Decision Making, Futures, and Ethics

1. Decision Making, Futures, and Ethics Theodore Gordon Senior Research Fellow The Millennium Project November 16, 2009 "Sapienza" Università di Roma

2. Why These Three Topics? • In our world, in our time, there are few good decisions and many bad ones • Futures research exists to help improve decision making; are bad decisions a mark of its failure? Can its utility be improved? • Bad decisions are often attributed to ethical failures (e.g. the current recession) • Yet ethics rates a top spot in Millennium Project studies that involve decision making

3. Intersections Ethical failures lie here. How can values play a bigger role in decisions? A NEW DECISION SCIENCE Decision Making Food Ethics The uses of futures research in decision making lie here Can the contribution of futures research be improved? Is FR value free? What are the ethical implications of future developments? Futures Research Cosmetics

4. Why Do Some Decisions Turn out Badly ? • Decision time is short in an accelerating world • Things go wrong • Governments sometimes lie • Political forces • Uncertainty and surprise • Imaginations are limited • Innate irrationality

5. And Assorted Other Reasons • Lack of a moral compass • Bad luck • Naivety • Expediency • Self-interests • Amorality • Timidity • Xenophobia • Prejudice

6. Some Good Decisions • Good decisions are hard to find • The Montreal Protocol limiting ozone depleting gasses • Population forecasts of the 60’s that led to family planning •  AIDS forecasts that led to massive research, prevention • Silent Spring, Limits to Growth: environmental programs. • And on a global scale we find improvements in • GDP per capita, food availability, life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality, access to fresh water and health care, and school enrollment. • So some good decision making is happening

7. But Bad Decisions Abound • Iraq • Michael Phelps decision to smoke pot • Sinking the Lusitania   • Red Socks selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees • Atari turned down Steve Jobs • Gary Cooper turning down the lead in GWTW • Auto makers fly to DC in private jets • “Pay-to-play“ former Gov. Blagojevich of Chicago • Sub prime mortgages • Is it all quarter-backing on Monday morning?

8. 1. Decision time is Short and Becoming Shorter • Twenty five years ago there was no • Internet, camera-phones, few PCs, no flat screens, WI-FI, Republic of Kosovo, environmental consciousness, International Space Station • No Euros, WTO, or NATO in Afghanistan • No asymmetrical warfare with Super Powers • Most believed that a nuclear WW III would occur

9. Examples of acceleration • China has more Internet users then population of US. • Genetic code written like software: new life forms • Intelligent infrastructure: networks of sensors and RFIDs • Global brain(s) from Internet and collective intelligence • Humans as cyborgs – technology on and in the body • US and China cooperating: Apollo-like energy program • Japan anticipating electricity from Solar Power Satellites

10. Scienceaccelerates: the drivers • Technological synergies • Feedback of accomplishments • New instrumentation and analysis capacities • Globalization • Result: The Singularity ? (Kurzweil) What can slow it? Natural limits (e.g. energy) Catastrophe (e.g. SIMAD) Religion, culture Fear of the unknown

11. 2. Things Go Wrong Some bad decisions turn out badly as a result of unanticipated consequences. • Challenger launched despite suspicions • Thalidomide caused birth defects • Lead was added to gasoline • Nosocomial infections in hospitals • Suntan, meat, butter: once good for you now questionable

12. 3. Governments Sometimes Lie Unfortunate examples • Gulf of Tonkin • The U-2 incident • The existence of secret CIA prisons (rendition) Paranoia results: are they lying? • Media complicity or manipulation? • Conspiracy theories: UFO’s, assassinations, economy, inflation Governments use the media because, the first info is what most people remember.

13. 4. Political Forces Crises trigger decisions: short term issues are higher priority than long term issues Political dynamics shape decisions • Demonstration of power • Need for re-election • Trading favors • Turf protection • Media imperatives and timing • Role of polls • Ultimately direct democracy

14. Modeling 5. Uncertainty and Surprise • Systems may not behave as expected. • Complexity and chaos (small errors have large consequences) • Chance events (discovery of a large scale fraud affecting the entire financial system.) • Systems may not behave as they once did. • Failure of analogies (sales of CD ROMs may not be a predictor of music download sales). • Failure of historical examples (are the job creation strategies of the depression useable now?)

15. 6. Imaginations are LimitedImplausibility of Unanchored Developments 15

16. 7. Innate Irrationality • The framing of a question biases its answer • We tend to see patterns where none may exist • Odds are often ignored. • Loss looms larger than gains • Decisions are often situation dependent • Frequently reported and recent events are accorded higher probability. • Lower probability events are seen as more probable than they should be. From: Teversky and Kahenman, and The Hidden Traps in Decision Making (HBR Classic) John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, Howard Raiffa , January 2006 Issue and Future Savvy, Adam Gordon

17. Innate Irrationality • Disproportionate weight is given to the first information • Killing a project is extremely difficult • People tend to seek information supporting an existing predilection • Difficult decisions are avoided • Any data are persuasive • People take orders: the Milgram phenomenon . Mostly from: Teversky and Kahenman, and The Hidden Traps in Decision Making (HBR Classic) John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, Howard Raiffa , January 2006 Issue and Future Savvy, Adam Gordon

18. Improve Futures Research

19. Futures Research: Planning: Forecast then Act .

20. Philosophical Assumptions • One cannot know the future with certainty; but one can know a range of possible futures • Likelihood can be changed by policy and policy consequences can be explored • Judgment is not only permissible but necessary in some methods • Humans will have more influence on the future than in the past • Futures research is not a science

21. Frontiers: Four Developments Scenarios Robust Decision Making Delphi Real Time Delphi Econometric Models Internet Collective Intelligence Systems State of the Future Index Large data bases Large data bases Analysis Software Trend Impact Analysis Experts and Models

22. Global SOFI Example of SOFI (State of the Future Index) variables: Infant mortality Food availability GNP per capita Access to fresh water CO2 emissions Literacy Wars AIDS deaths Terrorist attacks Debt ratio Unemployment Calories per capita Health care Forest lands Rich poor gap …

23. Global Climate Change Situation Room (by Frank Catanzano)

24. Some Challenges Facing Futures Research • The problem of disaggregation • Becoming more useful: linking to decision makers • Extending the unknowable

25. Extending the Unknowable 2 • Given a set of forecasts and the passage of time, we can check to see • Which have occurred when expected • Which have not happened but may yet • What was omitted from the study • Omitted futures are • Unknown but knowable, given the right tools • Unknown and unknowable

26. 3 Im

27. 5 Forecasts that Did NOT Appear in the RAND Study • MRI and CAT scans • Housing bubble • Cold war collapse • Nanotechnology • Google • Green revolution • HIV/AIDs • Hubble and the Large Hadron Collider

28. Types of Future Ideas 7 • Anchored in history Extrapolative : Most forecasts most of the tim Scheduled and planned Popular Image • Unanchored (unknown and unknowable)

29. 8 The Shape of Future Ideas • Unanchored High • Popular Images • Scheduled and planned • Extrapolative Significance Low Low High Plausibility

30. Unanchored Developments:Examples- NOT FORECASTS 16 • Ideas before their time, non-Gaussian, non-linear, non-extrapolative, unexpected, often seen as infeasible or undesirable, counter paradigmatic • Controlled anti-gravity • Faster than light particles or waves • Time travel to the past • Controlled positive telepathy • Discovery of the cause of the “big bang” • Proof that we are indeed alone in the universe • Youth pill • Understanding cellular differentiation

31. Global ethics seem to be at low ebb • Greed, corruption, and deceit led to a world recession • Over $1 trillion is paid in bribes each year; organized crime takes in over $2 trillion • Most of the annual 50 million tons of e-waste is dumped in developing countries • 12–27 million people are slaves today • Media focuses on trivial news, and encourages unneeded products and unethical behavior.

32. Ethical Lapses (from IGE Newsline) • The Chinese godmother case • China’s education minister in a corruption scandal • Is China is stripping Africa of raw materials? • New US 'hate crime' legislation that adds sexual orientation to other protected categories • Shooting in Afghanistan: where is the breaking point • Insider trading prosecution using big stick • Former commissioner of the NYPD pleaded guilty to corruption charges • A dozen states sue drug manufacturer over allegations of kickbacks Source: newsline@globalethics.org; Nov 9, 2009

33. Transparency International Low Corruption High Corruption

34. Ethics • Principles of conduct (human behavior not “things”) • Right vs. wrong (legal vs. illegal) -easy • Right vs. right- tough • Ends based • Utilitarian- greatest good for greatest number • Rules based • Kantian: behavior followed by everyone • Care based • Golden rule • Source: Institute for Global Ethics

35. Right vs. Right Dilemmas • Justice vs. Mercy • The death penalty • Short-term vs. long term • The stimulus package • Individual vs. Community • Cheating on taxes • Truth vs. Loyalty • Whistle blowing • Source: Institute for Global Ethics

36. Some Dilemmas • The airline captain and the dying passenger • The cash flows in Bosnia • The prospect for avalanche or bankruptcy

37. Discovery for the sake of knowing vs. societal need • Question: • Does the acceleration of science, and the technology that follows, lead to a better world?

38. Future S&T with Moral and Ethical Consequences • Government social marketing • Positive weather control • Cheap fresh water from salt water • Massively destructive cyber-attacks • Attempts at revival of extinct species • Large scale improvement in life expectancy • Chemicals for improving intelligence • Invisibility cloaking • Brain decoding

39. Venezuela’s Intelligence Raising Program • Early '80's Venezuela: Minister of State for the Development of Human Intelligence. • The country was 85% illiterate • Mission: to raise the level of intelligence of the nation • New mothers: taught foundations of intelligence for their babies • 20 five-minute spots on TV channels and in community • The arts and thinking skills were taught • University professors: how to be thought-provoking • Worker training programs for illiterate adults http://www.newhorizons.org/trans/international/dickinson_venezuela.htm

40. Brain Decoding • Chimeras: laboratory mice with human brain cells • Mapping the synapses • Human- computer symbiosis, (neural caps) • Human to human transfer: synapse interconnect • Brain boosters • Computers as legal persons with emotions • Methods to improve collective intelligence • Tailored psychotropes (dream pills) • Intuition, spiritual, and para-psychological phenomena • Thought-control technology Source: Millennium Project, S&T Study 2001, and TG

41. The Ethics Study Millennium Project, 2004- 05 Identify the key ethical issues of the next 50 years Identify the key solution principles. 300 participants • Europe, Latin America, North America, Asia, Middle East, Africa • Academics, consultants, NGO’s, government, corporate

42. Questionnaires Round 1 • Identify unique issues, promising to change human behavior, for better or worse. (Time periods: 2010, 2025, 2050) • 1300 suggestions, edited to 870 • Statements about ethical decision principles Round 2 • For ethical issues: judge importance and difficulty to resolve • For the ethical decision principles: judge how widely the principles might be accepted

43. Morals and Ethics: One Model Technology Ethical Norms Economics Freedom Justice Compassion Ethical Issues Come From Conflict Drivers Decision Principles Instinct Media Religion Family Technology “Privacy” vs. “Security of the group” Terrorism People are responsible for actions Survival is the highest priority. Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm. Golden rule Natural Phenomena

44. Drivers of Morals and Ethics • Culture: • The family is the fundamental nucleus • Religion • Tradition • The social environment • Violence in the media . • Demographics • Peers (or anti peers) • Technology and science Drivers

45. Morals and Ethics: Ethical Norms • Global ethical norms are as important as international laws. • -Primacy of the family • -Democracy, freedom . • -Protection of the planet • -Justice • -Compassion • -Security • -Value of imagination • -Value of the human being • -Love of people, animals, nature Ethical Norms

46. Decision Principles 2050 • Access to education is a fundamental right. • The rights of women and children are uninfringeable • Be fair • Consider the environment and biodiversity • Human survival is the highest priority. • Make decisions which do no harm. • Science, technology should serve society, rather than just pursue knowledge. Decision Principles

47. Future Moral and Ethical Dilemmas • Is it ethical for society to create artificially intelligent elites? • Should there be limits to pursuit of happiness? • Should elimination of aging be available to all? • Is it right to create intelligent “beings” that can compete with humans? Technology Economics Ethical Issues Come From Conflict Natural Phenomena Terrorism

48. Future Moral and Ethical Dilemmas • Should there be a right to suicide, euthanasia? • Will it be right to modify newborns future violent behavior (search for SIMAD?) • Is it ethical to extend lifespan at any cost? Technology Economics Ethical Issues Come From Conflict Natural Phenomena Terrorism

49. Four Future Rights • The right to see or to be not seen • The right to influence • The right to constrain based on anticipation • The right to intervene based on behavior

50. Some Enduring Principles Some principles apply across time (in top 10 across time): • Access to education is a fundamental human right. • People must be responsible for their actions or inactions. • Human survival as a species is the highest priority. • Treat other people the way you would like to be treated. • Science and technology should serve society, rather than pursue knowledge for its own sake.