I think I agree with your basic point: that we need to be careful and thoughtful about how new technology is used.<p>However, I think there might be some misunderstandings here about how research works.<p>In the Rapoport-Kedzierski-Sarpeshkar paper[1], you will find no mentions of prosthetics or anything similar. It does not touch on applications. The mentions of prosthetics you cite all come from the MIT News article[2], written by one Anne Trafton, who is not a researcher. She apparently interviewed at least one of the researchers (Benjamin Rapoport). And the only quote from him is simple agreement: yes, that's the sort of thing you might eventually be able to do with our work.<p>This gives an easy answer to your question, "Why are articles about emerging technology overwhelmingly positive?" The answer is that they are written by -- or using information from -- university P.R. people. The job of these people is to make the university look good.<p>One of the challenges these people face is that university research is mostly not aimed at products. It is basic research without any immediate application. So they try to explain where the research might eventually be headed. And of course they use positive examples -- remember what their job is.<p>You note that, "... the publicly authentic researcher is really rare." This is true. But an important reason it is true is that the researcher who communicates about research with the public -- in any form -- is rare. Mostly researchers aim their communications at other researchers, leaving it to others (as in this case) -- or more often to no one at all -- to present their work to the general public.<p>And then we have your solution, which you say you will describe in detail tomorrow. I'll read that when you post it. But for the moment, you're talking about regulation.<p>I can't imagine how that could work in a positive way. Are we going to forbid any research with (say) a military application? You are correct that there are possible nasty uses for brain-machine interfaces. Meanwhile, the world is loaded with handicapped or otherwise debilitated people, and with all respect (seriously!) to the builders of prosthetic devices, at the moment, their work is mostly awful. Are we not going to allow research that would help all those people, just because we know that (say) the Pentagon wants to use it, too?<p>This is especially important, because the nasty folks are going to get it anyway. We already have a proof of concept for a successful secret basic-research community: the NSA's enormous mathematics research arm. The university-research people at least make their findings public, so that we <i>can</i> keep an eye on them. Let's try to avoid regulating that away.<p>P.S. Thanks for posting the article links.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0038436" rel="nofollow">http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2012/glucose-fuel-cell-0612" rel="nofollow">http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2012/glucose-fuel-cell-0612</a>
Thank you, ggchappell, for the thoughtful post. Your response, the fact that someone put deep thought into this, made writing the article worthwhile.<p>You raise some great points.<p>Articles about research aren't typically written by researchers. Sure, they write articles too, but their articles are laden with industry-specific lingo and aren't generally written for the public.<p>So who writes the articles which go viral? PR people. Marketers. People who are talented at describing technology in a way that it's easy to digest and share-worthy. Perhaps they've figured out that positive articles are more successful.<p>Regarding the regulation...<p>I agree, there are many ways regulation can go wrong. But I see a way that really could work. It just requires a new infrastructure that would be relatively easy to build!<p>Technological advancement is MORALLY RIGHT. That's my stance. I guess I'm the antithesis of Amish. :)<p>We just need to wield technology less recklessly. The need to do so is increasingly relevant.<p>Consider how much power we'll have very soon. A human from 500 years ago would look around today and think we've become gods. What do you think we'll be in 500 years? Gods, by today's standards. We need to be careful. Not fearful. But diligently cautious.