Issue Conflicting interests in dual-use technologies need society-wide debate

Summary

The report's cross-cutting analysis also brings out points where interests may conflict. Reliance on digital platforms, for instance, leaves businesses and public services more exposed to outages and cyber attacks, yet it also connects geographically isolated places. Technologies such as artificial intelligence and engineering biology likewise carry many benefits alongside their risks, and used together they could lower the risk of human disease by designing new vaccines. The report takes these findings to show that a society-wide conversation about how such technologies are used and regulated is needed to balance their good and bad effects. In its engineering biology chapter, the report similarly warns that AI-enabled tools could ease the creation of harmful pathogens while also pointing to prospects for drug development and personalised cancer therapy.