A recent article by “medical ethicists” prompted me to wonder if the term is an oxymoron.
Entitled “Beneficial Bloodsucking”, it examined the ethical ramifications of bio-engineering ticks to transmit alpha-gal syndrome in order to further a moral imperative: the promotion of “planetary health” by making large swathes of the population intolerant to meat:
“We argue that tickborne AGS is a moral bioenhancer if and when it motivates people to stop eating meat . . . If this practice can be applied to ticks carrying AGS, then promoting the proliferation of tickborne AGS is morally obligatory.”
Unfortunately, rates of AGS are already skyrocketing, there is no known cure, and the first documented death from alpha-gal was recently recorded, when a healthy 47-year-old New Jersey man ate a hamburger, began to vomit uncontrollably, and was found unresponsive the next morning.
Concerns over the unrestrained deployment of medical technology have been with us at least since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written in 1818. Her work harkens back to the Ancient Greek legend of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods. It all starts out with the best of intentions, to conquer human limitations. But it can end badly.
And with ethicists like those in the above example in charge, where are the guardrails?
Here are some nascent medical advances that have me worried:
1) Mind-reading devices: These are intended to help people with paralysis or motor-neuron disease guide robotic devices to enable them to speak or move. They rely on brain implants that leverage AI to translate thoughts into action. The technology remains crude, but anticipate significant advances.
But this technology, if refined and widely adopted, could raise serious privacy concerns. Will future humans have access to devices that enable them to communicate their thoughts with fellow wearers, the ultimate social media killer app? Will they facilitate hands-free control over our devices, as is already contemplated with Neuralink? Could they be hackable? Will such gadgets provide authoritarian regimes ingress for thought control, interrogations or detection of “pre-crimes”?
2) Cloning: During a recent visit to Edinburgh, I saw a museum exhibit dedicated to Dolly the sheep, the first artificially-cloned mammal. Bereaved pet owners already have the option of recreating their favorite pet with a DNA sample.
Recently, aging dictators Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping seemed awfully cheery in a photo-op where they were said to be discussing options for life extension. Could they be grooming cadres of successors via advanced reproductive technology?
There’s no guarantee that a Baby Vlad or Baby Xi would have the appetite for world conquest of their donors; mere genetics only shapes intelligence and personality to a limited degree. But it makes good science fiction.
In 1931, Aldous Huxley already envisioned such a dystopian future in Brave New World, in which human reproduction is superseded by assembly line production of perfected humans in artificial wombs, called “Bokanovsky Twins”.
3) Gene editing: A new technology, CRISPR, is enabling scientists to edit our DNA, permitting us to “fix” faulty genes. It’s not clear where we draw the line: Somatic editing corrects an individual’s disease propensities, but are not transmitted to offspring; germline corrections create genetically-modified humans that pass their characteristics to future generations, like shelf-stable GMO tomatoes or super-sized GMO salmon.
Efforts are already underway to cure hereditary diseases like sickle cell anemia in individuals via somatic gene editing, but the process remains arduous and expensive. But germline editing is feasible, too, and landed a Chinese scientist in jail when he bio-engineered HIV-resistant babies without government authorization. The rogue scientist was recently pardoned and was recruited by the Wuchang University of Technology, a private college in Wuhan, China, to serve as the inaugural director for the school’s Genetic Medicine Institute. What could possibly go wrong in a country with few moral restraints and ambitious goals for global domination?
4) Endless vaccines: Don’t get me wrong—I fully acknowledge that vaccines are responsible for some of history’s greatest advances in human health. But they must be deployed with discretion, since new technologies like mRNA are enabling us to craft immunization against an unlimited array of targets. This may help us with quick turnaround to stem future pandemics, and to craft precision tools against disease, but where to draw the line?
For example, technology exists to inoculate people against high cholesterol. Will this portend the end of heart disease, or will other risk factors supersede the benefits of negligible LDL? A universal cancer vaccine is heading for human trials; will it rid us of this scourge? A future mRNA vaccine may in the works to counteract the amyloid protein implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, and so on.
All of these harness our immune systems to work; while individually safety-tested, could there be unforeseen consequences of a plethora of vaccines? Moreover, the specter has been raised that, in rare circumstances, mRNA which is said to be temporary, can be incorporated in our germline, fundamentally altering our genetics.
5) Culling embryos: As infertility rates soar, more couples are resorting to assisted reproductive technology to start their families. Those who’ve undergone ART know that their embryos undergo exhaustive screening for chromosomal defects. With advancing technology, might it not soon be possible to select for ideal characteristics—intelligence, athletic prowess, physical attractiveness?
The capabilities are already heightening inequities: Rich parents will be able to afford to selectively breed designer babies, while commoners will continue to rely on the vicissitudes of nature, sharpening the class divide.
6) Pharmaceuticals: Drugs are a boon when it comes to treatment and prevention of major diseases that undermine healthspan and curtail lifespan. But where to draw the line? Particularly concerning are emerging options for mood alteration; we may be homogenizing human emotions.
New drugs are helping us reverse obesity, and obliterate high blood pressure, elevated lipids and blood sugar —but are they removing the moral hazard associated with unhealthy lifestyle habits? No problem, say drug developers: novel formulations will offer us the prospect of “exercise in a pill” to build muscle without uncomfortable exertions.
7) Humans as machines: There are astounding developments in prosthetics, which will enable humans to perform unprecedented feats of strength and agility. Exoskeletons are now commercially scalable, which will help seniors escape the limitations of frailty. We can envision battlefield innovations that create super-soldiers; Hollywood has already rendered that theme a cliché.
8) Digital avatars: It might seem far-fetched, but futurists are contemplating immortal digital facsimiles of humans. From Wikipedia:
“The result might look like an avatar behaving, reacting, and thinking like a person on the basis of that person’s digital archive. After the death of the individual, this avatar could remain static or continue to learn and self-improve autonomously . . .
A considerable portion of transhumanists and singularitarians place great hope into the belief that they may eventually become immortal by creating one or many non-biological functional copies of their brains, thereby leaving their ‘biological shell’. These copies may then ‘live eternally’ in a version of digital ‘heaven’ or paradise.”
We’re already dipping our toes into this with commercial offerings of “digital seances” with AI representations of deceased loved ones. Want to upload yourself into the cloud and comfort bereaved family members with a realistic hologram embodying all your personality traits, thoughts and voice?
What does it mean to be human? Some view the improvement of the human species through technological means to be inevitable. Notably, futurist Yuval Noah Harari, embraces transhumanism as the next phase in evolution. According to a review:
“Harari forecasts the evolution of humanity into godlike beings through the fusion of biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and data-driven control systems.”
Is it mere nostagia, or a stubborn Luddism, that makes us fear a future even when bereft of disease, suffering, and constraints of mortality? Or are we ushering in a technological nightmare, with dark dystopian overtones?
I’m currently watching the Netflix series “Pluribus” that envisions (SPOILER ALERT!) a world population bio-engineered by an alien-launched viral vector into gentle, harmonious beings, incapable of violence or even hurtful emotions. They telecommunicate readily to work cooperatively. The protagonist is a curmudgeonly holdout, who, by virtue of immunity to the virus, fights to maintain her right to unhappiness and cynicism—in short, to remain fallibly human. Pluribus explores themes relevant to our current march toward species perfection. Maybe it’s not what it’s cracked up to be?
Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. We need serious conversations now about placing limits on these ostensibly benign technologies. We can’t let the commercial imperative alone—already enormously incentivizing—dictate how we design our future as humans.
