 Thank you all it was fascinating and for our next panel we're going to be discussing the promise and peril of human enhancement and Our moderator will be Lawrence Carter long who is the public affairs specialist at the National Council on disability Good afternoon I want to say thanks first of all to future tents and Arizona State University, New America and slate.com for hosting this and another big Thanks to Reagan Beshear who's the director of the film fixed Which kind of brought us all here right the science fiction of human enhancement Which sets the context for this conversation? As she said that our panel was going to be clear about the promise and peril of human enhancement What we just talked about was engineering ability Maybe a little bit more of the promise But with every cost there's also a consequence So what we're going to be talking about is how new robotics and Neuro technologies are likely to affect the lives of people with disabilities I'm going to start off by talking to Gregor Wolbring using some technology via Skype Gregor is an associate professor at the University of Calgary. He is an ability these studies scholar An activist who specializes in the social ethical legal cultural and governance issues of new and emerging Converging sciences and technologies and the impact of those Gregor Lawrence I'm fine So I think we'll kick it off. I'm gonna see if I can move can I move this at all so I can kind of see Gregor today That's the best way to do this It's never an event without a little bit of a Switch over okay, that's good. Is this work for everybody there? All right I also want to let folks know I know that this event is streaming over the internet and there have been some questions about Captioning and such that the event will be posted later with captions for everyone. So I want to let people know that Okay, Gregor Let's get the ball rolling. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay, let's do it So let's start off maybe for the folks who don't know some might have heard of Disabilities studies, but what the heck are ability studies and I'm curious to know How does this new tech shift commonly held notions of abled and disabled or does it? Okay, now ability studies is a fairly new field That's why very few people have heard of it and it's really about Looking into how ability expectations Hierarchies and preferences come to pass and the impact of such hierarchies and preferences on human human human animal and human nature Relationships right when you really look at your daily life Everyone has all kind of ability expectations like I have to be able to drive with my car to work or and we can go on and on and on with that So countries also have ability expectations like they want to be more competitive Right against someone else some other country. So expectations of right ability expectation can have positive Enablement and ableism and negative consequences Disablement and disablism to give you three examples for each. Let's start with the negative ones ableism was coined as a term by the disability rights community To simply highlight that we expect from people certain species typical functioning with a body And if you don't do that, you're labeled as impaired and you expand certain negative consequences social reactions like the disablism But we can talk about the Sufra getten movement and the women's right right fight for vote male decided That rationality is an important ability male decided at the same time that women are irrational and then they're told them therefore you can't vote Right, or I think many people will remember the book bell curve Right, we like cognitive abilities and we use cognitive abilities and the difference is so-called differences between Ethnic groups then to justify certain policies. So in essence ability expectation of cognition is linked to racism Now three positive examples Sustainable development was put forward by some as an alternative positive ability expectation How human engage with a natural environment and to rein in the as negative perceived ability expectation of uncontrolled consumption of natural resources The proponents of the capability approach develop lists of abilities They think have positive consequences if implemented and then sustaining a democracy is seen in need of certain abilities Exhibited by their citizens. So from there you can see that ability studies allows me to look really beyond Right the obvious of certain product appearing and beyond looking at just access Which is banned anyway because it's everywhere the lack of access. So That's why I set up in 2008 the ability studies and we worked on it Right quite a few scholars now to really go beyond and the dynamics of ability expectation and the governance of it Now to the second part of your question around able to disable I want to give you the two examples one is actually how Sputnik led to learning disability No, many might not think why would Sputnik be linked to it? So when the Satellite Sputnik went up into orbit People felt that I mean right the Americans would lose out in the space and and all the issues attached to it So actually the requirements in schools were changed because they felt obviously something is missing here how could someone else go first with the satellite into orbit and When as the requirement in school changed all by sudden a new group of students who were up to then labeled as normal right where all by sudden not able to cut it anymore and Then they generated in 1963 a new label called learning disability linked it to biological Problem and then said okay, my kids simply can't quite cut it because it has a learning disability so there's actually a linkage of increasing a label and Generating a new label of impairment Link to a technology which had per se nothing to do with the person But simply was based on that there were certain ability expectation being staying competitive security and all kind of issues now as to the panel part The ability expectation of species typical and that's also the movie my little one-liner says is going out of the window because we can Increasingly modify the body whether through external tools or through internal tools eventually genetic modification Which means the ability is the body can do will eventually change In Reagan's film there is this one little piece where you see people in in business use racing on the tarmac And that's exactly where we are going. I think we're having a rat race of abilities and Then the people who can't cut it anymore Very likely will be labeled as the new impaired the same kind of dynamic as what learn to let to the learning disability and So you talked a lot about cultural preferences, which might be another way of saying prejudices right or expectations that people might have and Those come down. I think often to what stories were told, right? What is normal? What is enhanced? What's the big bag of expectations that we carry around with us when using those words? To your mind when discussing these issues when writing about these issues as you've done as a scholar and indeed living them What kind of stories are we told? Well, I mean we just a study for example how the media portray by your necks And we found that there are quite a few Well who's selling the negative imagery of confined to the wheelchair in order to sell the by your necks because now you can walk And you don't have to be confined so we see increasingly actually narratives of hierarchies of Worthiness of assistive devices, which is of course problematic. It's the same with the exoskeleton They are often juxtaposed to you sitting in a wheelchair and now you can get up and you can walk could easily could have put Them into a normal chair like a kitchen chair right and nothing to do with wheelchairs Right, so we see that a lot We also see and it's quite interesting the Braemchand interface is the prime example for that The invasive version is so it under the label of patient and that was also the example in Reagan's movie But when you go to neuro gadget comm there are many Non-invasive application by now for brain machine brain computer interfaces and there of course no one is labeled as Impaired right or as a patient because they want to sort control Warcraft right, so we see actually a writer a Split of how we sell and how we image in essence a person whether it's right with how we put forward the technology It's quite interesting this non-invasive invasive one because the new fit council of bioethics in the okay One's actually to put every neuro interventions under whether it's in invasive or not under in essence a health portfolio, so everything Everything would fall under the FDA Why don't you give us that last sentence again, I think you cut out for just a second, okay? The new food council of bioethics once every neuro intervention whether it's invasive or not to be run under a medical Intervention because they all have some kind of implications and that means everything would fall under the FDA So that will have some consequences also how right I mean then in order to get products and deal with them Right who is then seen as medical who is not so it's another thing about labeling, right? so One of the things we often hear right it is that new robotics new technologies are likely to level the playing field for people with disabilities Do you think that's true? Why are why not? Well, I mean my answer is banned from the from Right. No, it won't do it and there's no such thing I mean the only way it would be really do it at everyone else. I mean access to every technology, so a We don't get rid of impairments because this needs all kind of different technologies Right only be on it would not work for me in order for me to give me a bionic leg You would have to amputate my feet because I'm a salidomite person, so I'm not an amputee, right? So it's all kind of things Right and we would also would need a right whole list right whole access, which of course is also not not true And right you wouldn't have to get rid of a negative rights framework, which means you can't stop me But I have no obligation to make sure you get the same opportunities So on that level whether we get rid of impairment right with technologies No, and I should say I use of course technologies, right? I'm one of the lucky ones I can use computers and so on and so they make me much more Able than otherwise would be in my academic work, but certain things would not work for me, right? That's why I still call at home is so much more fun The second part of you have also have to say about when you talk about does it playing field is about the social part Right, I mean it doesn't get rid of impairment But also it doesn't get rid really of the social discrimination. So really the disablement, right? I mean we have technologies for a long time, right? It's just we getting more but for example 84% of Americans with disabilities, right are not in the workforce Right, that's a January 2015 number 84% don't look for work or unemployed And that number actually hasn't changed since 1901 we just study and found the numbers right all the way back in the New York Times And so right so the employment hasn't changed the income really hasn't changed So all kind of things technology by itself can't do it so If technology can't do it we've got a social cost right there social structures that are still in place What would you like to see brought into? Conversations like these that we don't often hear about what do you think is left out? Well, I think and that's as unfortunately with science We are going and of course that comes my background also as a biochemist We have to over promise in order to even be heard to be flashy and I think in the last panel said I think the same thing That's the problem Right and technology can never fix social problems Right, it's just if the society is inherently set up in a way that it's inequitable Right and doesn't want to write really where everyone is responsible for for everyone where you don't have a social contract The technology itself won't do stuff It's so it has to be much more talk around where we're going it also has to be really about Which abilities do we really cherish? I mean if competitiveness is what drives one? As a structure then this comes to a certain consequences, but if it's about I mean equity then You can do other things technology is a tool Right, but to technology can't fix social problems Right and I mean because the panel talks about right we I'm supposed to talk about robots Let me just do that Right We heard we hear a lot about robots Getting involved whether maybe some people would even sell the exoskeleton as a robot But we have by now service robots We have right industrial robots and we get social robots which are supposed to engage with people and they're all supposed also to help at least the service robot and the Social robot help right disabled people right But interestingly what no one is looking at is what jobs do these robots take over All right, and which like people with what ability differences might be not able to go for certain jobs because That is simply taken by the robot So there has to be more we hear a game and you look at the social robot literature is all about Yeah, it helps disabled people and that's where it stops. It doesn't talk about well if in Japan now the first I mean hotel run by robots is opened with jobs You won't be able to do anymore and so on so it's just to it stops at Technology right the salvation and that's simply I mean right where I think it has become much more differentiated Independent of the access part because that's indeed we hear this every single intervention in access is an issue, right? So I don't even want to go down the access part But I want really about what drives a certain I mean development what drives what is seen as social innovation and so on Wonderful. Thank you Gregor. I think our time is done. Thanks for joining us via Skype I'll catch you online. Yep. Thank you joining me for the second part of this discussion Will be Julia Bascom Julia is the director of programs at the autistic self-advocacy network Where she focuses on technical assistance for self-advocates and state-level policy advocacy efforts Thanks for doing that. She also writes about autistic identity community and language disability rights theory versus practice and autism acceptance To the far right here from my right now, we'll have also have Teresa Blankmeyer Burke Teresa is an assistant professor of philosophy at Gallaudet University her work focuses on the space where philosophy intersects with depth studies Including the moral justification regarding the use of genetic technology to bear deaf children and sign language interpreting ethics So I'm going to give them a second to get folks tapped into the mics. I think I'll take the seats there in the middle Thank you, thank you Appreciate you joining us. So I've got a question You know, there's a lot of things here basically leading in from what Gregor had to say right, there's Barriers to access That often don't get discussed Except maybe in a nebulous sort of way could be money Could be education could be privilege I'm curious to know if you get to the heart. I think of Reagan's film one of the things that's really beautiful about it. Is it essentially asked the question of the audience? What exactly needs to be fixed? How would either of you answer that question, okay, I think it's a It's a complicated question I mean there There are obviously things which cause people pain When I broke my ankle over the summer I was really glad that we knew how to fix that that we had the technology to handle that I mean at the same time I've lived my whole life with a brain that works very differently for most people's and That's never struck me as something that's needed to be fixed when I think about the The finite pool we have of research dollars and Political will and policy changes that can be made And I think about you know, even just with my disability and I think about the the choices we have to make between Creating another mouse model that might eventually Tell us what gene causes some cases of autism and then to do what with that Versus having some funding to enable friends. I have who are 30 years old and who can't talk But who can type and enabling them to have a voice in their own lives. The choice seems pretty clear to me One of the things that was very interesting about the film fixed Was I think this was patty was talking about a lot of these technologies are very interesting and they're very exciting But there are still places all over the world where people don't even have access to wheelchairs And what what sort of ethical decision are you supposed to make based on that information? Theresa what would you add you're gonna voice? Thank you for the question There's two things that I would add to that first of all. I like how the movie really Connected some of the assumptions that that we make in terms of questioning what needs to be fixed In that there's an assumption that something's broken Who's broken what needs to be fixed or repaired? And I think I'd like to reinforce Gregor's point about a social attitude here And I think that we need to start there If ask ourselves, what does it mean to have human flourishing? Can I expand off of that point and human flourishing, you know One would think maybe that disability would be some sort of disadvantage Flourishing is a whole deal. I got loud flourishing looks at it from another angle, right? It's how can one prosper? How can one be the best? Yeah And I think also what we see with a lot of conversations around exciting new technologies is The potential for these technologies to let us get away with our biases and our fears about disability For example, the SSI discussion that happened on the panel earlier. Sorry the SSDI discussion Social Security Discussion, sorry that was happening on the previous panel was interesting and it was also Really alarming to me as someone who's working at a state level and working on with all these people Disabilities who want to work but who are systematically prevented from working due to asset limitations Due to income limitations due to employers who won't provide accommodations or who don't know how to provide accommodations Or who simply aren't willing to hire someone who doesn't make eye contact who uses a wheelchair and who therefore are shut out of work And we've been trying to fix that problem And would you say that that's more of a Aspect of prejudice and an aspect of policy I would and I would say that we've been trying to solve that problem since Social Security has existed And the idea that what's ultimately that the that the that the policy proposal that might get momentum is funding devices for people To to normalize them as opposed to breaking down these systemic structural barriers is Alarming and also I think to be expected given society's current attitudes towards disability Let's let's talk a little bit about that tendency. I think you know There is a tendency and it's very easy. It happens with me too to get sort of enamored with the gee-wiz aspects of technology right when you've got someone who's a Paraplegic who's suddenly walking and Kicking a soccer ball when you've got somebody that's moving a bionic arm as was talked about earlier But let's go into the background of those anecdotes beyond the public interest story beyond the headline it took more than a hundred and fifty scientists and cost the Brazilian government $14 million and I don't know if that's Brazilian money or US money But that's the number I could nail down Over the course of over two years to create the exoskeleton that was used in the world cup that often gets talked about now My question for you if we're looking at the promise, but indeed what the perils of technology might be How would you recommend using that kind of money? I think it's important to recognize that probably from the very beginning It wasn't really planned to spend 14 million dollars probably and it was probably a series of smaller decisions Starting with the idea of the project perhaps and then as they moved forward they realized that it would required more investment of resources and in the sunk cost decision-making or mentality and So they were at a point where they needed to continue right at the same time I Think we should Look at our cognitive biases about social attitudes also social barriers and institutions that are in place Even things like actually let me back up just a little bit From research that we've conducted on gender and race We know that people have Implicit biases we know this so Even if we were to change society's institutions and we were to break down racial barriers We would still be left with some challenges in dealing with those more hidden biases So when we ask how best to spend money, you know, the answer is so very complicated And one needs to look at the whole process from the beginning how it moved through and to the end I think that's really thorough and I also think We need to be thinking about you know every every decision impacts some people and impacts different people differently We need to be thinking about who's left out. I think Gregor had a really good point That for every exciting new technology we develop They're gonna be people who for a myriad of reasons can't use it or don't have access to it And and the panel before us also cover that in a lot of detail But what I'm interested in is the social expectations that start to arise as a result of that Regardless of people's ability to actually take advantage. I don't think we're in a world right now where it's an expectation that every Paraplegic person can use a rewok But I could see that happening very easily And so you would would you see a bias maybe you theoretically speaking where someone would say well Why do you want a wheelchair we could give you this? Yes, but I'm also what does that do to access to the concept of access If our focus is on enabling everyone to be able to walk up a flight of stairs for example Or for my community if our focus is on enabling everyone to make eye contact Then what happens to those of us who are never going to be able to do that or for whom the technologies aren't present or Aren't paid for or what have you so those people who are left behind right what and what does that do to the The rights we've spent decades fighting for and are barely even halfway to achieving So in that regard Some would say I know one of the quotes the creators of the exoskeleton said We hope that one day the suit will be able to help make the wheelchair obsolete And so I was wondering about that divide between the ideal and the real and I was wondering what you thought about that Do you think that's a practical goal? Is it advisable? Is it wishful thinking? Thinking from your perspectives are those kind of goals you could say it about anything you could say it about blindness You could say it about being deaf Do you find that go exciting? problematic or a little bit of both well Again a complicated situation. I think what's really important to look at and or recognize is Having the conversation with disabled people themselves And if you ask them about their preferences around whether they be in a wheelchair, and I don't know how to sign exoskeleton but Even with all the resources available Asking them what are their preferences? Would you prefer a wheelchair as an example? And my own personal experience. I have the ability to sign. I have a connection with the deaf community and signing however There are times When I can also talk and talk to my friends. I don't know if this lapel is Connected right now, but I have the ability to move between those communities and those languages So the technology is not fixed We wouldn't want it to be fixed so that you would force to pick one or the other I'm actually gonna model my own assistive technology because I wrote down my answer this I have some memory problems associated with my disability, and so I use my iPhone to remember everything Many people many people. I feel like most people don't have to read from their front to answer a panel question And I think I think the answer falls into spectrum You know at the very beginning of the trailer they were talking about, you know, like legs that could make you really pass I could make you fly that would be awesome. That would be really cool That would be enhancement of any, you know baseline human thing. That's fascinating And then you know my iPhone for my memory is helpful what I want as an implant or a pill I could take I don't know I really like the fact that I can decide when to use my phone and when to rely on other methods or what have you Pain meds are great if you have like I have chronic pain, and I'm really grateful that we have something for that so there are things where It might not even be a question of fixing but a question of accommodating or what have you and I can see Arguments for that and I can see arguments for fixing things that that hurt but at the same time if I'm Treating or masking my autism. I'm not doing that for myself I'm doing that for the comfort of people around me, and I think that's the kind of question We need to be thinking about I think it depends on a variety of contextual factors and I know a lot of people are inclined to say, you know, well you can talk So that's why you have this opinion about your disability, but I gotta say we have board members I have friends I have colleagues who also don't talk with who can type or who can sign or who can do you know a variety of different ways of communicating and in my community at least with this disability people tend to feel the same way people Really tend to feel that this is not something they want fixed and that surprises a lot of people from outside the community And it surprises a lot of non-disabled people and so I think when we as a society have those conversations The most important thing we can know is how much we don't know. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, I think so Yeah, I'd like to add to that. I think your point about pain and suffering is really critical. I think sometimes people Invision getting rid of or eradicating disability and they're not really understanding or they think it's about pain and suffering and They don't understand that sometimes a disability is non-experience of pain and suffering and sometimes physical pain is Really a social pain and So they're both of those issues there. I also think that perhaps that we need to Question the concept of disability itself What counts who counts is having glasses a disability if your brain works a little differently Or do you have a disability if you're colorblind? Do you have a disability if You see a dress is a different color than somebody else does black and white versus white and gold Where do we draw the line that's the question and can I can I Complicate some of the stuff we're talking about with pain as well like um, you know Pain is a huge part of my experience of autism, you know, if I was in charge of the world vacuum cleaners would be a lot quieter So there's pain that's caused by society not being designed for people like me for things being too loud or too bright Or what have you and then there's also pain that's just associated with with the disability I have with being able to be overloaded by very simple things and what I always come back to is that even the pain That's not a social experience even the pain that can't be fixed Through accommodations For my disability in my case is one of many things about that disability and it might not necessarily Make sense when I'm looking at the whole equation and the sum of everything About it to decide that since there is some pain or some suffering you got to get rid of the whole thing, you know Right and depends upon the context too if you're blind for example when the power goes out you might be just fine When the rest of the world is trying to figure out how to get around So I want to make sure the audience has an opportunity to ask their questions Is there anyone out there who has something they'd like to ask I? Saw your hand first there in the second row Hi, thank you for for coming Okay, I'll just sit down again. Yeah, so so I know you guys are talking about sort of the The pain threshold for the people within the community as opposed to the people without outside of the community And I'm I guess I wanted to know what sort of ethical issues. Do you guys see? when this comes to a question of employment to where Perhaps in order to stay employed a force a person is first forced into a decision of of Perhaps eliminating an impairment that is not Unimperiment which brings up all sorts of other like social pains and things and Re-acclimating themselves to that life So bioethicists have a name for that kind of question or conundrum the idea of elective disability so if you have a situation and For several reasons you're benefiting if you eliminate the disability or you add technology or you reduce the disability Then there's a question about authenticity And your ability to be and remain your authentic self. I'm a philosopher, so We're great at asking questions and not so great at answering them And it'd be happy to help you to more questions if you like I'm not entirely sure if I understood the question, so I'm sorry if I go off in a direction you didn't intend But my impression of your question is you're asking about You know situations where There's just not an employer who's willing to employ you with a given disability in order to get employment you have to change or mask or Overcompensate for various factors of disability and I mean that's that's a lot of the work We do is saying that that's not an acceptable situation that there are certain laws. There are certain rights, and there are ways To enable virtually anyone to do virtually any job they want to do and we should be focusing on breaking down those barriers I Think Gregor had a really good quote earlier when he said that um Technology can't fix a societal problem And that's what I would say and I would also add that that's already happening You know if you've got a situation where let's say you've been doing manual labor for 20 years That's your skill set and that's your career and your you have some accident or your knee goes out because of age or whatever it might be You can't do that same type of labor anymore. You're then released from your job You know disability is to the best of my knowledge the only minority that anybody can join in an instant Right, and so you see those kinds of things happening either by accident people coming back from wars Aging whatever it might be they're faced with those conditions. They're faced with those situations all the time So I think it goes back to what Gregor said that becomes more of a social issue more of a social problem than one of technology other questions Yes Dave Ochster research Institute for independent living on this question is about technology and civil rights back in 1971 before 71 Kids with disabilities were excluded from schools The argument was that they can't learn so they shouldn't be in school But the court ruled they should be in school because if you use the best technology they could learn So, you know, my question is Are there initiatives where you can give rights to people with disabilities based on technology? I'm not sure I'm understanding your question completely I think one of the challenges is about limited resources and And figuring out how to allocate What's available and of course society makes some decisions and sometimes those resources are used for other things besides disabilities and Let's say a child doesn't have an opportunity or access to the technology that would then allow them to access education Yeah, that feels like a rights issue now when I was working in New Mexico and I was working with some deaf and hard of hearing people there and We had this one situation take place where a deaf child actually was a hard of hearing child Had hearing aids at school And this particular child wanted to bring them home and was disallowed Because the hearing aids were the property of the school So when the child went to school They had access but that access was gone when they went home and they had difficulty Communicating with their family parents and friends That's a technology issue related to rights to human rights And we also see that in a lot of school districts where a student doesn't speak that they have an iPad or a speech-generating device or what have you? And either they can't take it home or maybe they get to take it home But then they turn 21 and they exit the school system and they lose the device And they have no voice anymore Um When you were when you were first setting up your question one of the things I was thinking of Was how this is actually it ties in really well with a lot of the stuff we've been talking about with technology because If you think about intellectual disability Before IDEA passed there was no right To attend school. There was no right to receive an education and it was presumed Therefore that one of the definitions one of the diagnostic traits for intellectual disability was that you couldn't learn And now over the past 40 or so years we've learned a lot And we've seen that with the right accommodations and the right supports people with intellectual disabilities are able to learn Are able to participate in the classroom are able to do more than we ever thought possible So that's happening on one hand and a lot of the success there Especially an inclusive education can be attributed to various accommodations various forms of assistive technology Um You know being able to have notes with you being able to use a calculator Being able to have the computer read the text to you so you don't have to read it all that kind of thing And that's been a huge success and that's a big part of of my life of a lot of people I know lives and now we're at a point where We're still trying to develop Drugs to treat memory to treat attention Specifically targeted at people with intellectual disabilities, and that's an interesting question Is that going to become a part of someone's IEP someday? You know I talked about how I have almost all of my memories On my smartphone, and I know other people you know write everything down so they can remember what they did that day or what have you and It what what happens when someone's more comfortable making that choice and having their memory Supported through that method But everybody else Is more comfortable or is participating more heavily in a pharmaceutical option Do our choices then become more limited you know through through social pressure through what insurance companies will reimburse It's a complicated question And I wouldn't say And I think I think it's all part of that same continuum though You know there's not a clear point where you go from well, this is just accommodating to this is fundamentally altering It's it's a whole it's all part of the same thing and you can see how that ripples out throughout society I mean it was disabled people who sued to get curb cuts put in sidewalks Which then later benefited people with baby carriages and pretzel vendors and suitcases You know so you don't often know you don't always know what the benefits will be to everybody You know people who wanted Netflix to provide captions So that they could enjoy the films along with everybody else had to sue for that to occur the technology However existed so the courts determined that yes They had to provide it that that was reasonable and it helps me when I can't understand the Scottish accent that I'm watching So, you know, I think all of those things are questions that we don't always think about as well as how that ripple effect ripple effect might benefit Everyone I see our time is is done. So I'm gonna I gotta unless One couple more. Okay, they're saying let's go for it. So let's Yeah, a couple more questions. Hi, my name is Sean Gray I guess the question that I actually have is do you think it would be beneficial if we on a mainstream level kind of Sort of push the idea that there may never be a cure for disability the idea that like disability can't be cured I feel like if we're sort of okay with that it would allow for the social implications part the social idea of disability being painful, maybe that might actually Be better like it could be better if we actually just admit to ourselves that maybe disability can't be cured and maybe it shouldn't be cured Yeah, I think that that needs to be a Fundamental part of the conversation because otherwise we have conversations that don't map to reality very well It's it's pretty well understood by a lot of philosophers and policymakers and advocates dealing with disability that disability is Socially constructed like you might have a baseline Medical condition or difference in ability or what have you but then people's reactions to that and society's Systems built around that make make you disabled And so what will happen is we might be able to fix some medical conditions We might be able to bring everyone's abilities to some certain baseline But then it just gets redefined who's left out of that. Okay now they're disabled I I've seen science fiction You know books and movies where we're no one's disabled and that's just not realistic there will be some new form of space Paralysis there will be some new thing where someone can't access the implant or the what-have-you and now they're functionally disabled by that And I think if we had that element present in the conversation We'd be able to have conversations that are just more tethered to reality more about What what technology do people want what technology do people need how do we spend these resources? What is disability actually about? Well said Yeah, if you went One more. I think you get the final question. Yeah, my question is this is the 25th year anniversary of ADA the American with Disabilities Act and I was just curious How we see things going forward what we want to celebrate what what we would change That's what I'd like to hear the panelists talk about I'd like to see a lot more conversation about disabilities and our social attitudes and responses to disabilities You know to see whether things how things have changed if they've changed we and also In speaking of celebrating I'd like to see celebrations of diversity within the disability community and conversation For me, I'm a member of what's called the ADA generation I've never gone to school or had to be an adult and live on my own in a world without the ADA So I've grown up with a certain baseline assumption of rights Which means that I've also grown up noticing a lot of places where I'm supposed to have rights But their gaps or things fall short or implementation still after 25 years Hasn't caught up with what it's supposed to be So I'd like to see some conversations around that I Think that kind of complements each other and I think I would just add that Often people assume that disability means no ability whatsoever that but it actually if you look at the prefects It's gonna be a word nerd for a minute. It's apart from So it sort of gives you a different definition of what ability is it might be ability outside of what one considers to be ability What I'd like to see is more of a recognition of that So instead of asking the question or maybe in addition to asking the question will technology help us end disability? Maybe the question could be as a follow-up to that if we quote-unquote end disability What do we gain and what do we lose as a result of that? You know, there's a certain certain skill set that people with disabilities kind of learn Through being in a world adapting to a world that wasn't built with them in mind That didn't consider them during the planning and I think if those things were acknowledged if those skills were valued if those things were Incorporated like the curb cut example that I brought up earlier. We'd all be better off So I think that's it I just wanted to for folks who haven't seen the film to go back to what got us here today The website is fixed the movie calm. That's fixed the movie calm I know they're doing a push to make the film PBS ready so that more people can access it You can find out about that on the website again I want to thank the folks at future tents and Arizona State University new America and slate comm for having this conversation Thank you