This essay focuses on possible nonhuman applications of CRISPR/Cas9 that are likely to be widely overlooked because they are unexpected and, in some cases, perhaps even “frivolous.” We look at five uses for “CRISPR Critters”: wild de-extinction, domestic de-extinction, personal whim, art, and novel forms of disease prevention. We then discuss the current regulatory framework and its possible limitations in those contexts. We end with questions about some deeper issues raised by the increased human control over life on earth offered (...) by genome editing. (shrink)

Technological revolutions are among the most important things that happen to humanity. Ethical assessment in the incipient stages of a potential technological revolution faces several difficulties, including the unpredictability of their long‐term impacts, the problematic role of human agency in bringing them about, and the fact that technological revolutions rewrite not only the material conditions of our existence but also reshape culture and even – perhaps – human nature. This essay explores some of these difficulties and the challenges they pose (...) for a rational assessment of the ethical and policy issues associated with anticipated technological revolutions. (shrink)

Technological revolutions are dissected into three stages: the introduction stage, the permeation stage, and the power stage. The information revolution is a primary example of this tripartite model. A hypothesis about ethics is proposed, namely, ethical problems increase as technological revolutions progress toward and into the power stage. Genetic technology, nanotechnology, and neurotechnology are good candidates for impending technological revolutions. Two reasons favoring their candidacy as revolutionary are their high degree of malleability and their convergence. Assuming the emerging technologies develop (...) into mutually enabling revolutionary technologies, we will need better ethical responses to cope with them. Some suggestions are offered about how our approach to ethics might be improved. (shrink)