I'm most grateful for the invitation to speak to you. In light of Tuesday's partial meeting, I now feel that I have a much better understanding of the issues with which you're concerned.

Thirty years ago, I was invited by the Library of Congress of the United States to write a report on the promise and the potential problems that would result from the human genome project. That led me to write a book in which I explored some of the ethical, legal and social implications of that project.

In the decades since, a significant part of my research has attempted to provide an account of how scientific research should bear on policies within a democratic society.

The first thing I want to say today is that public funding of scientific research is essential to a healthy use of scientific technology. Nations that cannot support their own research are dependent on efforts made in other places. Frequently they find themselves unable to acquire solutions for their own special problems. To cite one notorious example, African children suffered for a long while from river blindness because their countries could not manufacture or purchase the pertinent drugs. The foreign companies that designed those drugs found it more profitable to manufacture cosmetics for rich members of their societies.

There are two obvious consequences of abandoning public funding, and they're disastrous. The first is the emigration of the most successful native researchers. The second is the privatization of research, with the predictable result that the research done will be tailored to the needs of the wealthy. That tends to be where the profits are.

I'll add something to the text I sent—namely, that I don't think it is wise to have only private companies and private ventures involved in the development of AI.

In a democratic society, research should attempt to meet the most urgent needs of the citizenry, all the citizens. Most nations have contained populations whose needs have previously been ignored. If, when that's recognized, it appears that too much emphasis is placed on a previously neglected group, a new balance may need to be struck, but the original decision to address the needs of that group was a properly ethical choice. It shouldn't be dismissed as ideology.

Researchers should not quit the public research sphere in fits of pique. Rather, they should work with those who make funding policy, explaining the corrections they envisage. There has to be a dialogue involving researchers and representatives of the most urgent needs of all the population. Working out the proper relationship between the perspectives of the research community and the hopes of those who are currently experiencing difficulties is a complex business. It requires a painstaking process of ethical inquiry.

Much of my work during the past 30 years has attempted to develop a model for how that inquiry might go, and I'll be delighted to say more about that today, because I think that is the real, deep and difficult problem.

Thank you.

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