So far cyberspace has been envisaged as 'out there', helping run businesses or whatever. But it won't stay like that. The cyberspace that is outside will come closer, and the moral issues will become more pressing.
Most computers we interact with are quite clearly outside us; we talk to them with keyboards and screens. Some people get closer, and wear computers - some wristwatches are quite powerful little computers, and can do useful things. A few people have computers actually inside them: in pacemakers, in hearing aids. Even fewer people already have computers inside their skulls acting as direct brain-stimulating aids to help them see or hear.
If we jump ahead in time, then computers will be inside many of us, as implants. Thus the issues we outlined earlier will also be right inside us. If we are optimistic, this would be a huge benefit; and if we are pessimistic, when computers literally get under our skin, there will be very difficult problems.
At first sight the implant-in-the-brain end of this wide spectrum raises more serious ethical questions than our external 'partnership' with desktop computers with keyboards, where people can always walk away from the computer. Actually, we can't always just 'walk away'; the computer remembers who we are, and a 'data shadow' follows us around for our entire lives. Like it our not, we have a symbiotic partnership with computers. Bits of computers physically implanted within us are just one colour of the broad spectrum of possibilities. However, when computers are inside us, they become part of us, and this part-of-us-ness makes some of the ethical issues seem much starker.
No one knows how far the possibilities of implants can extend. The 'direct interaction' between our brains and a small computer will depend on a lot of work by neurophysiologists. Certain functions of the brain seem to be localized, and perhaps these functions could be enhanced by a computer implant. The chip at the heart of a calculator is about the size of this letter 'o'. It could be slipped inside someone's head and wired up to a few nerves. Such a person could conceivably then do calculations very fast and very accurately. People who are financial traders who rely on fast financial dealings might be the first to sign up: they have the money to buy the implants, and traders are typically 'first adopters' for new technologies - and implant-enhanced traders would have even more financial incentives than most of us to think harder. Or what about artists who crave for creativity and new experiences?
We might ask the question: what would happen if it were possible for a computerized bit of our brain to make moral decisions for us? What would happen if we had implants that gave us direct connection to cyberspace - a sort of cross between a mobile phone and modem in one's head? Would we get lost in cyberspace and become oblivious to our surroundings, in a drug-like hallucination, or would we be become informed, wiser and deeper thinkers because of our wide, human connections?
Such questions might seem far off into the future, or in the realm of science fiction. But already computers that are outside our bodies make major morally significant decisions. Here are some examples.
Some people might say that these aren't examples of 'decisions' at all; only people really make policy decisions, and the computer executes them. That's actually disputable; are we speaking literally or metaphorically when we say a computer chess program is 'deciding its next move'? What is clear is that humans sometimes delegate decisions to objects, tossing a coin to decide which way the teams will play in the first half, say. That would be quite a trivial decision, but we could have complex, and obviously morally significant, decisions delegated to computers. The decision to delegate would itself be a moral decision; what would be at stake? We might find that some decisions which we currently agonize over are, one day, routinely taken by computers. Having devolved decisions, and thus perhaps eased the sense of responsibility, we cease to notice the moral dimension at all; issues become 'de-moralized'. Another concern is that our whole vision of the ethical is at stake; what basis do computers make decisions on? Maybe they could calculate consequences of actions better than we can, and some people do think that consequences are the only guide to what is right and wrong, although most Christians have resisted this view.
The point is that, ultimately, these moral decisions could perhaps be delegated
to tiny chips embedded inside our head. If it could be done at all with innocuous
and useful things like calculators and hearing aids, then it might be no more
difficult to implant a credit-rating system inside the head of a bank manager,
or even a 'moral filter' inside the head of a child. These acts of delegation
raise very major moral questions. But there are other issues.
There is, currently, a feeling that a society relying on brain implants would not be a good thing, and we would only like it, if it happens at all, if it had been developed carefully and by small steps. However, commercial pressures may bring it about, whatever we think.
There must be serious questions about whether and under what circumstances it is right to install implants, and they are issues that would be for the surgeon to work through just as much as the possible recipient. They raise moral rather than spiritual questions, but there are also spiritual issues, such as those that would arise if it were possible for an implant to change one's personality. Perhaps you should find out how to use the gifts you have got, rather than want to be a different sort of person! Well, that sounds pretty far-fetched at the moment, but it's not out of the realms of possibility.
Beyond the personal lie social justice issues. Perhaps half the world has never made a telephone call, and those unconnected people are hardly likely to get computer implants. Their lives may not change, then, but the people who do get implants will be 'better' - and the divide between the rich and poor will increase. Implants will doubtless cost money to install, so the rich would buy the implants, but then they would get even richer, thus exacerbating the division.
Currently, enthusiasts are excited about the potential for implants, and few people can realistically benefit from them. Each success will be heralded as a wonderful advance (which some, at least, might be) . . . until one day, implants become consumer items. Perhaps nanotechnology (very small devices) will allow implants to be injected inside us in moments, as easily as we now get a vaccination.
So how can we stop the promise turning into a cause of injustice, discontent or isolation of people who are materially excluded from the wonders of the implant-blessed? Indeed, does the technology improve human relationships in general? We could sharpen this question with a Christian view: that building up our common life is a good thing, and therefore to be prioritized.
Thus the question raises subsidiary questions, some with quite controversial implications. Should there be legislation and regulation? We are already debating analogous questions with cyberspace, limited though it is with today's conventional technology. For example, should the Internet be taxed? Should there be a byte tax? Clearly it would be worth debating these short-term issues with the other, long-term issues in mind.