President Bush on the Challenges of Technology

May 15, 2006

President Bush delivered the commencement address at Oklahoma State University last weekend. In the speech, he talked about changes in technology, which have affected entertainment, education, work, transportation, and medicine.

These advances in technology will transform lives — and they will present you with profound dilemmas. Science offers the prospect of eventual cures for terrible diseases, and temptations to manipulate life and violate human dignity. With the Internet, you can communicate instantly with someone halfway across the world — and isolate yourself from your family and your neighbors. Your generation will have to resolve these dilemmas. My advice is, harness the promise of technology without becoming slaves to technology. My advice is, ensure that science serves the cause of humanity, and not the other way around.

The work of the President’s Council on Bioethics will be a great aid in facing these dilemmas. If you’ve not read the Council’s reports, you might want to consider doing so.