Terminator: The Brave New World?

In 1932 Aldous Huxley tried to warn us against scientific utopianism. At first, I took his work as an ill-conceived futurology but after unintentionally watching two Terminator movies this weekend, Aldous' portrayal of a perfect, yet dangerous society actually seems possible. The Terminators that control the world are no different than the Brave New World population high on soma. Both models suggest that the tragedy of the human race cannot be cured with spirituality or intellectualism. Instead death and suffering will only be cured with the application of bioscience.

However, these are not fictitious scenarios we should simply ignore. The ethical implications of today's biopolitics could very well lead us to either situation. Nikolas Rose even asserts, “Social theorists and bioethicists have also played their part in conjuring up a future landscape rich in moral dangers and slippery slopes that might hurtle us to a very different form of humanity.” (An Emergent Form of Life, pg 80) Pharmaceutical medicine, gene therapy, and 'enhancement treatments' have made it possible to achieve a “posthuman” capacity. I believe that current medicine could take us to a place like the Brave New World. Technology could take us there too. The processing power of robots doubles about every year and before long they will catch up to human intelligence levels. I have even heard many estimates that a take over by super-intelligent robots is one of the top ten dangers to humanity.

Therefore the consequences of the decisions made between the gap of science and society should be taken seriously. If the right ethical decisions aren’t made today we could end up living in the Brave New World. As John Connor astutely pointed out at the end of Terminator Salvation, a human is, “Not somebody you can program. You can’t put it in a chip.”