leading to unexpected outcomes are more common than we sometimes realize. For instance, few people expect industrial accidents to occur, but they nevertheless do. In fact, they happen so regularly that the academic Charles Perrow coined the term “normal accidents,” together with the theory that, in any sufficiently complex technological system, unanticipated events are inevitable.17
Of course, if Hammond had read his Perrow, he might have had a better understanding of just how precarious his new Jurassic Park was. Sadly, he didn’t. But even if Hammond and his team had been aware of the challenges of managing complex systems, there’s another factor that led to the chaos in the movie that reflects real life, and that’s the way that power plays an oversized role in determining the trajectory of a new technology, along with any fallout that accompanies it.
Visions of Power
Beyond the genetic engineering, the de-extinction, and the homage to chaos theory, Jurassic Park is a movie about power: not only the power to create and destroy life, but the power to control others, to dominate them, and to win.
Power, and the advantages and rewards it brings, is deeply rooted in human nature, together with the systems we build that reflect and amplify this nature. But this nature in turn reflects the evolutionary processes that we are a product of. Jurassic Park cleverly taps into this with the dinosaur-power theme. And in fact, one of the movie’s more compelling narrative threads is the power and dominance of the dinosaurs and the natural world over their human creators, who merely have delusions of power. Yet this is also a movie about human power dynamics, and how these influence the development, use, and ultimately in this case the abuse, of new technologies.
There are some interesting side stories about power here, for instance, the power Ian Malcolm draws from his “excess of personality.” But it’s the power dynamic between Hammond, the lawyer Donald Gennaro, and InGen’s investors that particularly intrigues me. Here, we get a glimpse of the ability of visions of power to deeply influence actions.
At a very simple level, Jurassic Park is a movie about corporate greed. Hammond’s investors want a return on their investment, and they are threatening to exert their considerable power to get it. Gennaro is their proxy, but this in turn places him in a position of power. He’s the linchpin who can make or break the park, and he knows it.
Then there’s Hammond himself, who revels in his power over people as an entertainer, charmer, and entrepreneur.
These competing visions of power create a dynamic tension that ultimately leads to disaster, as the pursuit of personal and corporate gain leads to sacrificed lives and morals. In this sense, Jurassic Park is something of a morality tale, a cautionary warning against placing power and profit over what is right and good. Yet this is too simplistic a takeaway from the perspective of developing new technologies responsibly.
In reality, there will always be power differentials and power struggles. Not only will many of these be legitimate—including the fiduciary responsibility of innovators to investors—but they are also an essential driving force that prevents society from stagnating. The challenge we face is not to abdicate power, but to develop ways of understanding and using it in ways that are socially responsible.
This does not happen in Jurassic Park, clearly. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot have responsible innovation, or corporate social responsibility, that works, or even ethical entrepreneurs. It’s easy to see the downsides of powerful organizations and individuals pushing through technological innovation at the expense of others. And there are many downsides; you just need to look at the past two hundred years of environmental harm and human disease tied to technological innovation to appreciate this. Yet innovation that has been driven by profit and the desire to amass and wield power has also created a lot of good. The challenge we face is how we harness the realities of who we are and the world we live in to build a better future for as many people as we can, without sacrificing the health and well-being of communities and individuals along the way.
In large part, this is about learning how we develop and wield power appropriately—not eschewing it, but understanding and accepting the sometimes-complex responsibilities that come with it. And this isn’t limited to commercial or fiscal power. Scientists wield power with the knowledge they generate. Activists wield power in the methods they use and the rhetoric they employ. Legislators have the power to establish law. And citizens collectively have considerable power over who does what and how. Understanding these different facets of power and its responsible use is critical to the safe and beneficial development and use of new technologies—not just genetic engineering, but every other technology that touches our lives as well, including the technology that’s at the center of our next movie: Never Let Me Go.
Never Let Me Go: A Cautionary Tale of Human Cloning
“Who’d make up stories as horrible as that?”
—Ruth
Sins of Futures Past
In 2002, the birth of the first human clone was announced. Baby Eve was born on December 26, 2002, and weighed seven pounds. Or so it was claimed.
The announcement attracted media attention from around the world, and spawned story after story of the birth. Since then, no proof has emerged that baby Eve was anything other than a publicity stunt. But the furor at the time demonstrated how contentious the very idea of creating living copies of people can be.
There’s something about human cloning that seems to jar our sense of right and wrong. It instinctively feels—to many people, I suspect—as if it’s not quite right. Yet, at the same time, there’s something fascinating about the idea that we might one day be able to recreate a new person in our own likeness, or possibly “resurrect” someone we can’t bear to lose—a child who’s passed, or a loved relative. There’s even the uneasy notion that maybe, one day, we could replicate those members of society who do the work we can’t do, or don’t want to—a ready supply of combat personnel, maybe, or garbage collectors. Or even, possibly, living, breathing organ donors.
As it turns out, cloning humans is really difficult. It’s also fraught with ethical problems. But this hasn’t stopped people trying, despite near-universal restrictions prohibiting it.
On December 27, 2002, Brigitte Boisselier, a scientist working for the organization Clonaid, announced that a cloned baby girl, Eve, had been delivered by cesarian section to a thirty-one-year-old woman. Clonaid was founded in 1997 with the express aim of cloning humans. But the company’s mission was far more ambitious than this. The organization had its roots in the ideas and teachings of one-time racing car test-driver, and subsequently self-proclaimed religious leader, Claude Vorilhon. Vorilhon, who later renamed himself Raël and went on to establish the Raëlian religious movement, believes that we are the creations of a “scientifically more advanced species.” These aliens—the “Elohim”—have, he claims, discovered the secret of immortality. And the key to this is, apparently, cloning.
You could be forgiven for feeling a little skeptical at this point. Raël’s stories and beliefs come across as fantastical and delusional, at least when they’re boiled down to their bare bones. But they offer a window into the world of cloning that bizarrely echoes some of the more mainstream ideas of transhumanists, and even some technology entrepreneurs. They also create an intriguing canvas on which to begin exploring the moral dilemmas presented in the movie Never Let Me Go.
Never Let Me Go was never intended as a science fiction movie. Its scriptwriter (and the author of the
