THE EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AGENDA
As emerging technologies (ETs) increase their impact on all sectors of society, including all industrial sectors, it will be hard to overstate the importance of mature, informed discussion within civil society as the context for policy development by governments and multilaterals. The past decade has been dominated by two insurgent ET debates: over genetically-modified (GMO) foods, focused mainly in Europe, and over embryonic stem-cell research/cloning, which has straddled the Atlantic yet with greater political salience in the United States. These have proved deeply divisive issues, though in each case the focus has been narrow. If, as observers from various perspectives claim, nanoscale technological "convergence" is set to offer the disruptive and transformative technology of our generation, these current controversies could be seen as samples of the kind of divisive political and social upheavals that loom ahead. One lesson from the GMO controversy, in particular, is the importance of informed dialogue on ET issues early in a technology's development, as a key component in the search for policy solutions and in order to mitigate risk.
"Americans have always defined themselves in terms of the future. It is therefore astonishing that there is no policy institute on emerging technologies in the nation's capital, one that cuts across philosophical lines. C-PET addresses that absence in our national conversation."
—JONATHAN MORENO
