Viewpoint: Is gene editing ushering in an unprecedented and precarious era?

Credit: Grace Xu/The Varsity
Credit: Grace Xu/The Varsity

We’re entering an era of almost unfathomable, radical technological change. Elon Musk is getting monkeys to play Pong with just their brains. China is experimenting with genetically-enhanced “super-soldiers”. 

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Unless — as seems unlikely — all these technological developments end up coming to nothing, we’re quickly going to be confronted with a deluge of ethical predicaments. The twentieth century had the atomic bomb, the pill, and the internet. We’re about to get artificial intelligence, deepfakes, gene-editing, nanotechnology, bioweapons, brain-computer interfaces, and autonomous lethal drones — all at once.

The only consensus we seem capable of reaching currently is not reaching a consensus. The tech ethics consultancy Hattusia, for instance, writes on its site: “We believe in pluralism, and so we believe there are multiple ethical frameworks and models which could work in society”. If that’s as good as we can do, we should put all research on hold — immediately.

Could we, though? The very idea of turning our backs on Scientific Progress seems scandalous to us. Even banning something like deepfakes, which seem almost certain to cause far more harm than good, appears unfeasible. Science has become an end of its own. We must simply proceed at full speed, and deal with the fallout — however fatal — retrospectively.

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