Piecemeal policy making is no way to address planetary level challenges. At the rate that we're evolving, however, we won't have an effective regulator of human activities in time to keep our species from extincting itself. Without some level of planning, advances in one realm that might be highly desireable can still lead to offshoots elsewhere that, acting alone or in concert with other cutting edge science, or even seemingly mundane but poorly understood phenomena, can lead to adverse reactions of every conceivable type and magnitude. And the fact is that the less we think about things first the more likely mankind is to get smacked upside the head with something ugly.
Technology can be both wonderful and deadly and we need a better "traffic cop" to sort through possible outcomes than some lame "invisible hand".