I think the next major paradigm shift will not be computer-based, but biological. Some people have mentioned genetic engineering, but there’s a specific aspect to it I think deserves focus.
We have ongoing, presently, a number of concerted and detailed examinations of the human genome. It’s certainly true that your genes don’t dictate a hundred percent of who you will become, but it’s inarguable that they’re a strong starting point. Look at the studies about identical twins separated at birth; the two people go off and create separate lives, but among the differences there are some, and occasionally many, eerie parallels.
There are also millions and millions of individual genetic controls in our chromosomal makeup. We know what some of them do, but the overwhelming majority are a mystery. This, I think, is the Holy Grail: Now that we have the genome mapped (in the broadest possible view), what do all of the genes actually do, individually and in combination with others?
Here’s where I’m going with this: How long will it be before a pregnant woman can go to the doctor, have an amniocentesis or equivalent procedure, and then go back two weeks later for a prenatal genetic probability report?
“Based on your child’s chromosomes, we estimate a 90% probability that he will have blond hair, and 85% likelihood of hazel eyes. He will almost definitely be between five-foot-seven and five-foot-eleven as an adult, with a 75% probability of his being either five-nine or five-ten.” As the years go by, the predictions will get more specific, in the same way that meteorology benefits from an always-increasing body of knowledge as foundation; but just like weather forecasting, there won’t ever be anything more than a probability and a margin of error, because it’s known that environmental factors can confound genetic predilection. In any event, it’s not unreasonable to think that genetic analysis may eventually be able to offer at least rough estimates of likelihood for amount of muscle mass, math and spatial aptitude, musical ability, or whatever, in the child and eventual adult.
So then what happens when gene therapy becomes common? How far away are we from a parent being able to tweak a fetus in the womb? Given a set of genes that will probably create a high-athletic-stamina child, what’s to say some minor adjustments couldn’t increase the probability, or the degree of the characteristic? Honestly, what parent wouldn’t want to take advantage of any opportunity to make his or her child “better” in some way, and therefore more likely to succeed?
Obviously, when this new technology is developing, there will be a huge amount of fear and mistrust, like we see with today’s debates about the relative merits and dangers of cloning. At the moment, we think it’s risky and immoral, and there are very good science-based reasons to feel that way (e.g., the number of embryos that are required to produce one viable fetus). But if you think that, for most people, the debate centers on those scientific facts, you’re fooling yourself. The vast majority of people don’t know anything about cloning, and think it’s “icky” that “another me” might be running around; they assume from several decades of speculative futuristic storytelling that a clone can be grown as an adult and then inserted into the original person’s life for nefarious purposes. And even so, there are some scientists who push ahead with research into cloning people; whether you regard them as pioneers or madmen depends on your point of view.
So extrapolate forward – fifty or a hundred years to be safe, or perhaps twenty-five if there’s some radical unforeseen breakthrough – from two basic principles. One: We will know the human genome well enough to make informed predictions about the characteristics of the eventual adult based on a small sample from the developing fetus. Two: We will have the capacity to apply gene therapy to repair known genetic defects. It seems reasonable to assume that some parents – underground at first, or in renegade nations – will want to use the techniques of the latter to make modifications in the former.
This, more than anything else, I think, will revolutionize human society. Consider the implications: The first generations will be done in secret. The first kids will labor under the stigma, the suspicion that they “ain’t normal.” The next time a Michael Jordan or Lance Armstrong rises in the sports world, he’ll be viewed askance; do his athletic records count if his physicality isn’t what he was “conceived with”? Can he be blamed for the actions and choices of his parents while he was a barely-differentiated clump of rapidly-dividing cells? Can he sue his parents? How will the world’s religions react? If he’s been altered in the womb, what does that mean about his “soul”? And then, after the first few major success stories, how will the initially-defensive anti-GM legislation withstand the assaults of parents desperate to obtain for their own future children the obvious advantages of the new role models?
More than fast Internet connections, more than astoundingly miniaturized devices, more than instantaneous long-distance communication, I think humankind will be entirely and irrevocably different within a hundred years of the widespread adoption of elective genetic customization.
Just my two cents.
