Human Enhancement Technologies and Our Merger with Machines, published in June of 2021, was co-edited by GTC Law Group & Affiliates’ Sayoko Blodgett-Ford, Principal (and Boston College Law School Adjunct Professor) with Dr. Woodrow Barfield, Visiting Professor, University of Turin and Affiliate, Whitaker Institute, NUI, Galway. The book is available in electronic format here https://www.mdpi.com/books/pdfview/book/3859 and in hardcover at https://www.amazon.com/Human-Enhancement-Technologies-Merger-Machines. In the book, a cross-disciplinary approach is offered to consider the challenge of emerging technologies designed to enhance human bodies and minds. Perspectives from philosophy, ethics, law, and policy are applied to a wide variety of enhancements, including integration of technology within human bodies, as well as genetic, biological, and pharmacological modifications. Humans may be permanently or temporarily enhanced with artificial parts by manipulating (or reprogramming) human DNA and through other enhancement techniques (and combinations thereof). We are on the cusp of significantly modifying (and perhaps improving) the human ecosystem. This evolution necessitates a continuing effort to re-evaluate current laws and, if appropriate, to modify such laws or develop new laws that address enhancement technology. A legal, ethical, and policy response to current and future human enhancements should strive to protect the rights of all involved and to recognize the responsibilities of humans to other conscious and living beings, regardless of what they look like or what abilities they have (or lack). A potential ethical approach is outlined in which rights and responsibilities should be respected even if enhanced humans are perceived by non-enhanced (or less-enhanced) humans as “no longer human” at all.
Sayoko Blodgett-Ford also authored the article “Human Enhancements and Voting: Towards a Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities of Beings”, which is the final chapter in the book. The article was previously released as part of the Philosophies Special Edition and is available for download at: https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/6/1/5