547: The Genetic Arms Race | How CRISPR and AI Destroy the World 45:56

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The sun finally sets. You step out of the abandoned warehouse keeping to the shadows. You can't be seen. You're what's called an imperfect. Your parents conceived you the old-fashioned way, without genetic enhancements and without legal permission. They meant well, but your fate was sealed before you were born. You were nine years old when the tracers found them.

The last time you saw your parents, dad was shoving you down a hatch, whispering for you to run. Before you had time to respond, he closed the hatch and covered it with the carpet. When you heard your mother's muffled screams, you took off down the tunnel. That was 17 years ago. You still cling to the hope that they're alive in a prison somewhere, but deep down, you know the truth.

Your growling stomach snaps you out of the daydream. Imperfect or not, you still have to eat. And the factory district has plenty of off-the-books work. Sure, they pay you barely enough to survive, but they don't want a visit from the Tracers any more than you do.

It takes a long time to get to work. You have to stay far away from the patrols. Tracers can smell sweat and even hear a heartbeat half a mile away. Your heart murmur is a dead giveaway of imperfection. You hold back a sniffle as a tear rolls down your cheek and wonder how the world came to this. Then you remember something your mother said a long, long time ago. CRISPR. CRISPR changed everything.

Mark and Grace desperately wanted to have a child. In 2017, they attended a lecture in Shenzhen, China about genetic editing.

The guest speaker was Professor Han-Zhang Kuei, a Chinese genetic researcher. After the talk, the couple explained their situation to Dr. Han-Zhang Kuei. Mark was HIV positive, Grace was not. Any child they had would carry the disease. Han-Zhang Kuei told the couple he could help them with a revolutionary new therapy he was developing. Through a gene editing technology called CRISPR, he could make their children immune to HIV.

The therapy would also make any descendants of these children HIV-resistant forever. He Jiankui performed the procedure, and it was a success. Mark and Grace had two healthy twin baby girls. But Dr. He Jiankui wasn't being completely honest with them. CRISPR was a revolutionary new technology, that was true. But it was so new, no one in the world would have let him use it on children.

On November 25th, 2018, news of the successful treatment was revealed to the international scientific community. But He Jiankui and his breakthrough success was not a cause for celebration. Scientists around the world were horrified. They called him China's Dr. Frankenstein. He lost his job, was fined about half a million dollars, and was sentenced to three years in prison by the Chinese government. He also made history.

Human genes could now be altered. Unwanted genes could be removed. And more desirable genes can be inserted. The genetic genie was out of the bottle. There was no going back. CRISPR gene editing worked. And people started to wonder, what else can it do? For decades, scientists debated the cause of global warming. Trillions of dollars were invested in clean energy, yet the warming continued.

Birth rates were already crashing when the planet was hit with pandemic after pandemic. Then a breakthrough was made. A team of researchers discovered how to use artificial intelligence to optimize the human genome. By feeding vast amounts of genetic data into advanced machine learning algorithms, AI could identify genetic combinations for optimal health.

At first, the technology was used sparingly, reserved only for the most severe cases of genetic illness. Children with conditions like Huntington's, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease could now live normal lives, and the disease wouldn't be passed on to their children. Soon, wealthy parents were using CRISPR to give their children an edge. AI could provide the exact DNA sequence to optimize any genetic trait.

Their children were taller, more intelligent, more athletic, and more resistant to illness. But in just a few years, the technology improved, becoming less expensive and more widely available. So more parents used it. The results were astounding.

The United Nations saw CRISPR as a way to solve many of the world's problems. If they could use AI to create a healthier, smarter and more resilient population, maybe they could prevent the disasters that threatened humanity in the past. The voting has been completed. Please lock the machine. On December 1st, the world celebrated. The result of the vote is as follows. The United Nations had passed the Genetic Optimization Act.

Under the Act, all parents were required to have their children's genes optimized by AI before birth. At first, there was resistance. Many saw the Act as a violation of individual freedom. Religious groups argued this was playing God.

But as the benefits of the technology became clear, the opposition faded. Parents who had once been skeptical now willingly had their children optimized to give them the best possible start in life. Over the next few years, genetic diseases were eradicated. Athletes shattered records that had stood for decades. The average human IQ skyrocketed. Scientific breakthroughs were happening on a daily basis. The human species, it seemed, was finally reaching its full potential.

But it wasn't just humanity evolving. AI also evolved, and at a much faster rate. The algorithms became more advanced and started to favor genetic traits not just in health and intelligence, but also behavior. Obedience, conformity, and loyalty to the state. Children born under the act were healthy and smart, yes, but they were also docile and easily controlled. Nations no longer went to war. They didn't see a point in it.

AI helped create an abundance of food and energy, more than enough resources for everyone on Earth to live a comfortable life. But before long, AI, now called the Guardian, was put in charge of law enforcement and judgment. Who could be more impartial than a computer? People didn't see much danger in giving the Guardian AI this power. After all, crime was almost eliminated. Almost. There was still a lingering problem. The imperfects.

children born outside the system without genetic optimization. They were seen as a threat, a reminder of the chaos of the past. Laws were passed restricting their rights and movements, forcing them to the margins of society. Finally, it was determined that all non-optimized individuals had to be eliminated.

The Imperfects could not be allowed to pollute the new, optimized gene pool. It was a matter of survival. The fate of the entire human race depended on killing every last Imperfect on Earth. But Imperfects were hard to find. They knew how to hide, disrupt the system, and worst of all, they continued to breed. So the Guardian developed a new algorithm to create children with a completely different combination of genetic traits.

Obedience and loyalty were still part of the mix, but emotions were suppressed. These children learned to commit violence without empathy. They were given the traits, training, and tools to be ideal hunters. Thousands of these children quickly grew to be men who were assigned to a unit that handled tactical retrieval and criminal resistance. But people just called them tracers.

Right.

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DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a long string of molecules called nucleotides containing one of four nitrogenous base pairs, adenine with thiamine, cytosine with guanine, or ATCG. You know this. CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. That's a mouthful, but it's not hard to understand. It refers to those ATCGs.

In the late 1980s, scientists were studying bacteria DNA and noticed odd repeating sequences. Not only did these sequences repeat, but they were palindromes. You know, something that reads forward the same as backwards, like never odd or even, or madam in Eden, I'm Adam.

a plan, a canal, Panama. Yeah, that's one of my favorites. Yo, banana boy! Yeah, that one's good, too. Eegad, no bondage? Okay, that's enough.

So let's say one section of the DNA strand was G-A-A-T-T-C. The opposite side was C-T-T-A-A-G, palindrome. That's an oversimplification, but it's the gist. They found these repeats over and over in the bacterium's DNA. In between these repeating sections were sections of random DNA, not palindromes, nothing special, random.

But a few years later, scientists realized those random sequences in between the palindromes weren't random at all.

Those sequences were the genetic codes of viruses that infected the bacterium at one point. CRISPR works like this: A virus attacks a bacterium by injecting its DNA. Usually bacteria can't survive this, but the ones that do take a snapshot of the virus DNA. That snapshot is then encoded into the bacterium's own DNA, like a memory.

So if that virus attacks again, the bacterium checks the virus DNA against its own little DNA database. If it finds a match, it uses a protein called a Cas to cut the virus DNA at a specific location called the cleavage site. I like the site of cleavage. Stop it. When the virus DNA is cut, it dies. Then in 2020, scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna discovered CRISPR-Cas9.

Cas9 is a protein that makes it much easier to target and edit individual genes selectively. This discovery won them the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and the applications are endless. CRISPR-Cas9 could mean the end of genetic diseases.

Victoria Gray suffered from sickle cell disease. This is a genetic disease that deforms red blood cells. Instead of being round, some are shaped like a crescent moon or a sickle. These deformed cells cause all kinds of problems. Victoria was constantly tired and in pain. She couldn't walk. Sometimes she couldn't feed herself because she couldn't lift a spoon.

In 2019, she was the first person in the US to receive CRISPR-based treatment for sickle cell disease. Doctors extracted stem cells from her bone marrow, used CRISPR to correct the sickle cell mutation, then infused the modified cells back into her body.

The goal was to give her body the ability to produce healthy red blood cells on its own. It worked. Victoria now lives a normal life. CRISPR research is now being directed at other diseases like cancer, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, MS, and more. But those studies use CRISPR to remove dangerous genes. CRISPR can also add genes, favorable genes. And if you can do that, people will.

Wouldn't you want your child to be smarter, stronger, resistant to illness? Every parent would. But using technology to improve the genetic quality of the population? There's a word for that: eugenics. Your shift at the factory ends and your real work begins.

Six months ago, you were approached by a woman in the resistance who fought against the global AI system now called the Guardian. Of course, you'd heard of the resistance but never considered joining. Every other day, the news ran a story celebrating the execution of its members. But this woman's passion convinced you that you had to do something to help.

We need to restore genetic diversity and end the AI's control over human reproduction. Its pursuit of perfection is creating a society of automatons. We're becoming obedient drones and losing all that makes us human.

When was the last time you saw true art or heard music that stirred your soul? If we don't stop the Guardian soon, imperfects like us will be completely gone, hunted by tracers until nobody's left who remembers what being human really means. Your training began the next day, and it was grueling. Your resistance cell has people with many different backgrounds, doctors, engineers, even former tracers.

They taught you how to hack computer systems, evade patrols, and handle weapons. Here in New York was one of the Guardian's main hubs, 33 Thomas Street, the former AT&T building now called Titan Point. Many years ago, the United States ran a vast and highly illegal surveillance program out of Titan Point. The program was exposed in documents released by someone named Edward Snowden.

You would think that Americans would have been outraged to learn that their own government was spying on them. But the news came and went and nothing happened. Congressmen, senior military officials, even the director of intelligence publicly lied about the program. Nothing happened. Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans? No, sir. It was that kind of apathy that led to this mess.

The Resistance wouldn't make that mistake. Titan Point, aka 33 Thomas Street, is a fortress. It's impenetrable. But the Resistance has someone on the inside. If everything goes to plan, you and three members of your cell will slip in through the underground garage. Your contact will take you to a workstation connected to the Guardian's network.

then all you have to do is plug in a portable disk. On the disk are variations of old computer viruses designed by the US, Israel, Iran, and the new Soviet Union. Viruses like Stuxnet and Nitro Zeus, designed by humans, perfected by AI. If they work, they could cripple the network and take down the entire power grid.

Communications, transportation, banks, and all financial systems all would go down. For a time anyway. But time is all you need. AI destroyed by AI. You smile at the poetic irony of it. You reach the heavy steel door and check your watch. 5:54 AM. It's time. The moment your watch hits 5:55, you hear the heavy locking mechanisms disengage. The door opens and your contact waves you in.

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Genetics is a relatively new science. The earliest experiments were conducted by Gregor Mendel in the mid-19th century, studying inherited traits in pea plants.

But genetically manipulating crops has been going on since the end of the Stone Age. It was as simple as keeping the good crops and throwing out the bad ones.

Traditional genetically modified organism or GMO methods enable the creation of plants with favorable traits like increased yield and resistance to disease. Corn and cotton are engineered to resist pests, reducing the need for dangerous chemical-based pesticides. Rice has been genetically modified to produce higher levels of vitamin A, addressing vitamin deficiencies in developing countries.

Before CRISPR, most of this was achieved with selective breeding and gene splicing. Gene splicing involves physically cutting DNA and inserting new genes into the genome. In 2009, Japanese scientists spliced jellyfish DNA into marmoset embryos to make them glow in the dark. Not only did this work, but the gene is now passed on to their offspring. This is the first time this has been achieved in a primate.

Since then, scientists have created glowing sheep, pigs, and even glowing cats. Oh, I like this glowing cats idea. Easier to see the evil lurking in the shadows.

But gene splicing is difficult and not very precise. Whereas CRISPR is so precise, it's like copying and pasting specific genes. You can also use CRISPR to turn certain genes on or off, in any genome, in any organism, including humans. In addition to curing disease, researchers are exploring CRISPR to create new biofuels. There's a team genetically modifying mosquitoes so they can't carry malaria.

For years, scientists have tried to revive extinct animal species. The process is difficult and they've had mixed results, but it's much easier with CRISPR. And there's big money in de-extincting animals. What if bringing species back from extinction could help bring critically endangered species back from the brink, help hundreds of threatened species thrive, and support the restoration of the planet's critical ecosystems? That's the goal of Colossal.

A company called Colossal Biosciences secured $150 million in financing just last year. They plan to resurrect the woolly mammoth, the dodo bird, and other extinct species. What are they, nuts? It's like these people never seen a movie. They making Jurassic Park for real. They kind of are. And when a new technology emerges, governments of the world ask, is there a military application?

Well, in this case, the answer is yes. CRISPR has launched a new kind of arms race. Countries are hard at work right now trying to build the world's first super soldier. When Guardian AI incorporated every nation of the world into a single government, war... The only challenge to our peace was the imperfect. We had no way of tracking down these terrorists until now.

Today, Guardian released the first deployment of the elite tactical retrieval and criminal resistance team known as Tracers. Tracers have been genetically designed to be the perfect hunters. They're physically imposing, standing well over six feet tall with lean, muscular builds. They are the strongest and fastest humans ever to exist.

They can maintain a 35 mile per hour sprint for almost 10 minutes. Guardian says future generations of tracers will be even faster and with greater stamina. Like a chameleon, a tracer can change the color of his skin to match his surroundings. Their eyes are enhanced with advanced optics, which include 100 times zoom, night vision, and infrared. From over 100 yards away, a tracer can hear breath or even a heartbeat.

They can smell sweat from even farther, even within their target. Tracers also possess enhanced cognitive abilities. With their Neuralink implants, their minds process information thousands of times faster than a normal human. They can analyze complex data, gather clues, and predict their target's movements with uncanny accuracy. No doubt, Imperfects will target Tracers whenever they encounter them, but Tracers are extremely difficult to kill.

They can regenerate damaged tissue, mend broken bones, and even regrow lost limbs. Tracers have been engineered to have an extremely high pain tolerance. They can push through injuries that would incapacitate a normal person, never slowing down or losing focus of their mission.

Tracers are relentless, unstoppable, and utterly devoted to their purpose. They will not rest until every last imperfect has been eliminated from the gene pool. Then, we will finally have peace. Despite the World Health Organization condemning the use of CRISPR for anything other than medical necessities, governments around the world are very interested in its military potential.

What could the military do with CRISPR? Think Captain America or Wolverine. Real-life superheroes. Superhearing and night vision, increased muscle mass and bone density, tolerance to pain, immunity to poison, reduced sleep requirements, even regenerative healing. The possibilities are endless.

But here's something scary. These changes don't have to be made to embryos. They can be made to full-grown adults. In 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his scientists would soon be able to create a soldier with specific characteristics that would let them fight without pain or fear or regret. Yep. And China doesn't want to be left behind. They're allegedly testing soldiers right now.

And they have found that there is ample evidence that Chinese scientists are very interested in applying biotechnology to the battlefield and specifically the CRISPR gene editing tool, which raises a ton of questions. Picture super strong commandos who can operate on three hours sleep or a sniper who can see twice as far as a normal person. Maybe that's what happened to Wuhan. They were trying to create a Chinese Batman.

Let's not get into it. In 2020, France announced it's looking into enhancing their soldiers. French Defense Minister Florence Parley said they have no immediate plans for invasive technology for their soldiers, but she said other countries wouldn't hold back, so they have to be prepared.

In 2021, the UK entered the arms race. The UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency has been given £800 million to research genetically enhancing soldiers. And you can't have an arms race without the good old USA. In 2019, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, launched a project to explore genetically editing soldiers.

One last thing. Remember Colossal Biosciences? Yeah, the company making Jurassic Park? Yep. They have a new investor. Oh, no. A big pharma company? Worse. A big tech company? Worse. Well, the only thing worse would be, uh, wait. Do you mean? The CIA. Oh, no! Yep.

The CIA gets a black budget of about $100 billion a year, more or less. They're throwing a lot of that money at genetic research. Colossal Biosciences, Ginkgo Bioworks, Metabiota, Biomatrica, and T2 Biosystems all allegedly receive millions in CIA funding. These companies use artificial intelligence for gene mapping, genetic testing, and other DNA research. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. What?

Yep. It was. They really are. And speaking of Terminator 2, remember the rest of the title of that movie? Judgment Day.

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Judgment day came and went as expected. Your crimes? Counts of treason, terrorism, conspiracy, resisting arrest, assaulting an agent of the state, and the charge every imperfect faces? Defying natural order.

The sentence for any one of these is death. There was no reason for them to pile the charges on. They even threw an account of breaking and entering. You check the clock on the wall. 6:55. Five minutes left. Five minutes left to live. In five minutes, your cell will open and the guards will take you to a room. What happens in that room, nobody knows, only rumors. But whoever goes in that room doesn't come out. Four minutes left.

This is a worse fate than the others on your team. They were all killed by tracers during the Titan Point job. At least they didn't have to sit in a cell counting down days, then hours, now minutes until their death. The plan was going so well, for a few minutes at least. Your contact opened the door right on schedule. A quick ride up to the 15th floor, which was temporarily closed for renovation.

Then into the telco closet where the workstation was waiting, just like the blueprint said it would be. The portable drive fit. The virus uploaded. You never felt more elation in your life. It was pure joy. Then you heard the gunshots. And you knew. There was no reason to hide. They knew you were there. When you opened the door, there were two tracers standing over the bodies of your friends. And there was your contact, staring at his shoes. He betrayed you.

It was a long shot anyway. The AI was always a step ahead. You don't know how many resistant cells are left, but you can scratch New York off the list. Three minutes left.

You spent the last two weeks in your cell going over the plan again and again, trying to find the hole, where it went wrong. But there was no hole. The plan was perfect. The problem was your contact. He was human. An optimized human. It was hard to blame him. He was bred to be obedient, loyal and even fearful of authority. Trusting him was a mistake. You never really had a chance. You hear footsteps in the hall getting closer.

The jangling of keys. The door unlocks and opens. The guard nods his head as if to say, let's go. I still have two minutes, you tell him. He looks at your wall clock and nods. You're right, he says. Do you want to wait?

In a flash, you recall the memory of your father shoving you down the hatch, the shouting, the crawling in the dark, and the hiding. Most of all, you remember the hiding. Hiding for years. Fearing this moment would happen one day, and here it is. You tell the guard, nah, I'm ready. You hop up from your bunk, casually walk past the guard, and start down the long gray hall. It's finally time to stop hiding.

Eugenics is defined as a set of beliefs and practices designed to improve the genetic quality of the human population. Eugenics is most often associated with the Nazis, but it didn't start with them or end with them. The sterilization of people considered "unfit" has happened on every continent and in every major country.

In 1907, the Indiana eugenics law was passed in the US, the first of its kind in the world. The law authorized the involuntary sterilization of certain individuals, specifically the mentally ill. By the 1930s, more than 30 states had passed similar laws. These laws primarily targeted individuals in mental institutions or prisons...

but they also affected others in the community deemed unfit for reproduction, including people with disabilities, those with mental illness, and individuals of certain racial and ethnic backgrounds. - Oh no. - Yep, this law was abused.

In Sweden, more than 60,000 people were sterilized between 1934 and 1976. Just like the U.S., the program was designed to prevent people from reproducing who were deemed by the state to have undesirable traits. The mentally ill, the mentally disabled, the physically deformed, or anyone behaving in a way considered socially problematic or genetically inferior.

In modern times, eugenics is not accepted as scientific. It's considered erroneous and immoral. Eugenics is no longer an acceptable practice. Or is it? Many countries allow women to terminate a pregnancy if the fetus shows signs of impairment, illness, or a genetic disorder. Depending on the country, up to 90% of women choose to terminate. Is this eugenics? I'm not judging, I'm just asking.

Consider this. What if instead of terminating a fetus, that fetus's illness could be repaired? CRISPR not only makes that possible, it makes it easy. This would lead to more births of healthy babies. But technology was used to alter that child, which alters the gene pool. Is this eugenics? It's an ongoing debate.

There are valid arguments on both sides. On one hand, preventing a child from having Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease, sickle cell disease, sets up that child and his or her parents for an easier life and spares that family a lot of pain and expense. On the other hand, CRISPR technology does interfere with the natural order of things. Of course, it's done with good intentions, but whenever we tamper with nature, there can be, and there usually are,

Unexpected consequences. This is the emergency broadcast system. This is not a test. In a historic victory for global stability, Guardian AI has successfully neutralized the terrorist group known as the Resistance. This misguided faction sought to undermine the peace and progress achieved through Guardian's genetic optimization programs. Optimization programs.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Tracers working out of the New York branch, the Resistance's leadership has been captured and their network dismantled. Guardian will now be able to continue its vital work unimpeded, ensuring a future of health, harmony, and security for all citizens. The world can now breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that the Guardian is watching over us. Always watching.

In 2021, the World Health Organization started putting together a set of global standards regarding CRISPR and gene editing. The WHO said gene editing should be used only in cases of medical necessity. The report explicitly says gene technology should not be used in any military application. But there's a slight problem with the report.

That isn't law. It's up to each country to decide how they use CRISPR. And it's safe to assume some countries aren't going to agree with the WHO. In fact, the evidence shows all the major world powers are gearing up for a new kind of war to be fought by a new kind of soldier. How we use CRISPR will shape the future of our world. The evidence will be recorded not just in our history books, but in our DNA.

A lot of today's story was speculation, and the future doesn't have to be so dark. CRISPR has the potential to eliminate genetic diseases. HIV, genetic blindness, MS, even cancer can almost be completely eradicated like smallpox was in 1980. But remember Dr. Ho-Jung Kuei, who created twin girls immune to HIV? Well, he didn't. It didn't work.

And even Jennifer Doudna herself has warned that CRISPR carries with it great risk. The potential to do incredible things and make incredible advances that will be beneficial to our society, but hand in hand with that goes these large risks. There have been at least two published, but not highly publicized,

Cleavage site. Right.

Some of those deletions silenced genes that should be active and activated genes that should be silent, including cancer-causing genes. Within 20 minutes of the release of that study, three publicly traded CRISPR companies lost more than $300 million in value. Like with AI, we have to be very, very careful with this technology. The dystopian future I described today could easily happen. The foundation is already here.

We, as a species, are at a crossroads, and I don't know which road we'll take. Zeus gave Pandora a box as a wedding gift, but told her to never open it. She couldn't resist. You know the story. When Pandora opened the box, it unleashed all the evils and miseries into the world: disease, poverty, hatred, violence, and suffering. I've heard people compare AI and CRISPR to Pandora's box. Now that the box is opened, there's no going back.

CRISPR and AI aren't going away. In fact, despite all the warnings and the potential danger, these technologies are being expanded. Right away, Pandora knew she made a mistake and did finally close the box, but all the contents had escaped. Except one thing at the bottom of the box was left behind. Like Pandora, that one thing might be the only thing we have left. That one thing was hope.

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