Ryan Mehlem
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “The only constant in life is change.”
Of course, most of humanity had decided by then that change was something to be both hated and feared (sentience and intelligence are not renowned for their correlation with inner peace). However, this apprehension is not unjustified. While change can mean progress, it entails adaptation, and the individuals who fail to adapt are those who will go extinct. The world is changing at a blinding pace; humanity (and society) must ensure that they change along with it.
When it comes to adaptation, intelligence is humanity’s greatest asset. The ability to create new technologies has enabled not only adaptation to change but also the catalysis of it. Over time, this has dramatically changed the human experience, whether due to increased life expectancies across a greater range of socioeconomic levels, easy access to massive collections of knowledge, or the redefining of what a typical career would look like.
However, this has not been without costs, as humanity now faces a slate of challenges more severe than ever faced before. The principal one of these is arguably climate change, which brings with it not just extreme weather patterns and temperature swings, but also a myriad of secondary effects, such as the desertification of arable land. Another challenge is artificial intelligence, which begs the question of whether human intellectual and creative dominance could be surpassed by their inventions. Geopolitical rivalries are an undercurrent to all these questions, as the states that have the right answers are the ones that will prosper. Herein lies the crucial question: how far are the states willing to go?
In the past century, humanity has made significant progress in fields where life itself is subject to engineering. The development of CRISPR, a gene editing technology, or genetic sequencing, has made projects that would have been unimaginable a century ago commonplace. The pace is only increasing. For example, the Human Genome Project was a massive undertaking that took billions of dollars and almost a decade of work to sequence the first ever complete set of human DNA. At the present time, that same task takes mere weeks and frequently costs less than a thousand dollars. The scientific community around the world has urged and largely demonstrated restraint. That may not continue to be the case, as extreme times are the best justification for pursuing extreme measures. It is worth considering the potentially extreme response of the U.S. if it were to learn that China or Russia, its major geopolitical rivals, were covertly engaging in research to make people who were better adapted to heat, thirst, or starvation. It is also worth contemplating how this response might differ if the research was to reduce risk for the largest causes of death, such as heart and vascular disease, cancer, or stroke. It would not be unlikely that this, in addition to sparking extreme global tensions not seen since the Cold War, would spur a scientific arms race, this time to not just make better technology or weapons, but to modify people.
This would entail, of course, massive, rapid change. As such, the prospect is horrifying, and it should be, but not because of the change, but rather the manner in which it would occur. Arguably, a genetic engineering Space Race would be catastrophic for the simple reason that ill effects might not be observed until their consequences were widespread and severe. A rocket might explode, but genetic engineering gone wrong may give millions a higher likelihood of cancer, doing the exact opposite of what had been the original intent. The competitively driven misuse of genetic technology, arguably one of humanity’s most powerful tools, would be humanity’s largest tragedy.
Within that context, the question of the increased adoption of genetic technology is a different one. Some argue that the use of genetic technology should be compared with the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons on whether abstinence and containment is a sustainable, long-term strategy. Furthermore, it is worth noting that the “successful” use of nuclear weapons resulted in the famous Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the dominant nuclear policy strategy between superpowers that states that if one power uses a nuclear weapon, the retaliation will be severe enough to where the entire planet will be rendered uninhabitable. Yet, genetic technology could have much the opposite effect. As a technology that has the potential to positively alter the course of human society, its increased use should not be immediately eliminated from consideration, but rather carefully considered.
The truth of the matter is that the status quo will likely worsen over the coming decades, and pressure to use new and experimental technology will build. The genetic engineering of humans is one such technology, and it would be wise for humanity to be preemptive in their consideration to ensure that its development and deployment are done in a safe, equitable way, rather than through a rushed, nationalistic approach. Genetic technologies have the potential to improve the quality of life for the entire human species. They grant the ability to remove genes from the population that cause or contribute to chronic health conditions that decrease health- and lifespan. As such, this should be an endeavor undertaken as a (global) species, not as a piecemeal collection of nation-states.
There are many excellent questions that immediately arise upon such a proposal; it is essential, however, to attempt to divide them into whether they are concerns of a scientific, policy, or ethical nature.
Regarding scientific questions, most are largely questions that can and should be answered through research. The risks of unforeseen effects of genetic modification or of mutations from gene editing technologies are not unfounded. However, there is already significant progress in identifying the major genetic predispositions for the diseases responsible for the most deaths each year, such as coronary artery disease, and the accuracy of genetic technologies is only going to improve. While there are valid concerns with gene-editing technologies, the world has already seen FDA-approved CRISPR-based therapies emerge, and these technologies will only improve as time goes on. A restrained approach is most certainly in order, but the question of whether it might be objectively more harmful to do nothing is an important one.
Fear of creating extreme genetic inequality is also valid. This is, at its core, largely a policy issue. To begin with, it should be decided from the beginning which traits are subject to change. A clear line should be drawn between diseases such as familial hypercholesterolemia, Huntington’s, and predispositions to diabetes versus conditions such as deafness, which are often not viewed as a burden by those who possess them. Secondly, the allocation system for who obtains these treatments should be randomized. This mimics the inherent randomness of nature due to mutations; however, in this case, it would be a positive occurrence as opposed to events that can destroy all quality of life. Finally, the incentive structure of the program must be set up so that those who are making the decisions for what is permissible will be inherently discouraged from making a new generation that will make the decision-makers completely obsolete, perhaps dissuading some fears of a slippery slope to the creation of a “master race.” The goal of the project would be to simply remedy the genetic misfortune of some individuals with the aim of creating a happier and healthier population overall.
The most difficult questions are ultimately ethical ones. Ironically, the situation can be somewhat modeled by the most classic ethical dilemma, the trolley problem. In the classical scenario, an individual is presented with a choice: do they pull a lever that redirects a speeding trolley onto tracks where it will only kill a single individual, or do they do nothing and let it continue on to kill five? By coming to a global agreement on the importance of moving towards cooperation to make a healthier human race through genetic technologies, we can potentially advert an engineered-evolution arms race, while also making society more adapted to face planet-level challenges, and allowing us to emphasize our shared humanity and unity rather than the geopolitical lines that set us apart. By doing nothing, humanity risks taking the same path with genetic technologies that it has with many others: a manic race where the winner takes all, and unforeseen consequences can run rampant. Just like in the trolley problem, inaction is a choice, potentially with much more severe repercussions.
Humanity has been at the mercy of change since the dawn of time. A history of struggles and adaption is written within our genetic code; perhaps, in the face of daunting challenges, it is time for humanity to take its turn to write its future.
Comments