Fiver, sometime?
How about yesterday!
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6124 ... pr-babies/
With Western timelines this probably would have taken decades.
Turns out sometime was yesterday at least in terms of the reporting of the story.
The report suggests that the actual birth of CRISPR children could already have happened.
We need to pay more attention.
IQ uplift will have a truly massive disruptive effect on humanity.
The Cognitive Singularity would quickly displace the entire foundation of human civilization.
Given the latest CRISPR news it should no longer be assumed that such a process is not now post utero.
The latest development seems to have taken everyone by surprise: CRISPR edited babies have been, or will soon been born in China.
This clearly demonstrates to me that things could happen much much faster with IQ uplift than people might currently believe.
It would be of no great surprise to me if China were also to soon announce the birth of 200+ IQ babies.
I think that they are just using the CRISPR news merely as a signaling device, in order to indicate the level of their technology.
Once markets become aware of large scale IQ uplift in China (probably well before), capital markets will essentially go vertical.
In such an environment any nation that did not produce a clear and immediate declaration that they would vigorously
pursue on an accelerated time schedule IQ uplift would soon be bankrupted by overwhelming capital flight.
It is difficult to imagine that IQ uplift would not have this effect.
Non- IQ uplift nations would quickly be seen to have economies without any long term relevance; without any potential to produce anything of economic value.
CRISPR will not be of great benefit (at least from the current scientific literature that is the assumption) for IQ uplift.
It is the super high tech, likely super expensive genetic technology, though a very low tech low cost approach of simple
selection will be the driving force moving human IQ stratospheric. Furthermore, the low tech approach is essentially immune
to any attempt at obstructing it. Also, it would take hundreds of CRISPR edits to increase IQ by 1 SD and even then it is mostly not clear what those causal variants might be.
The CRISPR era has begun.
In other news, another International Conference on Gene Editing is set for tomorrow. I suppose they will call for yet another
ban on CRISPR technology as applied to creating genetically altered humans. Given the above this would seem futile. Not even clear to me why Gene Editing would now be thought of as a leverage point in the Genetic Revolution
Why are they continuing to pursue gene editing as the agitprop prop? The real leverage point is genetic selection. Genetic selection will allow for a truly transformed humanoid species. PGS scores have already been published for all major diseases. A disease free humanity along with IQ uplift is now in the works. Selecting against diseases would be much easier than doing the same for IQ. Greatly reducing genetic risk for disease simply requires that you select an embryo that is not in the top 25% of PGS risk. This should be easy. With IQ embryo selection you want to find that 1 in million combination that optimizes intelligence. My suggestion that pediatricians should be offered signing bonuses as a signal that this specialty has substantial associated risk seems valid now. How could there even be a pediatrics specialty if the children going forward will be screened for all diseases?
I have no idea what the real point of the Gene Editing conference might be. For the dementia community, clearly apoe4 CRISPRing would be of interest and so too would that APP mutant that eliminated Alzheimer's risk. Yet, until they change the topic of their conferences to genetic selection, they can be ignored, especially now that CRISPR has already occurred in humans.
Genetic Engineering and unknown consequences
Re: Genetic Engineering and unknown consequences
Have you read Brave New World J11?
I think you'll find most of humanity would not want their lives' purpose to be in breeding higher IQ children.
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I think you'll find most of humanity would not want their lives' purpose to be in breeding higher IQ children.
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Re: Genetic Engineering and unknown consequences
"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."
"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
- Through the Looking-Glass
"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
- Through the Looking-Glass
Re: Genetic Engineering and unknown consequences
Fiver, don't tell me what you meant yet! I'm still trying to figure out your intention, though I do admit that this quote is appropriate on multiple levels.
This is truly a startling development.
It is the closest thing that we have had to a moonlanding in the last 50 years.
A new humanoid species is emerging!
Yet, for many I suppose it will just flash across their TV monitors without any flash of insight registering in their brains.
It will be a moonlanding moment only for those who have the cognitive ability to appreciate its importance.
Everyone who possesses this required cognitive ability should now be on continuous alert:
Cognitive Singularity is now within reach.
Carefully consider what this will mean.
Remember: Look straight up! That is now the expected trajectory of technological change.
If a single researcher without institutional or financial support was able to accomplish a viable CRISPR birth, then it should not
be unexpected that any of the thousands of other scientists that have been trained in the CRISPR technique could also accomplish this. Research of the last day or so suggests that CRISPR has been upgraded once again; making it safer and more effective than what had been previously possible. We might already be past the point where the technology could launch us beyond the Cognitive Singularity Threshold. If that does not give readers some level of apprehension, perhaps they should check to see if there might be an interesting show playing now on their TV monitors.
This is truly a startling development.
It is the closest thing that we have had to a moonlanding in the last 50 years.
A new humanoid species is emerging!
Yet, for many I suppose it will just flash across their TV monitors without any flash of insight registering in their brains.
It will be a moonlanding moment only for those who have the cognitive ability to appreciate its importance.
Everyone who possesses this required cognitive ability should now be on continuous alert:
Cognitive Singularity is now within reach.
Carefully consider what this will mean.
Remember: Look straight up! That is now the expected trajectory of technological change.
If a single researcher without institutional or financial support was able to accomplish a viable CRISPR birth, then it should not
be unexpected that any of the thousands of other scientists that have been trained in the CRISPR technique could also accomplish this. Research of the last day or so suggests that CRISPR has been upgraded once again; making it safer and more effective than what had been previously possible. We might already be past the point where the technology could launch us beyond the Cognitive Singularity Threshold. If that does not give readers some level of apprehension, perhaps they should check to see if there might be an interesting show playing now on their TV monitors.
Re: Genetic Engineering and unknown consequences
J11, I'm curious: do you think it's possible to say (without any amount of doubt) that there will be a cognitive singularity?
I love this book.Stavia wrote:Have you read Brave New World J11?
I think you'll find most of humanity would not want their lives' purpose to be in breeding higher IQ children.
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Re: RE: Re: Genetic Engineering and unknown consequences
Rainbow, this I think refers to the paradigm of a broad philosophical movement called "extropianism", or a branch called "singularitarianism"Rainbow wrote:J11, I'm curious: do you think it's possible to say (without any amount of doubt) that there will be a cognitive singularity?
I love this book.Stavia wrote:Have you read Brave New World J11?
I think you'll find most of humanity would not want their lives' purpose to be in breeding higher IQ children.
From wikipedia:
""""Singularitarianism can also be thought of as an orientation or an outlook that prefers the enhancement of human intelligence as a specific transhumanist goal instead of focusing on specific technologies such as A.I.There are also definitions that identify a singularitarian as an activist or a friend of the concept of singularity, that is, one who acts so as to bring about a singularity. Some sources described it as a moral philosophythat advocates deliberate action to bring about and steer the development of a superintelligence that will lead to a theoretical future point that emerges during a time of accelerated change.""""
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Re: Genetic Engineering and unknown consequences
Rainbow, thank you very much for joining the conversation!
I realize that thinking in terms of singularities does not usually follow from the experiences of everyday existence: It can take a while to adjust.
Rainbow, there is no doubt whatsoever that the Singularity is approaching.
John von Neumann when he invented the first computer in order to run calculations to develop the atomic bomb which he had a large role in creating knew that the computer would inevitably lead to a Singularity event. It is truly astonishing that the whisper of Singularity would be speaking to him so clearly almost 100 years before it was expected. It obviously helped that he was quite possibly
the most intelligent person to ever live. Einstein did not contradict the statement that von Neumann surpassed his intelligence.
Computers currently have the computational equivalence of the human brain. Over the next 5-10 years computers will far exceed human ability. A Singularity event in which technological change resulting from an Artificial General Intelligence is expected over the 25 years. The basic idea is that as soon as computer's develop the ability to control the evolution of their own programming, computer power would be able to develop at computer time scales ( for example gigahertz etc.) instead of human time scales ( sometimes up to years). It is not entirely certain that the 25 year time scale is fixed, though it would be difficult to imagine that the Singularity would not occur sometime in the 21st Century. With computers people have not shown the same tendency to intervene in their development.
That is one flavor of Singularity.
Yet, in the Singularity genre, I think Cognitive Singularity is possibly of even greater immediate interest to people. Cognitive enhancement of people would have much more rapid and apparent effects on the life of humans when it does occur. With Cognitive Singularity I would now tend to say that yes it is a certainty. However, there is more of a sense that some will and probably are actively hindering its arrival. As we can see with CRISPR, science can be delayed almost forever. It is quite astonishing I had thought that CRISPR truly needed possibly 20 years to slowly work its way through clinical trials. When people work at it the future can be made to never happen. Yet, clearly sometimes technology can move around these restrictions.
What needs to be kept in mind though is that Cognitive Singularity only needs very basic technology. All you need is selection technology and Cognitive Singularity will occur. Selection technology is only IVF which has been used safely for many decades and results in many millions of births every year. There is no realistic way that this technology could be prevented from creating IQ uplift. Then consider mate selection. This creates another powerful lever for cognitive enhancement. It is beyond the power of governments or others to stop such a strategy from being tried to increase IQ.
CRISPR could be used for IQ enhancement. My hunch about the recent CRISPR story is that CRISPR might now seem to be an also ran. Why use a high end, expensive and somewhat unpredictable technology when you can simply use a simple, relatively low cost, well developed and safe technology-- namely, selection? The only fall back that the ethical community can propose why selection should not be used is: We don't need smarter people. Um, that does not make sense! Look around! We need smart people. We desperately need smart people. So, fortunately the very unpersuasive and unsmart argument against smart people largely ensures that smart people through selection on their way. Yeah!
It is not realistic to suggest that Cognitive Enhancement is not approaching. The only legitimate question is: When?
Here again it is easy to predict that this will happen in the 21st Century, though not as easy to predict when in the 21st Century.
The start of the transformation probably should be dated April 8, 2019; 9 months after the Nature Genetics article.
I am already starting to see a significant increase in awareness of IQ enhancement and people who are now shopping around for
this service for their children to be. Once this was clearly happening in the community, there would be a widespread rush to keep up with everyone else: Everyone would need to run faster and faster to stay in the same place (just as Fiver noted).
I realize that thinking in terms of singularities does not usually follow from the experiences of everyday existence: It can take a while to adjust.
Rainbow, there is no doubt whatsoever that the Singularity is approaching.
John von Neumann when he invented the first computer in order to run calculations to develop the atomic bomb which he had a large role in creating knew that the computer would inevitably lead to a Singularity event. It is truly astonishing that the whisper of Singularity would be speaking to him so clearly almost 100 years before it was expected. It obviously helped that he was quite possibly
the most intelligent person to ever live. Einstein did not contradict the statement that von Neumann surpassed his intelligence.
Computers currently have the computational equivalence of the human brain. Over the next 5-10 years computers will far exceed human ability. A Singularity event in which technological change resulting from an Artificial General Intelligence is expected over the 25 years. The basic idea is that as soon as computer's develop the ability to control the evolution of their own programming, computer power would be able to develop at computer time scales ( for example gigahertz etc.) instead of human time scales ( sometimes up to years). It is not entirely certain that the 25 year time scale is fixed, though it would be difficult to imagine that the Singularity would not occur sometime in the 21st Century. With computers people have not shown the same tendency to intervene in their development.
That is one flavor of Singularity.
Yet, in the Singularity genre, I think Cognitive Singularity is possibly of even greater immediate interest to people. Cognitive enhancement of people would have much more rapid and apparent effects on the life of humans when it does occur. With Cognitive Singularity I would now tend to say that yes it is a certainty. However, there is more of a sense that some will and probably are actively hindering its arrival. As we can see with CRISPR, science can be delayed almost forever. It is quite astonishing I had thought that CRISPR truly needed possibly 20 years to slowly work its way through clinical trials. When people work at it the future can be made to never happen. Yet, clearly sometimes technology can move around these restrictions.
What needs to be kept in mind though is that Cognitive Singularity only needs very basic technology. All you need is selection technology and Cognitive Singularity will occur. Selection technology is only IVF which has been used safely for many decades and results in many millions of births every year. There is no realistic way that this technology could be prevented from creating IQ uplift. Then consider mate selection. This creates another powerful lever for cognitive enhancement. It is beyond the power of governments or others to stop such a strategy from being tried to increase IQ.
CRISPR could be used for IQ enhancement. My hunch about the recent CRISPR story is that CRISPR might now seem to be an also ran. Why use a high end, expensive and somewhat unpredictable technology when you can simply use a simple, relatively low cost, well developed and safe technology-- namely, selection? The only fall back that the ethical community can propose why selection should not be used is: We don't need smarter people. Um, that does not make sense! Look around! We need smart people. We desperately need smart people. So, fortunately the very unpersuasive and unsmart argument against smart people largely ensures that smart people through selection on their way. Yeah!
It is not realistic to suggest that Cognitive Enhancement is not approaching. The only legitimate question is: When?
Here again it is easy to predict that this will happen in the 21st Century, though not as easy to predict when in the 21st Century.
The start of the transformation probably should be dated April 8, 2019; 9 months after the Nature Genetics article.
I am already starting to see a significant increase in awareness of IQ enhancement and people who are now shopping around for
this service for their children to be. Once this was clearly happening in the community, there would be a widespread rush to keep up with everyone else: Everyone would need to run faster and faster to stay in the same place (just as Fiver noted).
Re: Genetic Engineering and unknown consequences
Regarding Brave New World, I think that we have all been programmed by the wrong sci-fi.
People now will often reflexively respond: "Oh, you mean the world that what was depicted in Brave New World is about to unfold with IQ uplift". "No!!!!!
This is the problem people have been given a version of the future that is WRONG! We have only started to understand the true nature of the polygenic nature of IQ during the last 5 years. The future was nothing like people had imagined it! We simply were not smart enough to realize how our genes worked until the time arrived when we could start manipulating them. We now know that everyone has the potential to create genius level children without CRISPRing. The intelligence variants are already present all that needs to happen is the positive variants selected for and the negative variants selected against.
People now will often reflexively respond: "Oh, you mean the world that what was depicted in Brave New World is about to unfold with IQ uplift". "No!!!!!
This is the problem people have been given a version of the future that is WRONG! We have only started to understand the true nature of the polygenic nature of IQ during the last 5 years. The future was nothing like people had imagined it! We simply were not smart enough to realize how our genes worked until the time arrived when we could start manipulating them. We now know that everyone has the potential to create genius level children without CRISPRing. The intelligence variants are already present all that needs to happen is the positive variants selected for and the negative variants selected against.
Re: Genetic Engineering and unknown consequences
J11, surely you can see that breeding age people will not agree to mate selection in the absence of coercion?
It is the element of coercion and State control I was referring to in Brave New World, and that is what most people find abhorrent about the premise.
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
It is the element of coercion and State control I was referring to in Brave New World, and that is what most people find abhorrent about the premise.
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Re: Genetic Engineering and unknown consequences
I don't see Selection working on a scale that would effect change soon enough, not with all the adverse feelings that would arise. AI will certainly get there soon. It is also clear that with the accessibility of CRISPER, folks will start increasingly tinker with genes. Early on, there will be unintended consequences, since we are just at the beginning of understanding individual genes and their various functions. This might result in pause... I'm guessing early tinkering will be for well known extreme conditions. And just because someone is intelligent, that does not mean that they are also wise (think Zuckerberg...).
Sonoma Mike
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