Mit Cms/w

In the 20th century, America led the world in scientific and technological innovation, with federally funded basic research leading to breakthroughs ranging from the Internet to the Human Genome Project, with many positive impacts on society. More recently, possibilities ranging from autonomous weapons to eugenic application of genetic editing tools have made it clear that the rate of discoveries has outpaced our ability to predict their moral and ethical consequences. How the scientific community addresses these essential questions could mean the difference between societal benefit and dystopia. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and a principal leader of the Human Genome Project, and Maria Zuber, MIT Vice President for Research and the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics, will be joined by Communications Forum director Seth Mnookin for a wide-ranging discussion on the ethical issues entangled in innovation and the real, and sometimes devastating, effe