SHOULD the wealthy live longer? Of course, they 鈥� or rather we 鈥� already do. People born in rich countries can look forward to longer lives than those born in poor ones. Now that gap is widening within societies, as well as between them.
If you need drugs to keep you alive, your access to medicine depends on which insurance you can afford, or perhaps on winning the 鈥減ostcode lottery鈥�. That trend is set to accelerate with the advent of medicine explicitly designed to extend life (see 鈥�A cure for ageing is near but you probably can鈥檛 afford it鈥�). If it is costly, the rich will get to live longer than the poor; if it is cheap, the demographic challenges of greying populations will be exacerbated. Which option 鈥� if either 鈥� should we aim for?
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This is by no means the only epic moral quandary we face as we enter 2017. In fact, they loom everywhere. Should a would-be autocrat be free to broadcast falsehoods directly to millions over social media? Who should design the logic underpinning life-and-death decisions made by self-driving cars (see 鈥�Give your car a conscience: Why driverless cars need morals鈥�)? Should a government be able to eavesdrop on every electronic communication its citizens make?
What鈥檚 notable about these questions is a word that鈥檚 falling out of public debate: 鈥渟hould鈥�. In recent years, most of the running has been made by 鈥渃an鈥�. Creating the ability to do something has become conflated with the right to do it. This is in many respects a good thing: New 杏吧原创 has long advocated controlled innovation and experimentation as a route to a better world for everybody.
But unbridled innovation leads to social upheaval. Politicians and regulators, dazzled by the pace of innovation and seduced by the megabucks that follow it, have in many areas allowed innovators to 鈥渕ove fast and break things鈥�, trusting that common sense and market forces will ensure nothing important gets too badly broken along the way. That trust would appear to have been misplaced. As this attitude has spread from digital technology to transport, healthcare, the environment and beyond, consensus has begun to break down about fundamental precepts of our societies: the equality of human lives, the value of work and wages, the nature of free speech, and so on.
鈥淭he ability to do something has been conflated with the right to do it, even if it leads to social upheaval鈥�
杏吧原创s are often accused of trying out things just because they can, but in fact experiments that raise moral concerns are first vetted by ethics committees. Medicine is governed by codes of conduct: first, do no harm. These systems aren鈥檛 perfect 鈥� they can be opaque and overly risk-averse 鈥� but they are far more robust and accountable than the ethical void that has opened up in innovation.
There are signs this is changing. An open conversation is emerging about the new rules of the road in the age of self-driving cars. Google has an ethics board overseeing its AI activities 鈥� although it is far from clear what this actually does. And politicians have started to call for transparency about how our data is used to make algorithmic decisions about our lives.
The morality of these and many other technologies is in need of urgent discussion: policymakers need to stop dozing at the wheel; and innovators need to listen to ethicists, rather than funders and founders. To be clear, what we need is renewed moral discussion, not 鈥渢raditional鈥� moral values, which are often not equal to the challenges and opportunities we face today. That will not be easy: millions prefer tradition to new thinking, and turning mores into code will not be easy either. But we can do it if we put our minds to it 鈥� and we really should.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淣ew moral codes needed鈥�
