I’m a software developer by training with an interest in genetics. I am currently doing independent research on gene therapy with an emphasis on intelligence enhancement.
GeneSmith
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The Case for Human Genetic Engineering
I am quite optimistic about our ability to increase both intelligence and longevity for a few reasons:
1. Intelligence correlates quite strongly with longevity. It therefore seems likely unlikely that optimizing for increased intelligence will have a negative effect on lifespan in the short term.
2. Increasing healthy lifespan will probably lead to smarter average citizens even if there’s no direct effect on IQ. This is simply because a lower percentage of citizens will be in the development phase.
3. There’s a paper I read a few weeks ago suggesting that there’s far less pleiotropy (genes that have two distinct effects) than we previously thought. If this is the case, we would expect many genes to affect mostly longevity rather than nearly all affecting both longevity and intelligence.
As far as the “this generation vs next-generation” question, I think that there ARE probably some changes you could make to the current generation, particularly by modifying stem cell populations. But there are always going to be some changes that can only be feasibly made in embryos (particularly those that affect developmental growth). Until we get extremely advanced nanotech, those types of changes are only going to have an effect if made in embryos or young children. And if your nanotech is that advanced this all may be a moot question because you might just synthesize entirely new designs for bodies and brains that aren’t even possible by simply modifying genes.
There’s also a knowledge constraint on our ability to modify the genes of adult humans. For highly polygenic traits in particular, we know the rough regions that correlate to the expression of the trait, but in most cases, we don’t know the precise gene in that region that is responsible for the observed variance. We’ll have narrowed it down to 10 or 11 candidate genes, but we don’t know the single gene responsible.
This makes genetic engineering of such traits highly impractical with tools like CRISPR because we’d have to cut and replace ten times the number of genes that we actually want to replace. And given CRISPRs continued issues with off-target edits, this is likely impossible with current technology.
It’s much easier to modify such polygenic traits with embryo selection methods, which as the name suggests, can only be performed by selecting one embryo out of a large batch.
I’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about the potential implications of a soft or hard ban on these types of zero sum traits. You’re probably right that people wouldn’t accept mandated downgrades from their current possession of these zero sum traits (shorter, smaller breasts etc), but it seems plausible that at some point we might put a cap on how extreme we’re willing to let people engineer themselves.
But historical precident has given me pause. One can imagine that the gigantic benefits to the species as a whole of increased intelligence would not at all have been apparent for most of human history. Might we accidentally ban a trait that appears to be zero sum but actually has massive positive externalities that we simply don’t foresee? That’s one of the things I’m worried might happen with these types of bans.
Of course there are probably even bigger risks if we simply allow unlimited engineering of these sorts of zero sum traits by parents thinking only of their own children’s success. Everyone would end up losing.
I’m thinking of something like a fitness trap scenario, where competition to maximize zero sum traits degrades some other key trait in an irreversible way. Not that it would literally be irreversible, but that the degradation of such a trait (perhaps we find a gene that makes you very attractive but dumber) would make the next generation even more likely to sacrifice that key trait etc etc in a vicious cycle.
I’m thinking here of the Irish Elk, a huge species of deer whose competition for larger antler size drove it to extinction.
Though I agree with you that the danger of banning genetic modification would be much, much greater than the danger of this kind of sexual selection induced extinction.
EDIT: After reading the article I linked it looks like there is actually controversy about whether large antlers drove the Irish Elk extinct. The real cause may have been a combination of a reduction in food an predation. So perhaps that’s not the best example for the wisdom of banning zero sum trait selection.
Every time I read one of Scott Alexander’s posts I lament my own writing abilities. He’s said everything I want to say about the tradeoffs in genetic engineering with fewer words and in a more comprehensible manner.
I guess my ultimate aim in writing these posts is to convince myself and others that genetic engineering is not only desirable but possible in the near future. I guess maybe what I should be focusing on is less persuasive writing and more HOW to do it.
Though part of me despairs at the possibility of us ever pursuing such a path. Cloning is banned in nearly every country in the world in which it might be possible to create clones. This is ostensibly because cloned mammals have a much higher rate of birth defects, yet so far as I can tell there is no effort being made to reduce the likelihood of such errors. Instead it seems like the current technical problems are being used as an excuse to stop research on how to make cloning safer.
My assessment is that you are either unusually resistant to the manipulative tactics of social media or you haven’t kept track of your usage accurately enough to write an honest self-assessment. I’d lean towards the former since you spend a lot of time on games that don’t have much of the manipulative “gamification” aspects that makes social media so powerful.
But even if you aren’t personally affected very much by social media manipulation, I would argue you should still be concerened. The world in which you live is increasingly shaped by content aggregation algorithms on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Ninety percent of journalists have a twitter account, and news is increasingly shaped by the interaction of journalists with each other and readers on social media. The combination of irrational groupthink on Twitter and the bad incentives of the traditional advertising model have had huge impacts on the quality of coverage and the topics of coverage. Journalists even realize this. Here’s Vox Co-Founder Ezra Klein explaining why he moved to San Francisco:
Part of the reason I moved from DC to Oakland is it no longer felt like I could understand what the hell was happening to politics if I didn’t get a better handle on tech.
So many of today’s politics stories are actually stories about how technology is changing politics.
I don’t think Trump, Sanders, or AOC would’ve had the rises they’ve had without Twitter. I don’t think old theories of how parties work, the role money plays, or how the media makes coverage decisions, hold now that political communication is social, algorithmic, and viral.
And it’s not just politics. Life is just what we pay attention to. And what we pay attention to, increasingly, are screens.
There’s really no escaping the effects of social media. Its effects are so pervasive that even if you don’t use it your world view is shaped by it.
If we like dogs, will the AI force pancakes upon us?
This really paints a vivid picture of the stakes involved in solving the alignment problem.
Human Genetic Engineering: Increasing Intelligence
Thanks!
Frankly the double exponential growth claim is one of the more speculative in the post. There ARE some similarities with a field like quantum computing, where Neven’s law describes how quantum computers’ performance at certain tasks improves at a doubly exponential rate.
The doubly exponential rate at which, according to Neven, quantum computers are gaining on classical ones is a result of two exponential factors combined with each other. The first is that quantum computers have an intrinsic exponential advantage over classical ones: If a quantum circuit has four quantum bits, for example, it takes a classical circuit with 16 ordinary bits to achieve equivalent computational power. This would be true even if quantum technology never improved.
My assertion of doubly exponential economic growth is premised on two things: economic growth being an exponential multiple of the abilities of the beings that create it, and intelligence itself increasing exponentially as we begin to adopt genetic modification.
This obviously could turn out to be wrong.
I’ve kind of used them interchangeably throughout the post, though I prefer to use “intelligence” to describe what we are actually aiming for: increasing the ability of individuals to accomplish goals given a set of constraints. There are highly g-loaded tests such as IQ tests or SAT scores that capture g well but don’t always translate to real-world performance.
Part of the challenge for any genetic engineering program will be figuring out how to robustly measure traits we want to change. IQ test are highly g-loaded, but they can be gamed. I remember reading a study (I can’t find it now) showing that if you trained people on IQ test you could increase their scores by like 15 points, which shows that IQ scores can become decoupled from g. Ideally we’d like a test that can’t be gamed.
Those North Korean poop stories are out of this world.
Also I am now very curious about the population of flies over time. There must have been a massive decline in the fly population that coincided with the adoption of automobiles.
I feel like crying in relief. The doubling time of the UK strain being 20 days instead of 10, the massive boost of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, and the FDA announcing that they will have a streamlined process for approving vaccine modifications for the new variants. Together those three pieces of news alone probably mean at least a hundred thousand lives saved.
It seems weird to me that so few people have emotional reactions to this type of news. We get worked up about one person getting stabbed or raped, but if a hundred thousand fewer people die from an infectious disease, most people don’t even celebrate.
Do we have numbers for how effective different vaccines are at stopping transmission of the virus? I looked through some of your old posts but couldn’t find numbers. Trying to figure out how much to discount the risk from getting together with some vaccinated friends.
Why Selective Breeding is a Bad Way to do Genetic Engineering
This was written as more or less a reference post for a larger post I’m writing on the topic of human genetic engineering.
No. I wrote this as a reference post for another larger post I’m writing on the topic of human genetic engineering. I will link to this as a brief summary of why I think other approaches to genetic engineering are better.
This is a good point, though even with one child you’d have a significantly lower per generation gains. I’d have to model this to get a clear idea of how it would function. I guess part of my theory here is that parents would still have to raise their own children, which would limit the number of offspring high-scoring individuals could have.
I did some quick maths and determined that if one were selecting strictly for a single trait and were to take the top 11% of scorers and that entire group was to have 10 children each (while the rest of the population was to have 1 child), your population would have an average trait score 2/3rds of one standard deviation above the previous population’s mean. Not a trivial difference, but not that great.
Furthermore, if this was really being done you’d end up with a highly hierarchical society where all those who were not among the top scoring fell further and further behind. In fact, this will likely be a problem even in what I would consider well designed genetic engineering schemes, though the gap in those schemes would be more generational.
It might be that creating new consciousnesses is a fundamental right, but merely stating it is just sweeping a (tricky) subject under the rug. And even rights have limits when they collide with other rights. Imagine someone has a genetic trait that condemns their offspring to constant excruciating pain. How about the right not to be born just to suffer?
You’re right, there are definitely some corner cases in the “right to reproduce” where we might make exceptions, such as extreme suffering of the offspring. I’m going to change the wording of the original post because it came across as more absolutist than I meant it to be.
How about people who are not attractive then?
Frankly I agree that unattractive people are not treated well by our society. It is one of many unfortunate things about the current state of the world. It would be nice if everyone was attractive, just like it would be nice if everyone was intelligent and had low risk of lung cancer. We should work to fix such issues.
But we have a choice to make about how we pursue genetic engineering, and I was merely trying to make the point that CHOOSING to pursue it via selective breeding would introduce additional cruelty into the world not already present.
You’re right that most de novo mutations are harmful, but I don’t think this strategy is necessarily optimal. There’s no guarantee that rare alleles are harmful.
In this case, look at the data and try to see if A or B is statistically correlated with a desirable trait
This is more or less what I think the correct approach is, but you’re glossing over a lot of detail. There are big questions around HOW to do this, to what degree desirable traits are heritable, as well as tradeoffs inherent in the human genome where the answer as to which variant is the “better” cannot be given an unqualified answer.
Thank you for pointing this out. I was aware of genetic drift, but I hadn’t read before that it accounted for the large majority of mutations.
I think what I was saying still largely holds true though: even if gene B has a neutral effect on reproductive fitness, the lack of fitness ADVANTAGE will mean that any spread that does occur will be by pure chance and is liable to being reversed by the same chance.
I actually don’t really know how to do the math on this one. If we start out with a population that all has the normal form of gene B and we the mutant form conveys no net reproductive fitness benefit or downside and the likelihood of each mutating into the other is equal, then I suppose we would expect the frequency of each variant to approach 50% given enough time.
Which makes me think that the likelihood of one allele spontaneously mutating into any other is probably pretty important. In fact I know of a specific disease in which the mutation from one allele to another in not symmetrical: Huntington’s disease.
Huntington’s disease is a codon repeat disorder, meaning that the mutant gene causing the disease has a codon that’s repeated at the end a large number of times. People with the disease have the letters ‘CAG’ repeated at the end of the gene at least 40 times. The more repetitions, the earlier the effects of the disease begin to show. There’s actually two villages in Venezuela (Barranquitas and Lagunetas) where children as young as ten acquire the disease due to having 70 or 80 CAG repeats.