This section of blog written in August 2016: My new novel, Eternal Sonata (publication date October 4, 2016), imagines a future global struggle to control the science of extreme human life extension.…
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Homo Sapiens 2.0? We Need a Species-Wide Conversation on the Future of Human Genetic Enhancement
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In my article in TechCrunch, released today, I call for a species-wide conversation on the future of human genetic enhancement. Such a dialogue has never before been carried out. We…
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Being Human in an Age of Artificial Intelligence
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My short story, “A Visit to Weizenbaum,” which recently came out yesterday as part of the Atlantic Council’s War Stories from the Future anthology. The story explores what it means to be a human being in an age of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and anthropomorphized robotics. You can download the e-book for free in any format at this link or read the full text below.
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Has the Genetic Arms Race Begun?
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Articles in Nature yesterday and in today’s New York Times describe the controversial recent announcement by a Chinese researcher that he has used cutting edge precision gene editing techniques (CRISPR-cas9) on non-viable human embryos. It is rumored that the results of more research like this will be announced from China in the coming months. Every day we are receiving more evidence like this that the human genetic revolution, with its massive scientific, ethical, political, and national security implications, has already begun.
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The Genetic Age Began on February 3, 2015
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I believe that future generations will look back at yesterday’s vote in the British Parliament authorizing mitochondrial transfer treatment for mothers undergoing IVF as the beginning of the human genetic…
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Would I Genetically Enhance My Own Children?
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When someone at a Los Angeles book event asked me a personal question, I was already disarmed, exposed, and predisposed to a more personal answer.
“Would you genetically enhance your own children?”
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Books as Sacred Objects
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I hope you’ll have a look at my new bookreporter.com piece on books as sacred objects. “As a great lover of books, I felt myself not only drawn to their…
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If GMOs worry you, what will you think of genetically modified humans?
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In my Foreign Affairs article out this week, I argue that we need to do a lot more thinking about the implications of the genetics revolution. It seems crazy to…
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The Case Against “Nature” (and for regulated GMOs)
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I love nature as much as the next guy.
I would swap in a moment the beautiful view of the Chrysler building from my New York City office for the span of the Rockies from the top of Colorado’s Independence Pass. I’d happily trade the Disney-like perfection of an American red delicious apple for a misshapen but stronger-tasting French pear.
But would I rather gather food in the forest than have it planted in farms and delivered to the grocery store? Would I rather fight cancer with meditation and prayer than chemotherapy? Would I condemn my friend’s Chihuahua as a genetically manipulated monstrosity of a wolf?
The truth of the matter is that much of what we call “natural” is the product of our own manipulation over time, and that nature, on its own, doesn’t seem to give a rat’s tail (or other part pf the rat’s anatomy) about us. I wish it did.
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Our Genetic Future is Coming… Faster Than We Think
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Our species is on the cusp of a revolution that will change every aspect of our lives but we’re hardly talking about it.
After three and a half billion years of evolution, two hundred and fifty thousand years of them as the ass-kicking bipedal hominins we call homo sapiens, we are on the verge of taking control of our evolutionary process unlike never before. This revolution will take hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years to play out but it has already begun.
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