At this point in time, I think most of us have agreed on some basic human rights. The right to protect your family. The right to hold different opinions. The right to feel safe. We have a few thousand years worth of human history to examine so that we can extrapolate the essentials for successful life on earth. Within reason, these rights should stay pretty similar over the next few decades and even centuries. Evolution for mammals as large as we are is a slow process, and our basic needs probably won’t significantly change. The problem is that human imagination has outpaced nature, and it might lead to artificial ideas of what we “need” in the near future.

 

Except for the people who think Octo-moms on welfare need to be sterilized, I think we can all agree that reproductive rights are a part of the human rights package. At the same time, I believe there are certain things we shouldn’t get to have control over, even if it’s within our power to do so. Nature gave us the ability to reproduce, not to choose the sex of our children. But wait—nature also gave us the intelligence to figure out how to do just that! Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

 

Same goes for the creation of technology. I think we have a right to create technology to improve our lives—but I don’t know if we should take that a step further and improve the lives of our technology. Does a computer need emotion? Does it need a consciousness? Does it need a conscience? Should it be more rational than us?

 

There are reproductive rights, and then there’s creative license. The difference between the two is in the name: one is intrinsic, and one is literally permitted. When you reproduce with someone, the outcome isn’t predictable, but it is probable. When you produce something that’s never existed before on Earth, you don’t get that kind of safety. You get uncertainty, and with it, potential danger and infringement on extant human rights.

 

We absolutely should continue to create and produce—where would we be without the polio vaccine or calculators?—but we need to be conservative about it. If we can’t possibly know the consequences of our actions, we need caution and respectful, fair oversight. We need to sit down and figure out what’s okay, what’s worth the risk, and give ourselves a good dose of perspective. How does net neutrality compare to access to potable water? Should we focus on preserving existing life or providing for future life (the “save the mother or the baby?” scene from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein comes to mind)? Do we have a right to exert control over other humans, or humanoids of our own creation?