I argue that robots will implicate privacy in at least three ways. First, they will vastly increase our capacity for surveillance. Robots can go places humans cannot go, see things humans cannot see. Recent developments include everything from remote-controlled insects to robots that can soften their bodies to squeeze through small enclosures.

Second, robots may introduce new points of access to historically private spaces such as the home. At least one study has shown that several of today’s commercially available robots can be remotely hacked, granting the attacker access to video and audio of the home. With sufficient process, governments will also be able to access robots connected to the Internet.

There are clearly ways to mitigate these implications. Strict policies could reign in police use of robots for surveillance, for instance; consumer protection laws could require adequate security. But there is a third way robots implicate privacy, related to their social meaning, that is not as readily addressed.

Study after study has shown that we are hardwired to react to anthropomorphic technology such as robots as though a person were actually present. Reports have emerged of soldiers risking their lives on the battlefield to save a robot under enemy fire. No less than people, therefore, the presence of a robot can interrupt solitude—a key value privacy protects. Moreover, the way we interact with these machines will matter as never before. No one much cares about the uses to which we put our car or washing machine. But the record of our interactions with a social machine might contain information that would make a psychotherapist jealous.

My chapter discusses each of these dimensions—surveillance, access, and social meaning—in detail. Yet it only begins a conversation. Robots hold enormous promise and we should encourage their development and adoption. Privacy must be on our minds as we do.

Over the millennia humans and the rest of nature have coexisted in various relationships. However the intimate and interdependent nature of our relationship with other beings on the planet has been recently brought to light by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This ongoing environmental disaster is a prime example of “profit over principle” regarding non-human life. This spill threatens not only the reproductive viability of all flora and fauna in the affected ecosystems but also complex and sensitive non-human cultures like those we now recognize in dolphins and whales.

Although science has, for decades, documented the links and interdependence of ecosystems and species, the ethical dilemma now facing humans is at a critical level. For too long have we not recognized the true cost of our life styles and priorities of profit over the health of the planet and the nonhuman beings we share it with. If ever the time, this is a wake up call for humanity and a call to action. If humanity is to survive we need to make an urgent and long-term commitment to the health of the planet. The oceans, our food sources and the very oxygen we breathe may be dependent on our choices in the next 10 years.

And humanity’s survival is inextricably linked to that of the other beings we share this planet with. We need a new ethic.

Many oceanographers and marine biologist have, for a decade, sent out the message that the oceans are in trouble. Human impacts of over-fishing, pollution, and habitat destruction are threatening the very cycles of our existence. In the recent catastrophe in the Gulf, one corporation’s neglectful oversight and push for profit has set the stage for a century of clean up and impact, the implications of which we can only begin to imagine.

Current and reported estimates of stranded dolphins are at fifty-five. However, these are dolphins visibly stranded on beaches. Recent aerial footage, on YouTube, by John Wathen shows a much greater and serious threat. Offshore, in the “no fly zone” hundreds of dolphins and whales have been observed in the oil slick. Some floating belly up and dead, others struggling to breathe in the toxic fumes. Others exhibit “drunken dolphin syndrome” characterized by floating in an almost stupefied state on the surface of the water. These highly visible effects are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the spill’s impact on the long term health and viability of the Gulf’s dolphin and whale populations, not to mention the suffering incurred by each individual dolphin as he or she tries to cope with this crisis.

Known direct and indirect effects of oil spills on dolphins and whales depend on the species but include, toxicity that can cause organ dysfunction and neurological impairment, damaged airways and lungs, gastrointestinal ulceration and hemorrhaging, eye and skin lesions, decreased body mass due to limited prey, and, the pervasive long term behavioral, immunological, and metabolic impacts of stress. Recent reports substantiate that many dolphins and whales in the Gulf are undergoing tremendous stress, shock and suffering from many of the above effects. The impact to newborns and young calves is clearly devastating.

After the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound in 1989 two pods of orcas (killer whales) were tracked. It was found that one third of the whales in one pod and 40 percent of the whales in the other pod had disappeared, with one pod never recovering its numbers. There is still some debate about the number of missing whales directly impacted by the oil though it is fair to say that losses of this magnitude are uncommon and do serious damage to orca societies.

Yes, orca societies. Years of field research has led to the conclusion by a growing number of scientists that many dolphin and whale species, including sperm whales, humpback whales, orcas, and bottlenose dolphins possess sophisticated cultures, that is, learned behavioral traditions passed on from one generation to the next. These cultures are not only unique to each group but are critically important for survival. Therefore, not only do environmental catastrophes such as the Gulf oil spill result in individual suffering and loss of life but they contribute to the permanent destruction of entire oceanic cultures. These complex learned traditions cannot be replicated after they are gone and this makes them invaluable.

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which acknowledges basic rights to life, liberty, and freedom of cultural expression. We recognize these foundational rights for humans as we are sentient, complex beings. It is abundantly clear that our actions have violated these same rights for other sentient, complex and cultural beings in the oceans – the dolphins and whales. We should use this tragedy as an opportunity to formally recognize societal and legal rights for them so that their lives and their unique cultures are better protected in the future.

Recently, there was a meeting of scientists, philosophers, legal experts and dolphin and whale advocates in Helsinki, Finland, who drafted a Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans a global call for basic rights for dolphins and whales. You can read more about this effort and become a signatory here: http://cetaceanconservation.com.au/cetaceanrights/. Given the destruction of dolphin and whale lives and cultures caused by the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf, we think this is one of the ways we can commit ourselves to working towards a future that will be a lifeboat for humans, dolphins and whales, and the rest of nature.

INSTITUTE FOR THE FUTURE ANNOUNCES BODYSHOCK:
CALL FOR ENTRIES ON IDEAS TO TRANSFORM LIFESTYLES AND THE HUMAN BODY TO IMPROVE HEALTH IN THE NEXT DECADE

“What can YOU envision to improve and reinvent health and well-being for the future?” Anyone can enter, anyone can vote, anyone can change the future of global health.

With obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease rampaging populations around the world, Institute for the Future (IFTF) is turning up the volume on global well-being. Launching today, IFTF’s BodyShock is the first annual competition with an urgent challenge to recruit crowdsourced designs and solutions for better health–to remake the future by rebooting the present.

BodyShock calls upon the public to consider innovative ways to improve individual and collective health over the next 3–10 years by transforming our bodies and lifestyles. Video or graphical entries illustrating new ideas, designs, products, technologies, and concepts, will be accepted from people around the world until September 1, 2010. Up to five winners will be flown to Palo Alto, California on October 8 to present their ideas and be connected to other innovative thinkers to help bring these ideas to life. The grand prize winner will receive the IFTF Roy Amara Prize of $3,000.

“Health doesn’t happen all at once; it’s a consequence of years of choices for our bodies and lifestyles–some large and some small. BodyShock is intended to spark new ideas to help us find our way back to health,” said Thomas Goetz, executive editor of Wired, author of The Decision Tree, and a member of the Health Advisory Board that will be judging the BodyShock contest in addition to votes from the public.

“BodyShock is a fantastic initiative. Global collaboration and participation from all voices can produce a true revolution,” said Linda Avey, founder of Brainstorm Research Foundation and another Advisor to BodyShock.

Entries may come from anyone anywhere and can include, but are not limited to, the following: Life extension, DIY Bio, Diabetic teenagers, Developing countries, Green health, Augmented reality, Self-tracking, and Pervasive games. Participants are challenged to use IFTF’s Health Horizons forecasts for the next decade of health and health care as inspiration, and design a solution for a problem that will be widespread in 3–10 years, using technologies that will become mainstream.

“Think ‘artifacts from the future’–simple, non-obvious, high-impact solutions that don’t exist yet, will be among the concepts we’re looking to the public to introduce,” said Rod Falcon, director of the Health Horizons Program at IFTF.

BodyShock’s grand prize, the Roy Amara Prize, is named for IFTF’s long-time president Roy Amara (1925–2000) and is part of a larger program of social impact projects at IFTF honoring his legacy, known as The Roy Amara Fund for Participatory Foresight, the Fund uses participatory tools to translate foresight research into concrete actions that address future social challenges.

PANEL OF COMPETITION JUDGES

Joanne Andreadis
Lead of Innovation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Linda Avey
Founder, Brainstorm Research Foundation

Jason Bobe
Director of Community, Personal Genome Project
Founder, DIYBio.org

Alexandra Carmichael
Co-founder, CureTogether
Director, Quantified Self

Ted Eytan, MD
Kaiser Permanente, The Permanente Federation

Rod Falcon
Director, Health Horizons Program

Peter Friess
President, Tech Museum of Innovation

Thomas Goetz
Executive Editor, WIRED Magazine
Author, The Decision Tree

Natalie Hodge,MD FAAP
Chief Health Officer, Personal Medicine International

Ellen Marram
Board of Trustees, Institute for the Future
President, Barnegat Group LLC

Kristi Miller Durazo
Senior Strategy Advisor, American Heart Association

David Rosenman
Director, Innovation Curriculum
Center for Innovation at Mayo Clinic

Amy Tenderich
Board Member, Journal of Participatory Medicine
Blogger, DiabetesMine.com

DETAILS

WHAT:
An online competition for visual design ideas to improve global health over the next 3–10 years by transforming our bodies and lifestyles. Anyone can enter, anyone can vote, anyone can change the future of health.

WHEN:
Launch — Friday, June 18,2010

Deadline for entries –Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Winners announced –Thursday, September 23, 2010

BodyShock Winners Celebration at IFTF — 6 — 9 p.m. Friday, October 8, 2010 — FREE and open to the public

WHERE:

http://www.bodyshockthefuture.org

(and 124 University Ave, 2ndFloor, Palo Alto, CA)