Autonomous

by Annalee Newitz

Bots, who cost money, required a period of indenture to make their manufacture worthwhile. No such incentive was required for humans to make other humans.

Nothing made her want to strip a man naked more than knowing he had good ideas

She wasn’t sure which motivation made better fuel for innovation: naïve but ethical beliefs, or the need to survive.

Over a century ago, scientists first began to argue that the patent system and scientific data should be opened up. Back then, it was popular for conservatives to claim that putting geneng into the hands of the public would result in mega-viruses or total species collapse. Open data would be the gateway to a runaway synthetic biology apocalypse. But now we know there has been no one great disaster—only the slow-motion disaster of capitalism converting every living thing and idea into property.

The key to autonomy, she realized, was more than root access on the programs that shaped her desires. It was a sense of privacy.