Moral technologies

Can a Darwinian view of human nature tell us how we ought to live? Author Richard Dawkins believes that humans alone, of all species, have the capacity to rebel against their genes, to 'upset their designs'. Yet Dawkins' own work helped to pave the way for the development of evolutionary psychology; and in the 1990s, philosophers, social scientists, legal theorists and others have begun to advocate a morality based on evolution. Delving into the digital realm, researchers are now creating sophisticated virtual organisms - software programs which can grow and evolve. And they're using these digital beings to simulate the way in which certain kinds of moral behaviour evolved in us humans. Electronic organisms are being made to make 'moral' choices - choices which can influence their chances of surviving and replicating. These developments raise some fascinating and uncomfortable dilemmas. For example, would it be possible to arrive at a calculation of the 'correct' moral choice in any given situation by simulating the outcome on a computer? Might we, as a society, choose to delegate choices to artificial moral intelligences that we find too difficult or too politically sensitive - such as the allocation of health spending to intensive antenatal care versus aged care. If a virtual organism is capable of making moral choices - something philosophers have argued is fundamental to our humanity - does such an organism acquire the same rights and responsibilities as a human being? Can a machine have rights? Are such artificial intelligences the next stage of evolution - destined to supersede humans?