No, I'm not writing about Star Wars; if I did, I wouldn't write about Episode II, because it sucked. Instead, rather, in the near recent news there was a report that some team of brilliant scientists, after 15 years of work, synthesized the first artificial bacterial cell. This is a big step for us. We have created a life whose mother is a computer. There are some obvious and subtle ethical considerations to be taken into account.
Firstly, I won't be going into any sanctity of life stuff. Whether you believe some god personal made all life or that creation of life is the sole domain of "nature" (have fun defining that one), I'm just not going to dive into that mess. It would take too long unraveling those types of belief and, most times, even when one is shown the insoluble problems with those views, they still cling to it out of nostalgia and denial.
What I'm concerned with is the fact that it is INEVITABLE that we will, in the not so distant future, create some form of intelligent, organic, and wholly "artificial" (in the sense that WE created it) life and after much thought, I believe that if this life comes about, it will nearly inevitably destroy us or at least try really hard to.
I'll argue for this by making a rather sweeping generalization: all forms of life have interests, in the loose sense of the word. From bacteria to elephants to humans all living things have some recognizable set of interests. Nearly all sets of interests that come from living things include the interest to live, continue living, and procreate. Take the set of all living humans, for example. Cross culturally there are likely myriad interests that are identifiable, such as wanting to live, taking care of children, procreation, eating, and etc.
Now, the reason I chose to describe this set of motivations as "interests" is because, while some interests are ubiquitous between cultures and perhaps species, the aim of the interests are not. For instance, both pigs and humans have the same interest to live, but pigs are not humans, therefore pigs don't share in the human interest's aim of living, hence we violate their interest for our own. If some group, despite have identical interests, doesn't fall under the aim of our interests, then that group, essentially, is usable and dispensable if it will satisfy our interests.
The narrow scope of the aim of human interest doesn't stop at speciesism, but extends to racism and sexism. Surely I don't need to enumerate examples where one culture declares some other culture as being outside their interests' aims and thereby subjects that culture to some form of horrible treatment. Our history is rife with those examples. In fact, the aim of our interests shifts depending on circumstance, in a more primitive and desperate world the aims would only include one's tribe, or family, or ,in most desperate of situations, oneself.
So, many interests are ubiquitous, but certain groups only count the interests of other members of that group. If group A and B have an identical set of interests but neither A or B count members of the other group as falling within the aim of their own interest, then there is ethical problem in destroying the other group.
I am reminded of the time I sat down and watched Pokemon the 1st Movie with my kids a long time ago. The basic story was that some guy, using the genetic material of an extinct but powerful pokemon to create a new and improved version of it. But, this new test tube pokemon revolted, destroyed his creators and fled. He went on to recreate the cloning procedure, made his own batch of cloned pokemon, and set out to destroy the world. Why? During his villainous monologue he revealed that because he was a clone, he had no attachments to the world, thus he wanted to create a race of clones like him and take over the world. So this evil cloned pokemon had a set of interests, then created a group of pokemon that he could include in the aims of his interests and set about attempting to destroy all the other groups he could find in order to further his group's interests.
We will create artificial life. But no matter how similar it is to us, even if it's genetically identical to us and indistinguishable in every way, this artificial life will exclude us from its interests. Conflict is inevitable.
So forget about questions like, "Is cloning/creating artificial life morally right?" and "Does cloning/creating artificial life violate god/nature?", but rather ask yourself "Is cloning/creating artificial life safe?" I would have to answer, "No, it is most definitely not safe."
But... let's face it, our species will die, our planet will grow cold and blink out of the cosmos. I wonder then, is it not the preferred form of destruction to be had at the hands of our prodigies? If we contribute nothing to this planet but take everything, is it not a matter of karmic balance that if we create a life form, if we as a species gestate and give birth, should not our children, our unique contribution to the variety and diversity this planet hosts, end our cancerous existence?
