CETMONS Conference Second Life - January 20, 2011

Second Life Conference
Attendees:  Peter French, Shannon French, George Lucas, Brad Allenby, Gary Marchant, Tony Jack, Max Mehlman, Jason Gatliff, Joel Garreau, Jessica Berg, Adrienne Stanish, Zack Goldberg, Carolyn Mattick, Neil Rowe, John Dickmann, Ed Barret

Conference Minutes
1.   Welcome by Brad Allenby:
There are two purposes for this conference:   the obvious one of substantive communication and discussion of future projects and funding options; and, secondly, to see whether virtual conferences in Second Life (“SL”) will work in the future. We’d appreciate feedback from the attendees on both of these points. We are going to hear from those thrust groups which have made the most progress.
2.   Report on Thrust Group “Lethal Autonomous Robots” by Gary Marchant | Presentation

The group published an article on the Reverse Dual Use Problem. They also have a forthcoming article on autonomous robots (Spring 2011). They revised a grant proposal and are currently awaiting a response. Two conferences are planned for the near future: one national one international. The group will continue to focus on two projects:  lethal autonomous robots and reverse dual use.

Following the presentation was a discussion regarding potential members.
3.   Report on Thrust Group “Enhanced Warfighters” by Max Mehlman

The group put in two proposals to DARPA in March 2010, and held several subsequent meetings with DARPA personnel. In response to requests, the group produces a white paper on what the military should think about before administering enhancements to soldiers, and another white paper on Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), and how they review both civilian and military research on human enhancement research. They sent the proposals into DARPA in Sept. 2010, and they are still under review (reflecting perhaps uncertainty as to how much DARPA will have to distribute given current budget negotiations in Washington). Another project has been accepted providing partial support for a workshop ($60,000). They are currently progressing with this project; they are researching civilian research on civilian IRBs. They still hope to get DARPA to fund the project on military research on military IRBs.

Among future projects the group is considering is one examining the difference between enhancement of ordinary soldiers and special forces soldiers. The team is also working on issues involved in the development of ethical structure that might apply to additional categories of soldiers.
4.   Report on Thrust Group “Moral Boundaries” by Tony Jack | Presentation

This thrust group continues to evaluate the reason vs. passion debate in the discussion of how moral judgments are made. Which part of our thinking responds to consequences, or empathy, or intentions? There’s a great divide between consequentialist thinking and the moral imagination which allows one to consider other people’s perspective, i.e. between empathizing and logical thinking. The group is doing experiments on cognition and how people draw conclusions. Among the interesting results: in exploring donations to charity, the counterintuitive result that, if potential donors are told that many people are suffering, then they are less likely to donate money, and they donate less, than if they are told that an identifiable person is suffering. Juries are more likely to award less money if more people are injured. The more people can focus on a single individual, the more emotionally engaged they are; the larger the number of people harmed, the less able to comprehend the event, and the less concerned, people seem to be. This has obvious implications for human enhancement: We can encourage people to be less moral by convincing them that people are machines or that their behavior is determined. When we give someone a prosthetic or an enhancement drug, therefore, this might influence some to think of them as machines.

The group continues its research into moral boundaries: i.e. how do people respond to those who have crossed boundaries.
5.   Report on Thrust Group “Future Veteran’s Project” by Jason Gatliff | Presentation

The group is researching how to prepare soldiers psychologically to transition to civilian life. Enhancement raises interesting issues for this. The group is examining how the military prepares warfighters and why they are alienated when they transition back to civilian life. They are also looking at PTSD and other mental health problems. They want to investigate these problems from the veteran’s perspective. They plan on doing a pilot study and then hopefully get funding from VA.
6.   New Business by Brad Allenby

Based on the immediate feedback from attendees, SL appears to be a viable option for future meetings; it both gets high ratings from the participants, and is much cheaper than alternatives such as live workshops requiring travel and lodging. As a next step, the Thrust Groups can meet regularly in Second Life to give presentations or have conversations.