> There were executives in expensive suits, young men and women looking unaccountably dressy in ripped jeans and, according to James, a disconcerting number of people wearing hats.
Can anyone explain the significance of the hats to me?
I'm not nearly that old yet wearing a hat indoors really seems bizarre (although not rude) to me. But so does wearing clothes closely resembling what many others are wearing. E.g. whenever I see a group of people wearing suits I find that funny.
Yes. Why is that even a question? Bans on tools have only ever delayed progress and caused misery.
Besides, we've been genetically alternating species for tens of thousands of years. Understanding the essential similarity of selective breeding and genetic modification is table stakes for having a serious and informed opinion about this technology.
you seem to have gotten negative feedback, but I agree with your sentiment.
It is kind of silly to think we are "altering" species. We would be creating new species or breeds using existing ones as a template. Unless there is some agenda I am unaware of to go out and kill all existing members of a species after we create our own version of it?
If nothing else, isolate the artificial species into controlled habitats. I know a primary use-case often discussed is regarding mosquitoes where that wouldnt be the case.. but imagine editing the genetics of zoo animals so that they are much more easily acclimated to zoo life. Less negative effects of poor temperature control, a broader dietary selection, reduced reaction times for dangerous animals. And there is no risk of environmental impact since they are in isolated enirovments
As mentioned in the NYTimes article, a gene drive is more than simply introducing organisms with new traits into a population. It also codes for cellular machinery so that if the gene appears in one copy of a chromosome, it will splice itself into the other chromosome.
In other words, if an organism inherits one copy of the altered gene from either of its parents, nearly all of its descendants will also carry it. Which means that even a trait that is fairly detrimental to the organism's survival can spread through the population, in violation of what natural selection would predict. So, yes, we can "alter" a species.
You are not emphasizing the descendants part enough. It still requires existing members of the species to propagate the gene with natural breeding, same as 'natural' genetic mutations. So if it is a gene detrimental to survival, it can still very easily die off. Which is not in violation of what natural selection would predict.
>Bans on tools have only ever delayed progress and caused misery.
It really depends on the "tool"; arguably a great many atrocious weapons are tools, yet it's hard for me to see nuclear disarmament as anything but progress. Technology is not neutral, it is informed by concerns and developments outside of its own instrumental purposes. In the same way that recent (last century or so) tools/technology have brought massive improvements to the lives of everyone, the same way they bring massive improvement is the way that other tools (or even the same ones) bring massive regression.
As for this particular technology, I don't know enough about it to comment - only to say that in general a variety of different concerns should be involved in its design and evaluation - from scientists to ethicists.
> it's hard for me to see nuclear disarmament as anything but progress
Nuclear armament is progress. Without nuclear weapons, we would have had many more WWII-style large-scale industrial total wars, probably with cumulative causalities in the hundreds of millions. You don't need nuclear weapons to kill lots of people. Nuclear weapons have made large scale total war impractical, which means it doesn't happen anymore. Nuclear disarmament would be a disaster, and wishing for it is naive.
Haven't we been trying to genetically alter entire species to wipe them out already? I thought the plan was to make mosquitoes genetically sterile or infertile and wipe them out forever?
They tried it this year, and surprise surprise, not all of the ones that were supposed to die actually died, (or didn't become sick enough to become sterile) resulting in some "artificial" DNA now wild in the breeding gene pool. It was supposed to be limited to sterile males or fathers that could only offspring sterile males.
Actual impact TBD. But population did decrease significantly for months.
Not tryna be flippant here but probably not. See comment history for other arguments ive made on this.
I am incredibly skeptical that the engineering ethics / practices of any organization currently in existence adequately surpass the requirement for large scale genetic editing.
Im not against the idea in the abstract, but we live in a world full of fragile, profit-motivated institutions that are oft to skimp on engineering best practice and ethics in the pursuit of profit.
Something like NASA circa 1970 maybe could but they arguably had their own problems with ethics re: Wernher von Braun, aerospace engineer responsible for great contributions to the US Atlas V rocket system and the Nazi V2.
In regards to all that and the content of the article using malaria and mosquito editing as a potential argument to do this, consider also that mosqutios are a critical base source of food for many species. Unintended long term consequences are the name of the game when it comes to thinking about if we should do this.
Please don't make the mistake of assuming that pursuit of profit is the only reason for an institution to skimp on best practices. Or rather, please don't assume that non-profit institutions (and governments) can automatically be trusted to follow best practices because their motives are pure. They're no more immune to bureaucratic infighting, external pressure, and general human weakness than any company. (And remember, while NASA does incredible work, the actual hardware is mostly built by for-profit defense contractors... for better and for worse.)
That said, is anyone actually suggesting that for-profit companies should undertake gene drives on their own? Because my assumption was that any such decision would have to be made by governments, regardless of who actually does the work.
Gene drives with the current method is way too sloppy.
What happens when the gene in the gene drive is corrupted.. it only has to happen in one sex cell and it will spread through the population. Then you you have two competing gene drives.
I wonder if there ever will be completely artificial birth with modified genome to mass produce voluntarily slaves since their brain is altered to feel buoyant from slaving for the corporate overlords.
Would that be unethical?
Should you stop someone from slavery if they perceive it as better?
Wouldn't you impose your own will if you did that?
What if they feel pain from not slaving away?
Since it's from scratch and you can make them infertile or fertile with only similar people, what other reasons are there for you to not do that?
I think about it all the time. Love my beagle, but I've concluded that the ownership of an animal is unethical. I'm not exactly doing anything about that because I simultaneously hold the usual line of thinking (despite the obvious conflict) that hey, he gets treated better by me than nature would probably treat him.
I feel fairly uneasy about my ownership of my cat. I live alone (besides the cat) and am probably gone 12/16 waking hours per day and obviously asleep the other 8. During the remaining 4, I’m probably cooking, showering, or recreating (not involving the cat). Add all this up and the cat probably gets about 5-10 min of attention from me each day. That’s the entirety of her interaction with any other living thing. Day in, day out.
I’m not an expert but my guess is that that feelings of boredom/loneliness that humans feel are relatively primal and experienced similarly (at some level) in most other mammals. If that’s true at all, it comes to a rough life for domesticated cats.
That’s ignoring the fact that cats usually have large territories that they patrol in the wild while my apartment is 700 sqft as well :\",
Or they might fear the robotic take-over and prefer genetically engineered workers.
In any case, DNA looks like a cryptographic code to me. It grew and grew for millions of years and cracking that code without side effects seems similar to cracking a strong cryptographic code. That being said I actually don’t possess any knowledge in this area, perhaps someone more knowledgable would chime-in on how close we are to genetically engineer organisms with well predictable side effects.
Well, 'robota' means 'labour' (see German 'Arbeit', it's the same word), 'rab' (slave) is just one of derivatives from it. Another is 'rebenok' (child, baby), so it's not such a sinister as it may seem from this article.
I think if something is made of electronics and material parts the ethics are different. It's be like asking if someone bashing their motorcycle is the same as someone bashing their horse.
And, while an interesting footnote for the English word robot, that in Slavic languages whence it's deriven it can refer to worker/servant/serf/slave is beside the point.
In TV show Westworld, early robots are mechanical, but later replaced by biological ones. Does it make torturing early models any less or more bad, considering that they behave the same?
It’s probably like eating animals. At one point there was little thought about it in terms of ethics for most civilizations, but then gradually things become fuzzy.
Although that being said, it’s interesting that definitions have such a huge impact. For example you can be an extreme vegan but also be okay with abortion (note I’m not anti abortion rights) just pointing out how a definition can affect human ethics among people who are very cautious about affecting living things.
But the difference is in reaction. We can emphasize with the horse because - (A) It can show that it's suffering. (B) You can't repair the horse perfectly yet if the damage is beyond certain level. (C) Other reasons for why we consider it living and unique.
If motorcycle is able to fullfil all of them, then what.
That is arguable. People pay higher price for human made products even if there are better automated counterparts at a cheaper price.
There's already a trend of putting AI and human produced product next to each other with later being highly priced emotionally manipulating some people into buying for the humane touch while others can go for cheaper ones.
Although, I am not sure about limitation androids will face like natural aging, growth, self healing, evolution?
Some of that may be cost prohibitive compared to a biological piece of ball.
> People will opt for the dependable, low maintenance ethics-free option.
I do not agree. Why do people still go to see live bands, when listening to a recording is orders of magnitude cheaper, and generally gives you better sound to boot?
My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?
Chairman Sheng-ji Yang
"Essays on Mind and Matter"
That game (Alpha Centauri) had an amazing number of insightful quotes, both from real individuals and from in-game individuals. That was one of those visionary games where so many things were artfully done.
More people need to read this book. It seems like a lot of people read 1984 in school but not so many read Brave New World! The two books are good companions for comparison with real world trends. Sometimes one seems more plausible than the other, and then it shifts back again.
Brave New World changed my entire outlook on consumerism and mass media. I recommend it to everyone!
It seems unethical if you do it by gene drive. But what if you add some natural randomness to the process and other desirable objectives. Imagine a dating service with a DNA database and you can match up people whose offspring could potentially be very subservient.
What if the full effect is expected after matching 5 generations of people?
What if the real goal is to create a fraction of people more attentive to minding about the environment and total blissful subservience is just a bi-product? For the good of the human race!
Well, people do enjoy being served by other human beings. I'm not making any moral judgment about that, just noting that it is a fact.
Compare the service in a fast food joint to the service in a four-star restaurant. Certainly, the fast food joint is cheaper, but price is not the only factor here. The same applies to seeing a live band compared to listening to a recording, or getting a manicure compared to just cutting your own nails, or... any number of things, up to and including sex work.
Dogs, cats, cows, horses, yeast, chickens, rice, wheat, corn, and sheep were fantastic successes. Humans have already designed and engineered literally thousands of organisms that are critical infrastructure for human civilization. So I think the answer is an unqualified "yes"; we absolutely should continue doing what we're already doing.
No real design or engineering was involved beyond having an idea of what we wanted and trying to select for that trait in breeding and offspring. We've just rolled the genetic dice repeatedly and selected the outcomes we preferred.
> we absolutely should continue doing what we're already doing.
This is very unlike what we have been doing, and it's hardly been an unqualified success - lots of traits we have selected for (eg what defines a particular dog breed) have come with real trade-offs (at least for the animals: arthritis and fits, respiratory conditions, uncontrolled drooling, eye infections, ...)
> We've just rolled the genetic dice repeatedly and selected the outcomes we preferred.
And? That's just a particular choice of tool. I do the same thing when I'm working on a particularly tough problem; I might try five or ten different approaches before finding one with the right combination of advantages and trade-offs.
> lots of traits we have selected for [...] have come with real trade-offs
It wasn't a choice, it was literally the only method we had available.
> I do the same thing when I'm working on a particularly tough problem; I might try five or ten different approaches before finding one with the right combination of advantages and trade-offs.
But I bet you don't do it by a process of natural selection, setting criteria and evolving solutions through an at-best semi-guided generally-black-box process that you don't really understand, and where you're only able to understand a portion of the full complexity of the results.
> That's engineering.
No, that's outcomes. Engineering would be understanding the tradeoffs in advance and choosing them with consideration of the outcomes. Not only do we not understand the tradeoffs in advance, we're also not able select them reliably. If we have that ability now via breeding (not that I'm aware of, but I'm no expert on breeding technology) then we've only had it for a very short time relative to how long we've been doing this.
> Engineering would be understanding the tradeoffs in advance and choosing them with consideration of the outcomes.
You're not giving enough credit to the people that designed domestic animal breeds. Modern working dog breeds were absolutely engineered for particular tasks; target characteristics were selected up-front, size and hair and temperament and so on, and dogs and breeds were chosen to start from and bred in predictable ways to increase the likelihood of obtaining the desired characteristics. Animal husbandry is only "random" in the same way that sports is: There's absolutely some variation in outcome in each individual game, but if you put a professional NFL team against even a college team there's not much doubt about the outcome of a best of five. Or it's random in the same way a loaded die is: individual trials may be random, but if you consistently use it for the important rolls you'll clean up.
Also, I'd just like to say that software engineers would be ecstatic if they had a reliable way to accurately predict the tradeoffs involved in many architectural choices.
By this logic, you should have no concerns with parents genetically modifying their children at conception, since it's something they've been doing already by their choice of mate. It's just a choice of tool.
I'm not sure why you say that like it's some kind of insult. Norman Borlaug and Ken Alibek used the same tools. Fertility clinics use the same tools you see in GATTACA and the same tools that will hopefully be used in the future to reduce the occurrence of cystic fibrosis and Huntington's to zero. So, yeah, it's not about the tools. It's about the goals.
I wonder if there is an ethical case for using gene drives to revitalize species that are going extinct due to climate, habitat loss, or other factors. It seems like some species are probably quite important to regional ecology but are under great pressure and face issues due to a dwindling gene pool. Perhaps we could in the not distant future give such species a small genetic boost as part of broader conservation efforts. I’m not sure though.
We've already done it albeit slowly with all the plants we eat. Also dogs.
I think the problem is not really ethical but simply that we don't really know the consequences an immediate change in the DNA would have. We programmers know that changes in complex projects rarely turn out as expected and nature is the most complex system in existence.
I certainly would have loved that my parents had altered my DNA to not need glasses and not have a skin of almost vampiric sun resistance. AFAIK DNA is not related to personality traits but if it is I would have also liked a couple of changes there too.
Gene drive is not the same as selective breeding or GMO. Gene drive is not the same as CRISPR. It's not just giving an organism a particular favorable trait and waiting for nature to take its course by spreading that trait throughout the population.
Gene drive involves artificially increasing the likelihood of transmission of a gene to offspring. One such theoretical technique (according to my layperson's understanding) is basically to use CRISPR to encode CRISPR into an organism's DNA, in a way that is self-perpetuating. Then the genetic modification will spread through the entire population regardless of whether it improves fitness.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 98.2 ms ] threadCan anyone explain the significance of the hats to me?
Besides, we've been genetically alternating species for tens of thousands of years. Understanding the essential similarity of selective breeding and genetic modification is table stakes for having a serious and informed opinion about this technology.
It is kind of silly to think we are "altering" species. We would be creating new species or breeds using existing ones as a template. Unless there is some agenda I am unaware of to go out and kill all existing members of a species after we create our own version of it?
If nothing else, isolate the artificial species into controlled habitats. I know a primary use-case often discussed is regarding mosquitoes where that wouldnt be the case.. but imagine editing the genetics of zoo animals so that they are much more easily acclimated to zoo life. Less negative effects of poor temperature control, a broader dietary selection, reduced reaction times for dangerous animals. And there is no risk of environmental impact since they are in isolated enirovments
In other words, if an organism inherits one copy of the altered gene from either of its parents, nearly all of its descendants will also carry it. Which means that even a trait that is fairly detrimental to the organism's survival can spread through the population, in violation of what natural selection would predict. So, yes, we can "alter" a species.
It really depends on the "tool"; arguably a great many atrocious weapons are tools, yet it's hard for me to see nuclear disarmament as anything but progress. Technology is not neutral, it is informed by concerns and developments outside of its own instrumental purposes. In the same way that recent (last century or so) tools/technology have brought massive improvements to the lives of everyone, the same way they bring massive improvement is the way that other tools (or even the same ones) bring massive regression.
As for this particular technology, I don't know enough about it to comment - only to say that in general a variety of different concerns should be involved in its design and evaluation - from scientists to ethicists.
Nuclear armament is progress. Without nuclear weapons, we would have had many more WWII-style large-scale industrial total wars, probably with cumulative causalities in the hundreds of millions. You don't need nuclear weapons to kill lots of people. Nuclear weapons have made large scale total war impractical, which means it doesn't happen anymore. Nuclear disarmament would be a disaster, and wishing for it is naive.
"Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11536074
But I suspect livestock, pets and humans would be the most likely candidates for "entire species genetic modification".
If we could genetically alter humans, pigs, etc to be resistent to the flu, wouldn't we do it?
Actual impact TBD. But population did decrease significantly for months.
I am incredibly skeptical that the engineering ethics / practices of any organization currently in existence adequately surpass the requirement for large scale genetic editing.
Im not against the idea in the abstract, but we live in a world full of fragile, profit-motivated institutions that are oft to skimp on engineering best practice and ethics in the pursuit of profit.
Something like NASA circa 1970 maybe could but they arguably had their own problems with ethics re: Wernher von Braun, aerospace engineer responsible for great contributions to the US Atlas V rocket system and the Nazi V2.
In regards to all that and the content of the article using malaria and mosquito editing as a potential argument to do this, consider also that mosqutios are a critical base source of food for many species. Unintended long term consequences are the name of the game when it comes to thinking about if we should do this.
That said, is anyone actually suggesting that for-profit companies should undertake gene drives on their own? Because my assumption was that any such decision would have to be made by governments, regardless of who actually does the work.
Would that be unethical?
Should you stop someone from slavery if they perceive it as better? Wouldn't you impose your own will if you did that? What if they feel pain from not slaving away? Since it's from scratch and you can make them infertile or fertile with only similar people, what other reasons are there for you to not do that?
I’m not an expert but my guess is that that feelings of boredom/loneliness that humans feel are relatively primal and experienced similarly (at some level) in most other mammals. If that’s true at all, it comes to a rough life for domesticated cats.
That’s ignoring the fact that cats usually have large territories that they patrol in the wild while my apartment is 700 sqft as well :\",
People will opt for the dependable, low maintenance ethics-free option.
In any case, DNA looks like a cryptographic code to me. It grew and grew for millions of years and cracking that code without side effects seems similar to cracking a strong cryptographic code. That being said I actually don’t possess any knowledge in this area, perhaps someone more knowledgable would chime-in on how close we are to genetically engineer organisms with well predictable side effects.
Btw, the original robots [0] from which the name originates were made of flesh and blood, not mechanical parts.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R.
> In Czech, robota means forced labour of the kind that serfs had to perform on their masters' lands and is derived from rab, meaning "slave".
Source: I'm Slavic. )
And, while an interesting footnote for the English word robot, that in Slavic languages whence it's deriven it can refer to worker/servant/serf/slave is beside the point.
Although that being said, it’s interesting that definitions have such a huge impact. For example you can be an extreme vegan but also be okay with abortion (note I’m not anti abortion rights) just pointing out how a definition can affect human ethics among people who are very cautious about affecting living things.
If motorcycle is able to fullfil all of them, then what.
Gotta ask what makes machine a machine.
There's already a trend of putting AI and human produced product next to each other with later being highly priced emotionally manipulating some people into buying for the humane touch while others can go for cheaper ones.
Although, I am not sure about limitation androids will face like natural aging, growth, self healing, evolution? Some of that may be cost prohibitive compared to a biological piece of ball.
I do not agree. Why do people still go to see live bands, when listening to a recording is orders of magnitude cheaper, and generally gives you better sound to boot?
Chairman Sheng-ji Yang "Essays on Mind and Matter"
Brave New World changed my entire outlook on consumerism and mass media. I recommend it to everyone!
What if the full effect is expected after matching 5 generations of people?
What if the real goal is to create a fraction of people more attentive to minding about the environment and total blissful subservience is just a bi-product? For the good of the human race!
2] https://www.dnaromance.com/
Well, there are many already.
[1]Cochran, Gregory, and Henry Harpending. The 10,000 year explosion: How civilization accelerated human evolution. Basic Books, 2009.
Compare the service in a fast food joint to the service in a four-star restaurant. Certainly, the fast food joint is cheaper, but price is not the only factor here. The same applies to seeing a live band compared to listening to a recording, or getting a manicure compared to just cutting your own nails, or... any number of things, up to and including sex work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Nature_(2019_film)
No real design or engineering was involved beyond having an idea of what we wanted and trying to select for that trait in breeding and offspring. We've just rolled the genetic dice repeatedly and selected the outcomes we preferred.
> we absolutely should continue doing what we're already doing.
This is very unlike what we have been doing, and it's hardly been an unqualified success - lots of traits we have selected for (eg what defines a particular dog breed) have come with real trade-offs (at least for the animals: arthritis and fits, respiratory conditions, uncontrolled drooling, eye infections, ...)
And? That's just a particular choice of tool. I do the same thing when I'm working on a particularly tough problem; I might try five or ten different approaches before finding one with the right combination of advantages and trade-offs.
> lots of traits we have selected for [...] have come with real trade-offs
That's engineering.
It wasn't a choice, it was literally the only method we had available.
> I do the same thing when I'm working on a particularly tough problem; I might try five or ten different approaches before finding one with the right combination of advantages and trade-offs.
But I bet you don't do it by a process of natural selection, setting criteria and evolving solutions through an at-best semi-guided generally-black-box process that you don't really understand, and where you're only able to understand a portion of the full complexity of the results.
> That's engineering.
No, that's outcomes. Engineering would be understanding the tradeoffs in advance and choosing them with consideration of the outcomes. Not only do we not understand the tradeoffs in advance, we're also not able select them reliably. If we have that ability now via breeding (not that I'm aware of, but I'm no expert on breeding technology) then we've only had it for a very short time relative to how long we've been doing this.
You're not giving enough credit to the people that designed domestic animal breeds. Modern working dog breeds were absolutely engineered for particular tasks; target characteristics were selected up-front, size and hair and temperament and so on, and dogs and breeds were chosen to start from and bred in predictable ways to increase the likelihood of obtaining the desired characteristics. Animal husbandry is only "random" in the same way that sports is: There's absolutely some variation in outcome in each individual game, but if you put a professional NFL team against even a college team there's not much doubt about the outcome of a best of five. Or it's random in the same way a loaded die is: individual trials may be random, but if you consistently use it for the important rolls you'll clean up.
Also, I'd just like to say that software engineers would be ecstatic if they had a reliable way to accurately predict the tradeoffs involved in many architectural choices.
I think the problem is not really ethical but simply that we don't really know the consequences an immediate change in the DNA would have. We programmers know that changes in complex projects rarely turn out as expected and nature is the most complex system in existence.
I certainly would have loved that my parents had altered my DNA to not need glasses and not have a skin of almost vampiric sun resistance. AFAIK DNA is not related to personality traits but if it is I would have also liked a couple of changes there too.
Gene drive involves artificially increasing the likelihood of transmission of a gene to offspring. One such theoretical technique (according to my layperson's understanding) is basically to use CRISPR to encode CRISPR into an organism's DNA, in a way that is self-perpetuating. Then the genetic modification will spread through the entire population regardless of whether it improves fitness.