I certainly think that such a thing is possible. This is the general sort of thing I was studying back when I was trying to figure out human intelligence enhancement for the sake of helping solve the AI alignment problem.
I do think that successfully modifying a large percentage of existing neurons is a big challenge. Not insurmountable, but a big challenge in and of itself beyond just knowing what changes you’d ideally like to make.
I also think that getting adequate funding and permissions for doing this research, even just on animal subjects, within a 5 year time frame, is a substantial hurdle. To get approval for human testing? Whoa. There’d need to be some dramatic shifts in public policy. Not theoretically impossible but.… That seems to me to be the biggest hurdle. Of course, if you got as far as successful animal testing, and then got blocked on moving to human testing because of politics, and yet the treatment process was quite technically easy to accomplish.… well, there’s always the potential for some brave volunteers taking a boat trip into international waters and doing some private things they choose not to disclose.
I also think that getting adequate funding and permissions for doing this research, even just on animal subjects, within a 5 year time frame, is a substantial hurdle.
Agreed. Hopefully the post I’m working on may catalyze interest among funders.
To get approval for human testing? Whoa.
You can do almost all the human testing necessary to prove this technology in the context of other diseases and mental conditions.
Tier 1 would be pretty simple: find someone with a monogenic brain disease and try to get an editing agent into their brain to fix it.
Tier 2 would be to attempt to modify polygenic risk score. For example, imagine someone has treatment-resistant depression that doesn’t respond to therapy or medication, and they are suicidal as a result. We could potentially modify their genes to reduce the propensity for depression (particularly if their polygenic risk score is already unusually high).
Once you’ve done something like that, pretty much all of the pieces are in place. You will have tested literally everything except the genetic predictor for intelligence.
I certainly think that such a thing is possible. This is the general sort of thing I was studying back when I was trying to figure out human intelligence enhancement for the sake of helping solve the AI alignment problem.
I do think that successfully modifying a large percentage of existing neurons is a big challenge. Not insurmountable, but a big challenge in and of itself beyond just knowing what changes you’d ideally like to make.
I also think that getting adequate funding and permissions for doing this research, even just on animal subjects, within a 5 year time frame, is a substantial hurdle. To get approval for human testing? Whoa. There’d need to be some dramatic shifts in public policy. Not theoretically impossible but.… That seems to me to be the biggest hurdle. Of course, if you got as far as successful animal testing, and then got blocked on moving to human testing because of politics, and yet the treatment process was quite technically easy to accomplish.… well, there’s always the potential for some brave volunteers taking a boat trip into international waters and doing some private things they choose not to disclose.
Agreed. Hopefully the post I’m working on may catalyze interest among funders.
You can do almost all the human testing necessary to prove this technology in the context of other diseases and mental conditions.
Tier 1 would be pretty simple: find someone with a monogenic brain disease and try to get an editing agent into their brain to fix it.
Tier 2 would be to attempt to modify polygenic risk score. For example, imagine someone has treatment-resistant depression that doesn’t respond to therapy or medication, and they are suicidal as a result. We could potentially modify their genes to reduce the propensity for depression (particularly if their polygenic risk score is already unusually high).
Once you’ve done something like that, pretty much all of the pieces are in place. You will have tested literally everything except the genetic predictor for intelligence.
Good luck! Not a horse I’d bet on, but I’m glad you’re in the race. Diversity of approaches buys us micro-alignments! :-)