Films from the Future - Andrew Maynard

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human form, being the product of a female egg and a male sperm, or being a member of a distinct biological species.30 These seem a not-too-bad starting point as characteristics that we can measure or otherwise identify. But they begin to look a little weak as we develop the ability to reengineer our own biology. They also leave the door open for people or “entities” that don’t easily fit the definition conveniently being labeled as “less than human,” including those that don’t fit convenient but arbitrary norms of physical and intellectual ability, or who are simply perceived as being “different.”

      This is not a new challenge, of course. Ironically, one of our defining features as a species is an unerring ability to label those we don’t like, or feel threatened by, as “less than human.” Through some of the most sordid episodes in human history, distinctions of convenience between “human” and “not human” have been used to justify acts of atrocity; it’s easier to justify inhuman acts when you claim that the focus of them isn’t fully human in the first place.

      We can surely learn from cases of socially unacceptable behavior that have led to slavery, repression, discrimination, and other forms of abuse. If we cannot, cloning and other technologies that blur our biological identity are likely to further reveal the darker side of our “humanity” as we attempt to separate those we consider worthy of the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from those we don’t.

      But in a future where we can design and engineer people in ways that extend beyond our biological origins, how do we define what being “human” means?

      As it turns out, this is a surprisingly hard question to answer. However you approach it, and whatever intellectual arguments you use, it’s too easy to come down to an “us versus them” position, and to use motivated reasoning to justify why our particular brand of humanity is the right one. The trouble is, we’re conditioned to recognize humanity as being “of us” (and whoever the “us” is gets to define this). And we have a tendency to use this arbitrary distinction to protect ourselves from those we consider to be “not us.”

      The possibility of human reproductive cloning begins to reveal the moral complexities around having the ability to transcend our biological heritage. If we do eventually end up cloning people, the distinction between “like us” (and therefore fully human) and “not like us” (and therefore lacking basic human rights) is likely to become increasingly blurred. But this is only the start.

      In 2016, a group of scientists launched a ten-year project to construct a synthetic human genome from scratch. This is a project that ambitiously aims to construct all three billion base pairs of the human genome in the laboratory, from common lab chemicals, and create the complete blueprint for a fully functioning person with no biological parents or heritage. This is the first step in an ambitious enterprise to create a completely synthetic human being within 20 years; a living, breathing person that was designed by computer and grown in the lab.31 If successful (and I must confess that I’d be very surprised if this can be achieved within twenty years), this project will make the moral challenges of cloning seem like child’s play. At least a clone has its origins in a living person. But what will we do if and when we create a being who is like you and me in every single way, apart from where they came from?

      This may seem like a rather distant moral dilemma. But it is foreshadowed by smaller steps toward having to rethink what we mean by “human.” As we’ll see in later chapters, mind-enhancing drugs are already beginning to blur the lines between what are considered “normal” human abilities, and what tip us over into technologically-enhanced “abnormal abilities.” Movies like Ghost in the Shell (chapter seven) push this further by questioning the boundaries between machine-enhanced humans and machines with human tendencies. And when we get to the movie Transcendence (chapter nine), we’re looking at a full-blown melding between a human mind and a machine. In each of these cases, using technologies to alter people or to create entities with human-like qualities challenges us with two questions in particular: what does it mean to be “human”? And what are the rights and expectations of entities that don’t fit what we think of as human, yet are capable of thinking and feeling, that have dreams and hopes, and are able to suffer pain and loss?

      The seemingly easy way forward here is to try to develop a definition of humanity that encompasses all of our various future creations. But I’m not sure that this will ultimately succeed, if only because this still reflects a way of thinking that mentally divides the world into “human” and “not human.” And with this division comes the temptation to endow the former with all the rights that come with being human and an assumed right to exploit the latter, simply because we don’t think of them as being part of the same privileged club.

      Rather, I suspect that, at some point, we will need to transcend the notion of “human” and instead focus on rights, and an understanding of “worth” and “validity” that goes far beyond what we bestow on ourselves as Homo sapiens.

      Making this transition will not be easy. But we’ve already begun to make a start in how we think about rights as they apply to other species, and the responsibility we have toward them. Increasingly, there is an awareness that being human does not come with a God-given right to dominate, control, and indiscriminately use other species to our own advantage. But how we translate this into action is difficult, and is often colored by our own ideas of worth and value. In effect, we easily slip into defining what is important by what we think of as being important. For instance, we place greater value on species that are attractive or interesting to us; on animals and plants that inspire awe in us. And we value species more that we believe are important to the sustainability of our world, or what we perhaps arrogantly call “higher” species, meaning those that are closer relatives to us on the evolutionary ladder. And we especially value species that demonstrate human-like intelligence.

      In other words, our measures of what has worth inevitably come down to what has worth to us.

      This is of course quite understandable. As a species, we are at the top of the food chain, and we’re biologically predisposed to do everything we can to stay there. But this doesn’t help lay down a moral framework for how we behave toward entities that do not fit our ideas of what is worthy.

      This will be a substantial challenge if and when we create entities that threaten our humanness, and by implication, the power we currently wield as a species. For instance, if we did at some point produce human clones, they would be our equals in terms of biological form, function, awareness and intellect. But we would know they were different, and would have to decide how to respond to this. We could, of course, grant them rights; we might even declare them to be fully human, or at least honorary members of the human club. But here’s the kicker: What right would we have to do this? What natural authority do we have that allows us to decide the fate of creations such as these? This is a deeply challenging question when it comes to entities that are almost, but not quite, the same as us. But it gets even more challenging when we begin to consider completely artificial entities such as computer- or robot-based artificial intelligence.

      We’ll come back to this in movies like Minority Report (chapter four) and Ghost in the Shell (chapter seven). But before we do, there’s one other insight embedded in Never Let Me Go that’s worth exploring, and that’s how easily we fall into justifying technologies that devastate a small number of lives, because we tell ourselves we cannot live without them.

      Whichever way you look at it, the society within which Never Let Me Go is situated doesn’t come off that well. To most other people in the movie, the clones are seen as little more than receptacles for growing living organs in, waiting for someone to claim them.

      In contrast, the staff at Hailsham are an anomaly, a blip in the social conscience that is ultimately drowned out by the irresistible benefits the Human Donor Program offers. But the morality behind this anomaly is, not to put too fine a point on it, rather insipid. Madame, Miss Emily, and others appear to care for the clones, and want to prove that they have human qualities and are therefore worthy of something closer to “human” dignity. But ultimately, they give way to resignation in a society that sees the donor program as too valuable to end.

      As Tommy and

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