In the years following FDA approval of direct-to-consumer, genetic-health-risk/DTCGHR testing, millions of people in the US have sent their DNA to companies to receive personal genome health risk information without physician or other learned medical professional involvement. In Personal Genome Medicine, Michael J. Malinowski examines the ethical, legal, and social implications of this development. Drawing from the past and present of medicine in the US, Malinowski applies law, policy, public and private sector practices, and governing norms to analyze the commercial personal genome sequencing and testing sectors and to assess their impact on the future of US medicine. Written in relatable and accessible language, the book also proposes regulatory reforms for government and medical professionals that will enable technological advancements while maintaining personal and public health standards.

As the preceding chapters demonstrate, existing norms, suitably interpreted, are able to deal with many of the challenges presented by AI. But not all. This chapter begins with a survey of guides, frameworks, and principles put forward by states, industry, and intergovernmental organizations. These diverse efforts have led to a broad consensus on half a dozen norms that might govern AI. Far less energy has gone into determining how these might be implemented – or if they are even necessary. Rather than contribute to norm proliferation, the chapter focuses on why regulation is necessary, when regulatory changes should be made, and how it would work in practice. Two specific areas for law reform address the weaponization and the victimization of AI. Regulations aimed at general AI are particularly difficult in that they confront many ‘unknown unknowns’, but uncontrollable or uncontainable AI could pose a threat far more serious than lethal autonomous weapon systems. Additionally, however, there will be a need to prohibit some conduct in which increasingly lifelike machines are the victims – comparable, perhaps, to animal cruelty laws.

Greenhouse gas emissions abatement, negative emissions technologies, and adaptation are not, and most likely will not, be enough to prevent dangerous climate change and its deleterious impacts on humans, other species, and ecosystems. Some scientists and others are increasingly considering and researching solar geoengineering, which would reflect or block some of the sun's incoming solar radiation, as a potential complementary response. This introductory chapter offers an initial explanation of climate change and solar geoengineering, including its leading proposed techniques of stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, and cirrus cloud thinning. Solar geoengineering should be taken seriously, as its governance is both important and challenging. Among the major challenges is that solar geoengineering presents a high-stakes risk-risk tradeoff under conditions of great uncertainty. Another is that although earlier governance can be more effective, little is then known of such an emerging technology’s salient characteristics. The chapter outlines the topics covered by the remainder of the book and makes the author’s prior assumptions explicit.