Another potential route for this is that reprogenetics can help solve the fertility crisis, which can reduce the incentives to build AGI. My thinking here is that currently it’s pretty risky to have children (e.g. if even one of them ends up unhealthy or “unsuccessful” / low status, it’s a big drain on one’s own finances/status/happiness) which I think contributes to low desire to have more kids in a lot of societies, and low average fertility is a motivation for building AGI in order to stop/reverse the resulting economic or civilizational decline. Reprogenetics could help fix this root cause.
Although I suppose this depends on reprogenetics being cheap enough. If it’s too expensive (and can’t be or isn’t subsidized), it might have the opposite effect, where people feel like it’s a de facto requirement of parenthood (e.g. they feel really bad about their unenhanced kids having to compete with enhanced kids) and opt out of having children because they can’t afford it.
low average fertility is a motivation for building AGI in order to stop/reverse the resulting economic or civilizational decline.
Interesting. This seems plausible as a (smallish?) contributing factor. (Though I don’t personally feel very grounded in what people actually say to themselves or each other about why they’re building AGI.)
currently it’s pretty risky to have children [...] which I think contributes to low desire to have more kids in a lot of societies,
This probably isn’t the main cause, since I think it’s probably a lot less risky today than at previous times in history (better nutrition, medical care, social safety nets, etc.). But it stands to reason that it’s a contributing factor.
Incidentally, reprogenetics and more broadly the advanced reprotech that’s involved, could help support fertility in ways beyond affecting the life outcomes of the child. For example:
In vitro oogenesis (making eggs from stem cells)
Enables women to get eggs with their DNA while avoiding egg retrieval. Egg retrieval is uncomfortable (ovarian swelling, hormones), painful (injections, surgery), expensive ($10k++), unreliable, and inconvenient (confusing system, blood draws, ultrasound monitoring, financing, etc.). IVO would be a much simpler process (just take one biopsy; the rest is in the lab) and in the long run should way less expensive.
Egg retrieval doesn’t work well for women >35yo (say), and doesn’t work at all for older women. Some women don’t have eggs for other reasons (e.g. cancer treatment). There are also couples who would have same-sex gametes (gay or trans). So IVO would make it go from impossible to possible for such people to have genetic kids.
In vitro spermatogenesis (making sperm from stem cells)
The same considerations apply as for IVO.
Further, older men have worse sperm (genetic damage and probably epigenetic aberration). This leads to higher rates of disorders in children. High-quality IVS, maybe with genomic vectoring to correct damage, could alleviate that.
Egg and zygote support.
Various labs and startups are working on tech such as in vitro maturation of eggs, in vitro ovarian follicle culture, and repairing damaged cell-division machinery needed for oogenesis and early embryogenesis.
These technologies decrease the attrition in the egg retrieval (or IVO) --> implantable embryo pipeline, quantitatively alleviating the costs of that pipeline.
One reprogenetic target would be “genes that support a healthy successful pregnancy”, helping to alleviate the burden of failed implantation or miscarriage.
This is a bit more sci-fi and less related to reprogenetics, but artificial wombs would relieve the harms / burdens of pregnancy (though it may take a while to end up less expensive than surrogacy).
reprogenetics being cheap enough
For several reasons this seems important, and I think it’s achievable. The research is expensive, but once the methods are worked out, they probably can be innovated to be pretty inexpensive.
where people feel like it’s a de facto requirement of parenthood
That would be a sad outcome. In the longer run, there’s probably some restructuring of society that would be good, that takes advantage of material abundance to make it so that parents are reasonably assured that their children’s lives will be well worth living, whether or not they use reprogenetics.
I don’t think that reprogenetics would solve the crisis. IIRC (upd: link) Asian countries have the same problem of an overcompetition for prestigious jobs which are scarse almost by definition. Even if enhancing the kids was cheap and efficient (which I doubt, as detailed in my comment), competition would shift to a competition among the enhanced kids.
The fertility crisis in countries like the USA wasdescribedinfiveroundups by Zvi and has many other causes like housing (which is also a problem in S. Korea!), lack of couples, etc.
Another potential route for this is that reprogenetics can help solve the fertility crisis, which can reduce the incentives to build AGI. My thinking here is that currently it’s pretty risky to have children (e.g. if even one of them ends up unhealthy or “unsuccessful” / low status, it’s a big drain on one’s own finances/status/happiness) which I think contributes to low desire to have more kids in a lot of societies, and low average fertility is a motivation for building AGI in order to stop/reverse the resulting economic or civilizational decline. Reprogenetics could help fix this root cause.
Although I suppose this depends on reprogenetics being cheap enough. If it’s too expensive (and can’t be or isn’t subsidized), it might have the opposite effect, where people feel like it’s a de facto requirement of parenthood (e.g. they feel really bad about their unenhanced kids having to compete with enhanced kids) and opt out of having children because they can’t afford it.
Interesting. This seems plausible as a (smallish?) contributing factor. (Though I don’t personally feel very grounded in what people actually say to themselves or each other about why they’re building AGI.)
This probably isn’t the main cause, since I think it’s probably a lot less risky today than at previous times in history (better nutrition, medical care, social safety nets, etc.). But it stands to reason that it’s a contributing factor.
Incidentally, reprogenetics and more broadly the advanced reprotech that’s involved, could help support fertility in ways beyond affecting the life outcomes of the child. For example:
In vitro oogenesis (making eggs from stem cells)
Enables women to get eggs with their DNA while avoiding egg retrieval. Egg retrieval is uncomfortable (ovarian swelling, hormones), painful (injections, surgery), expensive ($10k++), unreliable, and inconvenient (confusing system, blood draws, ultrasound monitoring, financing, etc.). IVO would be a much simpler process (just take one biopsy; the rest is in the lab) and in the long run should way less expensive.
Egg retrieval doesn’t work well for women >35yo (say), and doesn’t work at all for older women. Some women don’t have eggs for other reasons (e.g. cancer treatment). There are also couples who would have same-sex gametes (gay or trans). So IVO would make it go from impossible to possible for such people to have genetic kids.
In vitro spermatogenesis (making sperm from stem cells)
The same considerations apply as for IVO.
Further, older men have worse sperm (genetic damage and probably epigenetic aberration). This leads to higher rates of disorders in children. High-quality IVS, maybe with genomic vectoring to correct damage, could alleviate that.
Egg and zygote support.
Various labs and startups are working on tech such as in vitro maturation of eggs, in vitro ovarian follicle culture, and repairing damaged cell-division machinery needed for oogenesis and early embryogenesis.
These technologies decrease the attrition in the egg retrieval (or IVO) --> implantable embryo pipeline, quantitatively alleviating the costs of that pipeline.
One reprogenetic target would be “genes that support a healthy successful pregnancy”, helping to alleviate the burden of failed implantation or miscarriage.
This is a bit more sci-fi and less related to reprogenetics, but artificial wombs would relieve the harms / burdens of pregnancy (though it may take a while to end up less expensive than surrogacy).
For several reasons this seems important, and I think it’s achievable. The research is expensive, but once the methods are worked out, they probably can be innovated to be pretty inexpensive.
That would be a sad outcome. In the longer run, there’s probably some restructuring of society that would be good, that takes advantage of material abundance to make it so that parents are reasonably assured that their children’s lives will be well worth living, whether or not they use reprogenetics.
I don’t think that reprogenetics would solve the crisis. IIRC (upd: link) Asian countries have the same problem of an overcompetition for prestigious jobs which are scarse almost by definition. Even if enhancing the kids was cheap and efficient (which I doubt, as detailed in my comment), competition would shift to a competition among the enhanced kids.
The fertility crisis in countries like the USA was described in five roundups by Zvi and has many other causes like housing (which is also a problem in S. Korea!), lack of couples, etc.