For everyone worried about being dominated by our robot overlords or an impending zombie apocalypse, I have a different fear — eugenics style genomic breeding programs.
This from a fellow VC investing in DNA testing companies:
“Already underway in (country x). Genetic testing is 100x less expensive than when Craig Venter did it first, and over the next 5 years it can become cheap enough that you’ll get you’re DNA tested every time blood is drawn in order to look for changes.”
So (country x) is testing Nobel Prize winners, smart kids in class, and athletes to build a model of DNA markers that create these positive attributes. Then, they can easily clone a mother’s egg 10,000 times or so, expose them all to spermatozoa, and then test the combined DNA of those 10,000 embryos. The parents, or (country x), can pick the one with the best genetic markers for genius or athleticism or whatever.”
Voila. Engineered kids.
I wonder if the smart ones will also have Aspergers symptoms, or the strong ones will have academics bred out of them. It might be scary, but if they find the DNA marker for “Teenage Irritation Syndrome” I might be a customer. We could dial that down.
Sean Foote's Blog 