Ethical and Societal Implications of Advances in Militarily Significant Technologies that are Rapidly Changing and Increasingly Globally Accessible

The National Academies will develop a consensus report on the topic of ethical, legal, and societal issues relating to research on, development, and use of increasingly globally accessible and rapidly-changing technologies with potential military application, such as information technologies, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology. This report will articulate a framework for policy makers, institutions, and individual researchers to think about such issues as they relate to these technologies of military relevance and to the extent feasible make recommendations for how each of these groups should approach these considerations in their research activities. A workshop to be held as early as practical in the study would be convened to obtain perspectives and foster discussion on these matters. A final report would be issued within 21 months of the project start providing the National Research Council's findings and recommendations. For more information see the National Academies project webpage.