
Human Gene Editing Receives Science Panel’s Support - azuajef
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/health/human-gene-editing-panel.html
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lend000
I would be glad to see a few thousand babies derived from Gauss, Euler,
Newton, Da Vinci, and/or Turing being born every year. Assuming there's any
DNA preserved.

It brings back the question of how "super-intelligence" will first take form:
through biological engineering or hard AI? I am not convinced that one is
easier or less ethical than the other (or that either are inherently
unethical).

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arcanus
> biological engineering or hard AI

Why not both? The future is synthesis, imo.

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alextheparrot
From the article: “This opens the door to advertisements from fertility
clinics of giving your child the best start in life with a gene-editing
packet, and whether these are real advantages or perceived advantages, they
would accrue disproportionately to people who are already advantaged.”

Germ-line "vaccination" against common heritable diseases may go a long way in
decreasing health-care costs over the long-term. My belief is that this is the
first area for gene-editing. We should create legislation that allows us to
separate cosmetic or "value-add" (Increased IQ, etc.) gene-editing from basic
disease prevention.

One thing I would like to note, however, is that the loss of common heritable
diseases does not make our population, necessarily, stronger. Many disease
genes have been linked to "Hybrid-vigor" type effects, in which case being a
disease character makes the carrier more fit.

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maverick_iceman
Scott Aaranson once said that he would consider it criminal if he had the
option of making sure that his child was as smart as Turing and he deprived
her of it. I totally agree.

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credit_guy
Our ability to understand our genetic code is a bit less than the ability of
an Ancient Egypt scribe to understand Haskell. With a bit of effort he could
figure out individual letters, with a genius level of insight he could figure
out a few words. From here to functional composition or monads it's a long way
to go.

