Talking About NBIC in Spain
15th Mar 2006, 18:22 GMT
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Spain to address a large group of university students and professors about ethical use of advanced nanotechnology. My appearance was part of the "Segundas Jornadas sobre Convergencia Ciencia-Tecnología," sponsored by the Vodafone Foundation, and held at the University of Alcalá (near Madrid) from March 6-10. (Simultaneous translation was provided.) Giulio Prisco, one of the organizers and also a presenter, had this to say: I think the event was very successful, with more than 500 students who listened to the presentations. We had a lot of concrete ethical questions on the social impact of life extension, human enhancement and NBIC technologies. My impression is that young students in Spain accept that human enhancement technologies will be developed and deployed, perhaps sooner than most people think, and that they are willing to consider this as a positive or at least acceptable trend. But they want to hear "the rest of the story": how to solve other, more urgent problems of our world like war, poverty, hunger, public health etc. Another one of the presenters was biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey, who has been getting quite a bit of media coverage lately. Aubrey's contention that extreme human life extension is possible and desirable -- perhaps even inevitable -- appears to be moving rapidly from the fringe to the mainstream. While in Spain, I was interviewed by Euroresidentes , one of the country's most popular web portals. That interview has been posted in Spanish, and soon will be available in English, French, German, and Portuguese as well. We're very grateful to Rebecca, Andres, Mercedes, and everyone at Euroresidentes for their support of responsible nanotechnology. Mike Treder Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
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