At the IAB World Congress of Bioethics 2022, Dr David Lawrence, Dr Daniel Tigard, Dr Sarah Morley, Dr Richard Gibson and Ms Natalie Partridge explored foundational work on approaches to regulation from the Novel Beings project.

The theme of the 2022 World Congress of Bioethics was “Bioethics post Covid-19: Responsibility and transparency in a globalized and interconnected world”. However, there was as always plenty of content from across bioethics more generally- our panel explored our most recent work in the regulatory challenges that face us with the emergence of Novel Beings, notably in connection with the themes of our forthcoming edited collection.

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Emerging biotechnologies and potential advances in artificial intelligence are likely to create new forms of life- ‘novel beings’- with varying levels of true autonomy and cognitive capacity, potentially being recognisable sentience or even sapience.

We use the term ‘novel beings’ to include any novel entity created through artifice beyond basic genome editing, and which warrants holding some degree of moral status and contingent protection. Novel beings could range from synthetic animal models, to artificial (general) intelligence, to biotechnologically constructed replicas of human beings.

The development and emergence of any such entity will pose global challenges for society and for the law as regards the status of these beings, their protections and obligations, and our own towards them. They may warrant their own rights, possibly even requiring treatment as we do other philosophical ‘persons’; and they will create a range of regulatory challenges, including the responsibilities of the developers of these technologies. It is vital that we begin to address the many challenges to regulating these technologies and their precursors, many of which are already commonplace. Our multidisciplinary expert contributors offer considerations vital to any attempt to address the issues inherent in the regulation of morally significant technologies, in the unique context of this forthcoming challenge for ethics, law, and society, before they become impossible to prevent or rectify.

Novel beings is a new and developing area of scholarship. Whilst the consideration of morally valuable technology is in itself an established topic, it has not received significant academic or policy-related attention outside a relatively small literature of ‘robot rights’ which is often centrally focussed on philosophical abstracts rather than practical solutions. As such, this panel stood to make a necessary contribution to this emerging area of research.

The panel focussed on doctrinal and normative analysis of concepts from their fields, exploring foundational work they have conducted together as part of a funded intersectional project- the ‘Novel Beings Network’- which has brought together a unique combination of perspectives from bioethics, company law, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, cognitive neuroscience, and theory of mind.

Running order of talks:

Dr Richard Gibson- Frosty the No-Man? Cryopreservation, Artifice, and Status

Natalie Partridge- “Sooner or later someone will create life in the laboratory”: Reflections on developments in engineering biology and implications for governance

Dr Daniel Tigard - Embedded Ethics as Proactive Regulation of Technology

Dr David Lawrence- Repugnance, Denial, and Fear: Societal Challenges for Regulation of Novel Beings

Dr Sarah Morley- Morally Significant Technology: A Case Against Mere Corporate Self-regulation

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