Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 178 posts

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#31

Post by conception »

gjtorikian wrote: post #15
jcadam wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like it, but I have to admit you're most certainly correct that it's only a matter of time before human genetic-enhancement is commonplace. Best case, we'll be living in a Gattaca -esque world before the end of the century.

You do realize Gattaca was a dystopia right? That Ethan Hawke's entire character arc was proving that an unmodified human is just as capable as a modified one? That best case is still a horrible future.

Actually it was proving that being clever you can cheat the system. He showed, several time, why he wasn't as capable and probably put everyone on the mission in jeopardy because of it (Do they have contact lens replacements in space when no one else needs them? Probably not.)

That is one of the reasons why I love that movie, Ethan is the bad guy. Though that's probably not what the director was going for.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#32

Post by TallGuyShort »

komali2 wrote: post #6

>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…

I'm not seeing the consistency in your arms race argument. I don't have a lot of hope that the more intelligent children will decide that war sucks - odds are at least 1 country in this hypothetical arms race would spend significant resources on more aggressive, order-following soldiers to do the bidding of people who still want war.

It's nothing to do with religious reasons for me - I just categorically reject the idea that many of the categories of "disorder" are things that humanity would just be better off without. Is life harder with, say, Down's syndrome? Sure. Is life harder as, say, a homosexual? In many places, sure. Would the world be a better place if we managed to eliminate these traits? You really wanna make that statement? I'm really curious to know where you see a completely objective line to draw here.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#33

Post by fbdhsfagdshafgh »

The particular fix done in this study prevents hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic disorder that I have.

I cannot explain how weird it feels to read front page headlines that scientists have "fixed" me, that its a huge breakthrough that scientists will be able to remove part of what makes me ME from future generations.

I'm all for it, of course. HCM, most frequently diagnosed in people by their sudden death, is bad. But at a personal level, this feels unnerving.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#34

Post by computerex »

thriftwy wrote: post #22
aaronmck wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you'll have to wait for the genetics to catch up -- we know nearly nothing about the effects of variation on complex traits like intelligence or athletic performance. Even in known 'cancer genes' like BRCA1, we know what only a few of the thousands of single-base changes do. Without this information, things are going to be limited to known disease variants (a good thing)

I'm pretty sure that if we threw a lot of genomes, healthy and defective, to a neural network, and then showed it a genome and told "make it healthy", it would. So it happens that genetics doesn't have to catch up - we can have this knowledge without knowing it. And also. People will question genetists' judgement. Some of the changes they're proposing have never passed statistically significant testing. But nobody ev…

Dear lord, this is exactly why everyone thinks neural networks are AGI about to take over the world. Neural networks are not magic.

> I'm pretty sure that if we threw a lot of genomes, healthy and defective, to a neural network, and then showed it a genome and told "make it healthy", it would.

It's not quite that simple.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#35

Post by [deleted] »

komali2 wrote: post #24
thriftwy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that if we threw a lot of genomes, healthy and defective, to a neural network, and then showed it a genome and told "make it healthy", it would. So it happens that genetics doesn't have to catch up - we can have this knowledge without knowing it. And also. People will question genetists' judgement. Some of the changes they're proposing have never passed statistically significant testing. But nobody ev…

That's an interesting idea, but with my limited knowledge of neural networks and deep learning, don't these things usually need to know when they are "successful?" (i.e. the distance gone right in a mario game or something). How do they not only suss out various options for genomes, then test the effects?

[deleted]

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#36

Post by maxerickson »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #32
komali2 wrote: post #6

>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…

I'm not seeing the consistency in your arms race argument. I don't have a lot of hope that the more intelligent children will decide that war sucks - odds are at least 1 country in this hypothetical arms race would spend significant resources on more aggressive, order-following soldiers to do the bidding of people who still want war. It's nothing to do with religious reasons for me - I just categorically reject the i…

Down's syndrome usually isn't a trait, it usually is a result of a second copy of a chromosome being included in a sperm or egg cell.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#37

Post by [deleted] »

lallysingh wrote: post #28
quotemstr wrote: post #14

Good! For too long, we've been hampered by the limitations of a human nature evolved millions of years ago for a very different environment. All previous attempts at changing human nature have failed. Activism does not work. Grand social movements do not work. Policing language does not work. We now have a chance to succeed in improving ourselves using tools that actually work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaver_(Firefly)#Origin

[deleted]

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#38

Post by maxerickson »

conception wrote: post #31
gjtorikian wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize Gattaca was a dystopia right? That Ethan Hawke's entire character arc was proving that an unmodified human is just as capable as a modified one? That best case is still a horrible future.

Actually it was proving that being clever you can cheat the system. He showed, several time, why he wasn't as capable and probably put everyone on the mission in jeopardy because of it (Do they have contact lens replacements in space when no one else needs them? Probably not.) That is one of the reasons why I love that movie, Ethan is the bad guy. Though that's probably not what the director was going for.

Do you have a hot take on Harrison Bergeron?

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#39

Post by crusso »

thriftwy wrote: post #22
aaronmck wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you'll have to wait for the genetics to catch up -- we know nearly nothing about the effects of variation on complex traits like intelligence or athletic performance. Even in known 'cancer genes' like BRCA1, we know what only a few of the thousands of single-base changes do. Without this information, things are going to be limited to known disease variants (a good thing)

I'm pretty sure that if we threw a lot of genomes, healthy and defective, to a neural network, and then showed it a genome and told "make it healthy", it would. So it happens that genetics doesn't have to catch up - we can have this knowledge without knowing it. And also. People will question genetists' judgement. Some of the changes they're proposing have never passed statistically significant testing. But nobody ev…

I'm sure that machine learning will come into play at some point, but we aren't able to model complex organic molecules in order to understand or evaluate "healthy" on silicon.

In order to use ML on actual organisms, you'd need a way to try a lot of different modifications and then evaluate them after actual growth.

Doing that kind of experimentation with human embryos, fetuses, and beyond has huge ethical minefields as well as many biological engineering challenges.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#40

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jcadam wrote: post #13
komali2 wrote: post #6

>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…

I don't like it, but I have to admit you're most certainly correct that it's only a matter of time before human genetic-enhancement is commonplace. Best case, we'll be living in a Gattaca -esque world before the end of the century.

You realize that enhanced alleles are going to spread into the gene pool the old-fashioned way, right? No society has ever managed to prevent the upper classes from fucking the lower classes.
Post reply on HN