From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Mon Apr 29 2002 - 18:16:13 MDT
There was supposed to be a debate this past weekend at the Foresight
conference between Greg Stock and Ray Kurzweil about whether biological
or machine technology would be more important in the major changes ahead.
I was not present, but it seems to me that Kurzweil has the stronger
argument, that machine technology will continue to advance much faster
than biology can.
Even without government restrictions, ethical considerations require
changes to the human genome to be done with the utmost caution and with
careful consideration of the possible outcome. Since the unborn child
cannot give informed consent to the procedure, we must be very confident
that the intervention will be beneficial. As a result we can't expect
very fast progress in engineering humans.
Add to that the fact that we have to wait for perhaps 20 years for the
engineered baby to grow to young adulthood before we can know the full
impact of the genetic change. This means that dramatic changes can only
occur on the scale of decades to centuries.
Computer enhancements on the other hand can in principle remain on the
Moore's Law curve straight through to the nanotech era around 2020.
As the machines become more powerful we can also expect progress in
applying them to important problems. With full nanotech we can have
high levels of AI and direct brain computer interfaces for effective
intelligence expansion.
All these changes seem likely to occur long before we could see
significant changes to the human genome, enough to create "posthumans",
which I would think will take several human generations.
Therefore I am not terribly concerned about the current neo luddite
movement's goals of preserving the genetic purity of the human race.
I agree that it is a sad and misguided effort and that it will hurt people
by keeping them from helpful medical interventions which can heal illness,
improve fertility and give children the best possible start in life.
But I don't see the technology of human genetic engineering as being
the primary driver for achieving spectacular human enhancements over the
next century. For that I think we will rely more on machine interfaces.
Of course, the luddites are probably no happier about someone wiring
their brain into a computer than they are with someone selectively
giving birth to a genius child. So there is still a battle to be fought.
I just don't think this particular one is that important, other than as a
skirmish which will help establish the initial battle lines and alliances.
Hal
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