Genetic Engineering of Humans

[ATMD]

According to evolution and our understanding of the Earth if humans are alive in another 4 billion or so years those humans will look as much like us as we do to our 4 billion year old amoeba ancestors.

It is curious what we would look 4 billion years from now

I wonder if big corporations will genetically enhance humans to not require sleep anymore so people can work 20 hours a day for them?

We should create super AI to completely replace humans at work (as suggested by someone in the other thread).

[1715538526]

1715538526

[Flying Hellfish]

We should create super AI to completely replace humans at work (as suggested by someone in the other thread).

Who the hell knows maybe sentient AI is the next evolutionary leap for humans.  We could go from being a biological species to the first "mechanical", "digital" or some integrated combination species.  If we can reverse engineer the brain and genetically alter it at birth to "read and write" to a computer or network we might not even need genetically engineered bodies anymore!

[BADecker]

We should create super AI to completely replace humans at work (as suggested by someone in the other thread).

We don't really want a super AI. All we want is robots that can do all the jobs. Then we can all go on welfare, collect 10 times as much, do what we want, travel the world, live where we want, etc.  Robots doing all the jobs will free us all up. AI robots might turn against us.

[bitmover]

If genetic bioweapons are illegal, only criminals will have genetic bioweapons.

That's precisely why fire weapons prohibiting fails. I never thought much about bioweapons and GE weapons,but that's the same case.

We live this is Brazil now.

Criminals are armed and using assault weapons, while the population is unarmed... As a result, 70homicides per year, more than Syria civil war.

[guybrushthreepwood]

Anyway, there have been some interesting stories in the news about He Jiankui, a Chinese researcher who claims to have created two humans who were genetically engineered.  Then he disappeared...

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/dec/02/marc-a-thiessen-gene-editing-is-here-its-an-enormo/

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/he-jiankui-missing-crispr-gene-edited-babies_us_5c0641a0e4b0cd916faf700c

Who is this guy and where's the proof? Might as well have claimed to have invented a time machine.

I think this is actually a serious issue and not one where we can say just let people do what they want as there is seriously ethical issues here. Would you want to be one of these new genetic freaks? What happens when things go wrong and people turn out horrendously deformed or ill? What if these super-intelligent people are also super-evil or despicable. Sounds like it could be some sort of real life X-Men type situation. I'm not saying genetic engineering is bad, but it certainly can be. I'm sure we'll make lots of good progress with it like eradicating illnesses and diseases but some states or powers are obviously going to use it for their own nefarious purposes and science fiction-like weapons and so forth.

[mitsos2017]

Genetic engineering is already happening in plants and animals. You can't stop it. However when the life cυcle of the organism is short and something goes wrong, you can easy terminate the experiment and kill the animal. You can't do it to humans, and if it is happening it is a crime. Probably in the future, when the technology will mature, it could be safe to apply it to humans too.