The New York Times International - 08.08.2019

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THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019 | 11

Whom do you trust on the internet to

keep you safe?

Trust no one, that’s what I always

say, given that one tech company after

another fails at protecting us: by tak-

ing advantage of our data, abrogating

responsibility for the vile hate that

courses over its platform, and finally

by endless publicly agonizing over

what to do about the mess it has creat-

ed.

After the past weekend’s tragic mass

shootings, the high stakes got even

higher, especially because one of the

sick gunmen had become enamored,

like many white nationalists, with the

cesspool that is the 8chan social net-

work, using it to post his bilious mani-

festo ahead of his nefarious acts of

violence.

“Cesspool of hate” is, in fact, the

phrase that the Cloudflare chief execu-

tive Matthew Prince used in a blog

post about finally deciding to stop

providing his security company’s

services to 8chan, noting, “Enough is

enough.”

Memo to Mr. Prince: Enough was

enough a very, very long time ago, and

being dragged kicking and screaming

into taking a stand and admitting that

there are real-world implications of the

online tools you have built is not brave

in any way. Welcome to the conversa-

tion, raging for a while now, about the

responsibility of tech companies to

control their inventions.

For far too long, too many tech

companies have been taking advan-

tage of the lowest-hanging fruit — from

chomping up our personal data to

letting anyone do anything on their

platforms — which has been the fast-

est way to create products that lead to

the most trouble. The business models

are part of the problem, and they can’t

be fixed with endless patches.

It’s long past time for the digital

giants to build safety into the DNA of

products from their conception. The

next crop of tech companies should

think about safety from the get-go.

Safety is a large bucket that in-

cludes, among other things, data pro-

tection, stopping the spread of hate,

protecting children and making sure

that the our news is not manipulated.

It’s about providing clear and transpar-

ent tools for consumers to get a better

handle on their online experiences.

The level at which we are all inter-

twined with digital demands that the

next wave of innovations be created

with a better awareness of their conse-

quences. It’s a societal imperative —

and it’s also a business opportunity.

The good news is that there are

glimmers of hope everywhere — like

Apple’s new credit card, which I’ve

been testing over the last several days.

It will be rolled out

on Tuesday to a

small number of

people who have

signed up for it and

will launch more

broadly later this

summer.

No surprise that

it’s built for the

iPhone and its

Wallet app, and the

setup is pretty

seamless, as long as

your credit is good.

Its daily cash-back

feature is a nice

touch, putting money on your cash

card for every day purchases.

But perks like those are now just

table stakes for the credit-card busi-

ness. More important for Apple — and

for all tech companies — is to create

products that can be trusted.

In this case, Apple appears to be

doing the right things: the card has a

unique, encrypted number stored

locally on your device; real-time views

of purchases in the app; a nifty pay-

ment calculator that lets you see just

how much you are spending on inter-

est and tips on how to avoid that. Most

important, the card has a privacy

architecture that does not give Apple

any information about where, when

and what you bought.

Not trading on my data? Hey, Face-

book, Amazon, Google, are you listen-

ing?

Apple is not perfect, of course, but

the way it has designed the card to

address privacy concerns — even if it’s

taking advantage of a business oppor-

tunity — is something I would like to

see more of from all tech companies.

And it’s the kind of offering that I

would like to see consumers demand

more of.

We should have social networks that

do not rely solely on advertising. We

should have communications platforms

that really care about healthy conver-

sations. We should have video services

that focus intently on keeping users

safe. We should have platforms that

are not havens for haters and killers.

Instead, what we have today, as I

have written before, are giant digital

cities that were built without adequate

police, fire, medical or safety person-

nel, decent street signs or any kind of

rules that would make them work

smoothly.

And, so, we feel unsafe — because

we are.

KARA SWISHER is editor at large for the

technology news website Recode and

producer of the Recode Decode podcast

and Code Conference.

Trust no one online

The internet

remains a

swamp of hate

that can lead

to terrible

violence.

But some

companies

like Apple see

the benefit in

protecting

users.

ILLUSTRATION BY JEFFREY HENSON SCALES, PHOTOGRAPHS BY XIJIAN/ISTOCK AND DANIEL SAMBRAUS/PHOTOGRAPHER’S CHOICE, VIA GETTY IMAGES PLUS

Kara Swisher

Contributing Writer

Could an emerging technology reshape

the battle lines in the abortion debate?

Since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973,

that fight has been defined by the inter-

locking, absolute values of choice and

life: For some, a woman’s right to

choose trumps any claim to a right to life

by the fetus; for others, it’s the reverse.

But what if we could separate those

two — what if a woman’s choice to termi-

nate a pregnancy no longer meant

terminating the fetus itself?

That is the promise of artificial

wombs, a technology that has already

shown some success in tests on sheep

fetuses. Early in a ewe’s pregnancy, the

lamb fetus is removed from her body

and placed in a synthetic uterine envi-

ronment in which it receives nutrients

and fluids, and continues to develop to

term, a process researchers call ectoge-

nesis.

Artificial human wombs are still far in

the future, and there are of course other

ethical issues to consider. But for now,

the technology is developed enough to

raise new questions for the abortion

debate.

In a 2017 issue of the journal Bio-

ethics, two philosophers, Jeremy V.

Davis, a visiting professor at the United

States Military Academy at West Point,

and Eric Mathison, a postdoctoral asso-

ciate at Baylor College of Medicine,

argue that while a woman has a right to

remove a fetus from her body, she does

not have the right to kill it. The problem

is that, for now, the latter is inherent in

the former.

Their argument builds upon that of

the pro-choice philosopher Judith Jarvis

Thompson, who famously argued in her

1971 paper “A Defense of Abortion” that

women have a right to not carry a fetus

for nine months — but that women do

not have a right to be guaranteed the

death of the fetus.

Such arguments point toward a dis-

junction in the abortion debate. Ectoge-

nesis is the answer.

Synthetic wombs have an appeal far

beyond the abortion debate, of course.

They could revolutionize premature

birth, which the World Health Organiza-

tion calls the number one cause of death

among children under 5.

The most advanced research in ecto-

genesis is underway at Children’s Hos-

pital of Philadelphia, where sheep fe-

tuses have been removed from their

mothers’ bodies after 105 to 120 days —

the equivalent, in a human, of 22 to 24

weeks — and placed in “biobags,” clear

plastic containers filled with amniotic

fluid. So far the lambs have developed

with few complica-

tions.

Biobag technol-

ogy could be avail-

able for humans in

as little as one to

three years, accord-

ing to Dr. Alan

Flake, a fetal sur-

geon in charge of

the Children’s

Hospital of Phila-

delphia artificial

womb experiments. Another team

performing ectogenesis research at the

University of Michigan also believes

they could have devices ready for hu-

mans in a similar time frame.

Some major supporters of artificial

wombs are transhumanists, who be-

lieve in using technology to improve

human health, intelligence and quality

of life. Women’s rights activists likewise

support the research, aiming to free the

female body.

But the promise of artificial wombs

should appeal most to conservatives

looking to reduce the 600,000 abortions

performed annually in the United

States, but pessimistic about the chance

of overturning Roe any time soon. Ev-

ery fetus that was going to be aborted

but instead makes it into an artificial

womb could be considered a life saved.

Dr. Daniel Deen, an assistant profes-

sor of philosophy at Concordia Univer-

sity in Irvine, Calif., recently said in an

interview with the website Leapsmag:

“If the technology gets developed, I

could not see any Christians, liberal or

conservative, arguing that people seek-

ing abortion ought not opt for a ‘trans-

fer’ versus an abortive procedure.”

Obviously, the idea that science could

short-circuit a moral debate is discom-

forting for some. As artificial wombs

improve, biobags are likely to become a

hot-button topic for conservatives, who

will have to decide how far they want to

use technology to accomplish their

ethical goals.

There are practical challenges, too:

Artificial womb transplants and births

are sure to be dramatically more expen-

sive than the typical 15-minute abortion

procedure, which costs around $500.

And if even a quarter of those fetuses

that would have been aborted are

brought to term artificially, 150,

babies a year would be born, almost all

of them likely to be put up for adoption

— more than the total number of annual

adoptions in the United States. Who will

pay for those procedures, and who will

care for those children once they are

born?

It is unlikely that the abortion debate

will be resolved soon — certainly not as

a legal matter. But as a practical and

philosophical one, artificial wombs offer

a way for both sides in the debate to

move forward. The only question is

whether we are willing to accept the

increasingly central — and beneficial —

role that technology can play in resolv-

ing what were once considered immuta-

ble human problems.

ZOLTAN ISTVAN writes and lectures about

transhumanism. His new book is “The

Futuresist Cure,” and he is the subject

of the documentary “Immortality or

Bust.”

Zoltan Istvan

LUCY JONES

The artificial womb revolution

The technology

would allow

fetuses to

develop outside

the womb so

women would

no longer have

to be pregnant.

opinion

abuses, especially repression of minor-

ities in other countries — from the

Uighurs in China to Shiites in Bahrain

and Christians throughout the Middle

East — is thwarted in ways lasting and

immeasurable.

Dictators around the world encoun-

ter no opprobrium from our govern-

ment and are comforted to find a fellow

traveler in rhetoric and policies that

demean his own people. In case any-

one needs reminding: A majority of the

world is populated by what we Ameri-

cans call “people of color.”

To fight terrorism or prevent the

spread of pandemic disease, to stem

weapons proliferation or organized

criminal organizations, to address

climate change or punish outlaw

states, we need the willing cooperation

of nations around the world. None of

these transnational security challenges

can be combated effectively by the

United States alone.

With the president increasingly

alienating our allies and insulting

potential partners as “shithole” coun-

tries, America is hardly well positioned

to call upon the good will and coopera-

tion of other states when next we need

it most.

Moreover, in our intensified competi-

tion with China for influence in Asia

and markets globally, we are hobbled

by the contrast between a president

who embraces white nationalist

mantras and holds people around the

world in disdain, and China, which is

still perceived by many developing

countries as more sympathetic to the

world’s underdogs despite its auto-

cratic government.

Most dangerously, President Trump

is serving up to our adversaries an

ever more divided and weakened

America, one that is animated by

suspicion, rived by hatred of the

“other” and increasingly incapable of

uniting in the face of external threats.

Russia, above all, continues to exploit

and exacerbate these divisions.

During the 2016 presidential cam-

paign, Russian trolls stoked American

white nationalism while amplifying

black anger about police brutality in an

effort to suppress the African-Ameri-

can vote. Today, President Vladimir

Putin of Russia

continues to use

social media to un-

dermine America’s

democracy and

provoke internal

conflict. Other adver-

saries may seek to

do the same, know-

ing that their efforts

will be aided and

abetted by our divid-

er in chief with his

twitchy Twitter

fingers and a bastardized view of how

to use the bully pulpit. America’s do-

mestic fault lines remain its greatest

national security vulnerability, and

race is our oldest and deepest rift.

When the president deliberately and

repeatedly rubs salt in those wounds,

while coddling the authoritarian oppo-

nents who exploit them, we must reluc-

tantly ask ourselves: Is he playing on

America’s team?

A president’s poison

R ICE, FROM PAGE 1

SUSAN E. RICE , the national security

adviser from 2013 to 2017 and a former

United States ambassador to the

United Nations, is the author of the

forthcoming memoir “Tough Love: My

Story of the Things Worth Fighting For.”

President

Trump is

serving up

to our

adversaries

an ever more

divided and

weakened

America.

An Opinion essay on July 30, “The Mos-

quitoes Are Coming for Us,” misspelled

the surname of an early malariologist at

Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He

was W.D. Tigertt, not W.D. Tiggert.

An Aug. 1 Opinion piece, “Putin’s Fancy

Weapons? Everything Old Is New Again,”

erroneously attributed a distinction to

Nazi Germany’s V-1 “buzz bombs.” They

were not powered by the first ramjets,

but by pulsejets.

CORRECTIONS

Whose Amazon forest?

Re “Destruction of Amazon Rain Forest

Accelerates” (front page, July 29):

I’ve been working on small, organic

farms for the last six years with the aim

to start my own. As someone whose

livelihood depends on climate stability, I

feel acutely aware of the threat of cli-

mate change.

I’m disturbed by the claim by Presi-

dent Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil that “the

Amazon is ours, not yours.” This state-

ment represents a belief that plagues

the world: the false notion that the

earth can be parceled out, that it exists

only as a resource for exploitation and

that it can be contained within the

boundaries of countries.

The laws that govern ecosystems

exist beyond human ideology; any

farmer worth his or her salt knows this.

What happens in one corner of our

planet affects all the rest; tearing out

the Amazon, the earth’s lung, for the

short-term gain of the few dooms the

whole.

As a global community, we need to

find our way to a narrative of collective

responsibility rather than the reigning

ideology of myopic self-interest.

LUCIA KEARNEY, AFTON, MINN.

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