> The search space of biological organisms been well explored.
Not at all true. The space of possible biological organisms is searched in a highly nonuniform manner by evolution, and the human search strategy is fundamentally different. It's overwhelmingly likely that there competitive human-constructible organisms which could never be produced by evolution in the past 4 billion years.
This is true if you are discussing creating organisms which are highly different from existing ones. _delirium was discussing genetic modifications which are simply tweaks to existing organisms.
There is no reason to believe that golden rice will evolve in any significantly different manner than ordinary rice. In contrast, AI will evolve via a mechanism which is unprecedented.
Not at all true. The space of possible biological organisms is searched in a highly nonuniform manner by evolution, and the human search strategy is fundamentally different. It's overwhelmingly likely that there competitive human-constructible organisms which could never be produced by evolution in the past 4 billion years.