human beings develop as a tool, there must be the wisdom and external discipline to use it properly.
Our tools are only as good as what we do with them and in this case, what we give them the opportunity to do.
I found the article…quite an interesting read: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html