Lifeboat Foundation

Public policy includes efforts by governmental as well as nongovernmental agencies (other than professional associations) to manage genetic enhancement. For example, the International Olympic Committee has a policy on performance-enhancing drugs in sport. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration classified synthetic anabolic steroids as a restricted class of drugs, making it more difficult to get access to them. Such measures will not always be successful. Epoetin alfa (EPO) is a useful medication for the many people who suffer from chronic anemia, including people who must undergo regular renal dialysis. As a consequence, it is in very wide supply for legitimate therapeutic purposes, unlike the synthetic anabolic steroids. Imposing strict limitations on access to EPO would create an enormous inconvenience for the large number of people who benefit from the drug. The fact that some athletes are able to get their hands on EPO is an unintended consequence of having the drug widely available for legitimate therapeutic uses. The appropriate public policy will not be the same, necessarily, for every drug.

By “personal policy” we mean the moral understandings and social practices of individuals, parents, and families, including those moral convictions that would cause them to refrain from unwise or unfair use of genetic enhancement technologies. The Worth of a Child, for example, focuses on ethical issues involving children and parents.¹¹ How does one engage that sort of personal policy response? The means we have are limited but powerful: education, public dialogue, and the encouragement of ethical reflection.

In conclusion, there are four points worth reiterating. First, as we think about genetic enhancement, we should use a broad definition of genetic-enhancement technologies, not merely gene manipulation, but indirect genetic technologies, such as biosynthetic drugs. Second, we should try to anticipate the enhancement temptations of new therapies. Such anticipation may help us in shaping the marketing, availability, or other aspects of those technologies. Third, we should promote the adoption of appropriate public and professional policies. Finally, we should provide public education and dialogue to encourage personal ethical reflection on the appropriate uses and limits of genetic-enhancement technologies.

America’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Science and Technology Council, and the National Security Council prioritize.

The Future Of Space Tech & Innovation — Dr. Joel Mozer Ph.D., Director of Science, Technology & Research, United States Space Force.

Dr. Joel Mozer is the Director of Science, Technology, and Research, United States Space Force (https://www.spaceforce.mil/).

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Elon Musk has always said that Neuralink, the company he created in 2016 to build brain-computer interfaces, would do amazing things: Eventually, he says, it aims to allow humans to interact seamlessly with advanced artificial intelligence through thought alone. Along the way, it would help to cure people with spinal cord injuries and brain disorders ranging from Parkinson’s to schizophrenia.

Now the company is approaching a key test: a human clinical trial of its brain-computer interface (BCI). In December, Musk told a conference audience that “we hope to have this in our first humans” in 2022. In January, the company posted a job listing for a clinical trial director, an indication that it may be on track to meet Musk’s suggested timeline.

Musk has put the startup under unrelenting pressure to meet unrealistic timelines, these former employees say. “There was this top-down dissatisfaction with the pace of progress even though we were moving at unprecedented speeds,” says one former member of Neuralink’s technical staff, who worked at the company in 2019. “Still Elon was not satisfied.” Multiple staffers say company policy, dictated by Musk, forbade employees from faulting outside suppliers or vendors for a delay; the person who managed that relationship had to take responsibility for missed deadlines, even those outside their control.

Accelerating Research To Prevent & Cure Disease — Dr. Kevin Perrott, Ph.D., Founder & CEO, OpenCures; Co-Founder & Treasurer, SENS Research Foundation

Dr. Kevin Perrott, Ph.D. is Founder and CEO, OpenCures (https://opencures.org/), Adjunct Professor, University of Alberta, Co-Founder and Advisor, Oisin Biotechnologies, President, of Global Healthspan Policy Institute, and Co-Founder and Treasurer, SENS Research Foundation.

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Second, we need to be aware of the manifest biases and fallacies that magnify the weight humans put on potential losses compared to potential future gains. As a result of these biases, humans often seek to preserve the status quo over pursuing activities that lead to future changes, even when the expected (but risky) gains from the latter may outweigh those of maintaining the status quo. The preference for the status quo, and neat narratives that oversimplify complex scenarios, can lead to overlooking (or ignoring) important information that is not consistent with the current generally accepted meme — illustrated, perhaps, in Musk’s continued optimism for autonomous vehicles despite the evidence leading to others downscaling their forecasts.

The first and second points together lead to the third important consideration: the importance of independently verified data over forecasts and opinion in determining the need for and appropriateness of policy interventions. And data is historical by nature. Pausing to collect it rather than rushing to respond is recommended.

To that end, we can use available data to analyze whether increasing use of AI is demonstrably affecting key labor market performance indicators: labor productivity and multifactor productivity growth. If, as Keynes suggests, AI-driven technological change is increasing the potential for new means of economizing the use of labor to outrun the pace of finding new ways to use it, we would expect to see both statistics rising in the era dominated by AI. Yet as Figures 1 and 2 show, the exact opposite appears true for a wide range of OECD countries. Neither does the data suggest that other key labor market indicators have changed negatively with the advent of AI. As with the computer industry, we see the effects of AI everywhere but in the productivity statistics.

What is AI, really? Jeff Dean, the head of Google’s AI efforts, explains the underlying technology that enables artificial intelligence to do all sorts of things, from understanding language to diagnosing disease — and presents a roadmap for building better, more responsible systems that have a deeper understanding of the world. (Followed by a Q&A with head of TED Chris Anderson)

Visit http://TED.com to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more.

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There is nothing inevitable about aging, or about its rate. Californian bristlecone pines are believed to live for 5,000 years, and there are long-lived mammalian creatures as well. Some marine creatures do not display any signs of aging at all, including hydra, jellyfish, planarian worms, and coral. Certain human cells have immortal characteristics too. When a woman gives birth, she produces a baby which is “new”. Her “germline” (reproduction-related) cells produce a child with no signs of age.

These and many other considerations combine with the unreasonable effectiveness of modern AI to lead some people to believe that significant advances in longevity are imminent. These advances probably cannot happen without the active participation of the wider pharmaceutical industry, and the acceptance by policy makers and regulators that aging is a disease, not just an unfortunate and inevitable component of the human condition. There is still considerable reluctance among major pharmaceutical companies to contemplate specific anti-aging therapeutic developments. But there are encouraging signs of this reluctance being challenged, especially at Novartis and AstraZeneca.

Beyond the pharma giants, Mellon reckons there are 255 companies which claim to be specifically targeting aging, of which 35 are listed on stock markets. But he thinks that only a minority of them are genuinely working to tackle aging, as opposed to one of the diseases it causes, like cancer, dementia, or heart disease. He likens the state of the longevity industry today to the internet industry of 20 years ago, when it was still in its dial-up phase, and downloading information (or, heaven forbid, images) was like sucking jelly through a straw. And although longevity will have such a massive impact on all of us that you might expect progress to be expedited, Mellon points out that the internet did not have to go through lengthy and expensive FDA trials at every step.