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EmTech: Get Ready for a New Human Species Now that we can rewrite the code of life, Darwinian evolution can't stop us, says investor Juan Enriquez.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2011

BY EMILY SINGER

Audio » Future gazing: Juan Enriquez speaking at The ability to engineer life is going to spark a revolution EmTech 2011 on Tuesday.

Technology Review

that will dwarf the industrial and digital revolutions, says Juan Enriquez, a writer, investor, and managing director of Excel Venture Management. Thanks to new genomics technologies, scientists have not only been able to read organisms' genomes faster than ever before, they can also write increasingly complex changes into those genomes, creating organisms with new capabilities.

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Enriquez, who spoke at Technology Review's EmTech conference on Tuesday, says our newfound ability to write the code of life will profoundly change the world as we know it.

Because we can engineer our environment and ourselves, humanity is moving beyond the constraints of Darwinian evolution. The result, he says, may be an entirely new species.

Enriquez is the author of the global bestseller As the Future Catches You: How Genomics & Other Forces Are Changing Your Life, Work, Health & Wealth. His most recent publication is an eBook, Homo Evolutis: A Short Tour of Our New Species.

Technology Review senior editor Emily Singer spoke with Enriquez after his talk.

TR: Why do you think there is going to be

a new human species?

Juan Enriquez: The new human species is one that begins to engineer the evolution of viruses, plants, animals, and itself. As we do that, Darwin's rules get significantly bent, and sometimes even broken. By taking direct and deliberate control over our evolution, we are living in a world where we are modifying stuff according to our desires.

If you turned off the electricity in the United States, you would see millions of people die quickly, because they wouldn't have asthma medications, respirators, insulin, a whole host of things we invented to prevent people from dying. Eventually, we get to the point where evolution is guided by what we're engineering.

That's a big deal. Today's plastic surgery is going to seem tame compared to what's coming.

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How is this impending revolution going to shape the world?

Ninety-eight percent of data transmitted today is in a language almost no one spoke 30 years ago. We're in a similar period now. But this revolution will be more widespread because this is software that writes its own hardware.

People think this technology will just change pharma or biotech, but it's much bigger than that.

For example, it's already changing the chemical industry. Forty percent of Dupont's earnings today come from the life sciences. It's going to change everything; it will change countries, who's rich and who's poor. It's going to create new ethics.

New ethics?

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It will change even basic questions like sex. There used to be one way to have a baby. Now there are at least 17. We have decoupled sex from time. You can have a baby in nine months, or you can freeze sperm or a fertilized egg and implant it in 10 years or 100 years. You can create an animal from one of its cells. You can begin to alter reproductive cells. By the time you put this together, you've fundamentally changed how you reproduce and the rules for reproduction.

What does it take to make a new species?

We're beginning to see that it's an accumulation of small changes. Scientists have recently been able to compare the genomes of Neandertals and modern humans, which reveals just a .004 percent difference. Most of those changes lie in genes involved in sperm, testes, smell, and skin.

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Engineering microbes alone might speciate us. When you apply sequencing technology to the microbes inhabiting the human body, it turns out to be fascinating. All of us are symbionts; we have 1,000 times more microbial cells in our bodies than human cells. You couldn't possible digest or live without the microbial cells inside your stomach. Some people have microbes that are better at absorbing calories. Diabetics have a slightly sweeter skin, which changes the microbial fauna and makes it harder for them to cauterize wounds.

One concern about human enhancement is that only some people will have access, creating an even greater economic divide. Do you think this will be the case?

In the industrial revolution, it took a lifetime to build enough industry to double the wealth of a country. In the knowledge revolution, you can build billion-dollar companies with 20 people very quickly. The implication is that you can double the wealth of a country very quickly. In Korea in 1975, people had one-fifth of the income of Mexicans, and today they have five times more.

Even the poorest places can generate wealth quickly. You see this in Bangalore, China. On the flip side, you can also become irrelevant very quickly.

Scientists are on the verge of sequencing 10,000 human genomes. You point out this might highlight significant variation among our species, and that this requires some ethical consideration. Why? The issue of [genetic variation] is a really uncomfortable question, one that for good reason, we have been avoiding since the 1930s and '40s. A lot of the research behind the eugenics movement came out of elite universities in the U.S. It was disastrously misapplied. But you do have to ask, if there are fundamental differences in species like dogs and horses and birds, is it true that there are no significant differences between humans? We are going to have an answer to that question very quickly. If we do, we need to think through an ethical, moral framework to think about questions that go way beyond science.

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Bio Programming Juan Enriquez's company creates new organisms.

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Scientists say the results represent a new stage in synthetic biology.

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10/19/2011

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Evolution fixerdave

Saying direct modification of genetic code is non-Darwinian is like saying humans aren't natural. Yes, we are and, yes, we've been directing evolution towards our own ends for thousands of years. Yes, we've been directing our own evolution too... all natural.

26 Comments

How is direct manipulation of genes any different than selective breeding, other than being a whole lot quicker? Yes, we can throw some truly odd genes into the mix... stuff that would never get there any other way, but it's still just the mutation-selection cycle, only we're pre-selecting a little bit, hopefully narrowing down the mutations to something we expect to be useful. In the end... still evolution, if not Darwinian evolution, it's close enough.

Now, let's talk about the other thing coming down the pipe... true synthetic evolution directed by computer simulation. When we can model everything, getting biology completely out of the loop, then the evolutionary cycle will be non-Darwinian, and it will be faster than mere humans could ever keep up with.

Yes, we'll speciate, but it will be between a bunch of near-normal hominids and our computer descendent. This guy is placing way too much emphasis on one area of explosive growth... the other side is going to blow his predictions off the map.

REPLY 7 DAYS AGO

10/19/2011

explosive change--BANG! kitk

Sure, Doc. And the Titanic is unsinkable, Frankenstein's little pet is under control, and nothing can possibly go wrong,, go wrong,, go wrong....

Enthusiastic drummers like this scare the hell out of me. We are right where we CAN begin such human mutations, but still have only a very sketchy idea of what will happen to the subjects, years (or, a lifetime) down the road. Pray there are ethicists onboard.

76 Comments

REPLY 7 DAYS AGO

10/19/2011

Re: explosive change--BANG! ngrai 14 Comments

Ranting, as you do in your email, and praying, as you advocate in your email, are unlikely to resolve the ethical or other issues presented to our senses by the advances discussed in the article and this thread.

Does anyone have any rational ideas for monitoring and alerting society to such advances and their social, economic, political, and ethical ramifications, and for dealing with those ramifications in such a way that their benefits can be retained while their disadvantages can be ameliorated?

REPLY 7 DAYS AGO

Lord Skelos 9 Comments

10/19/2011

Ultimate revolution

First off, I want to mention that frankenstein is a fictional charactar created by a technophobe who lived a long time ago. Second, The titanic was made based on budget and investors wanted it to look appealing not be unsinkable. May I add that it was human error that sunk it, not technology.

The "Genetic Revolution" will be the pentacle of freedom while we are still not united as a species. We will be able to combine our technologies to alter our bodies into such a variety of forms that reflect not only function, but fashion.

Personally, I want a tail, titanium ridges down my spine, an electroadhesive grid under my skin, immunity to disease through nanobots, zyrconium oxide retractable claws, fangs, and an advanced nervous system.

REPLY 6 DAYS AGO

10/20/2011

Re: Ultimate revolution David G

Gee, all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth REPLY

1 Comment 5 DAYS AGO

10/21/2011

Re: explosive change--BANG! fiberman

What scares me is that he is not a scientist, but a writer and "vampire capitalist."

REPLY

164 Comments

7 DAYS AGO

10/19/2011

Medicine msreid 23 Comments

We've been thwarting Darwin for a long time, my friends. And the more technologically

23 Comments

advanced and rich we've become, the more we've done it. How? Modern medicine.

You see, as wonderful as most of us feel modern medicine is, it creates one rather large problem: It tends to keep the dumbest, slowest, sickest, and weakest individuals alive long enough for them to pass on their genetic material and their behavior.

What ends up happening, is a general population that is progressively more and more at risk for a large collapse due to a sudden event, such as a pandemic. It also makes us more likely to need medical care, sapping more and more resources from our systems in order to help or save people with injuries or diseases or genetic malformations, until one day there aren't enough resources left for anything else.

We believe that medicine will soon find ways to cure all these diseases and genetic problems and predispositions to weakness. Yet, we know from history and from logical thought that we will never be able to devote enough resources to completely make that happen for the whole world, and we will never be as efficient in fixing the problems as nature (and ourselves) are at creating and propagating new problems.

Not that I personally am opposed to medical care. But hey, I can still call it as I see it going.

REPLY

7 DAYS AGO

10/19/2011

Re: Medicine fixerdave 26 Comments

Your analysis is off by one significant point. The population is increasing. Ergo, it doesn't matter if there are increasing numbers of genetically questionable individuals, not when there are also increasing numbers of 'fit' ones. If some selection pressure comes along, pandemic or whatever, then there will just be more unfit to cull.

Evolution is random, directed, or, as this article suggests, deliberately coded mutations, FOLLOWED by a selection pressure. Right now, we're just in a phase where there is mutation but no selection, thus the variety of our gene pool is increasing. Yes, if you look at averages, we're probably dumbing down and loading up on harmful mutations. Yes, if we start tinkering, we might add a big whack of new mutations. But, none of this matters until/unless there is selection to weed out the unfit. Arguably, it's good for humanity in that increased variety will increase the likelihood that some of us will survive whatever comes along.

After all, it is entirely possible that the genetically caused near-diabetic weaklings (for example) you say are supported by our medical system also happen to have some same-gene caused immunity to whatever comes along, something that wipes the rest of us out. You know, sort of like sickle-cell anemia providing resistance to malaria.

Evolution isn't toward some god-like perfection. It just is.

REPLY

7 DAYS AGO

10/19/2011

Vitrify me! dkohn 48 Comments

I wish I could vitrify myself right now and be reanimated in 150 years when every genetic imperfection one has can be fixed. I want to see a world where everyone is healthy, smart and attractive. Even if it leads to disaster, I want to experience it anyway. Maybe all the extra brainpower and wealth created would result in even better opportunities for everyone to engage in during their lives.

REPLY 7 DAYS AGO

10/19/2011

Re: Vitrify me!

Curt2004

Your optimism is commendable, but the world could also be a very unpleasant

54 Comments

place in 150 years.

REPLY 7 DAYS AGO

10/19/2011

Re: Vitrify me! rocket7777

More important things will happen.

87 Comments

1) Oil as we use it today will virtually run out.

2) 30-50 years until smart computer will be smarter than human 3) Humans piratically become useless yet over population 4) Some sort of birth control/population control 5) End of segregation based mainly on land of birth. And for usa, there is no way it will keep legit native population off land european occupying for few hundred years. I mean jews were able to return after 3000 years, mexicans should find a way back after few hundred.

REPLY 7 DAYS AGO

10/19/2011

Re: Vitrify me! z0rr0 94 Comments

You don't have to wait 150 years, just visit Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average.

On a more serious note, I'd be scared of Neanderthals in charge of such powers.

Especially considering that our race seems to have made zero evolutionary progress emotionally. As intellectually brilliant as some humans may be, the fight or flight emotions found in all of us are those of apes.

REPLY

7 DAYS AGO

10/19/2011

Engineering our species PeterKinnon 1 Comment

Juan Enriquez clearly has not the faintest understanding of the immense complexity of the vast number of intricate biochemical systems that constitute the human machine.

His reasoning has presumably been influenced by the the anthropocentric ramblings of Kurzweil and others of the transhumanist cult.

Admittedly, their prediction of an imminent phase transition (for which they insist on using the very inappropriate buzz-word "Singulatiry") may not be too far off the mark.

But the well-evidenced pattern of the autonomous evolution of technology within the collective imagination of our species and, indeed, its apparent inevitability, points strongly to a new non-biological life-form soon emerging from what at present we call the Internet.

This broad evolutionary model is the subject of "The Goldilocks Effect: What Has Serendipity Ever Done For Us?" (free download in e-book formats from the "Unusual Perspectives" website) REPLY 6 DAYS AGO

10/20/2011

Spaceman mihai_sherbu 2 Comments

Just do something! Can a computer do this things in this way. We are doing things sometimes just to do a refresh or what we are. We do not exactly know why. I tell you why. We are a hungry animal as a horse , or a chiken. We only eat diferent stuff. We actualy reiterating ournselfs every time we are doing something. When i go out and actualy , i am eating. We actualy are a black hole, we are eating , combining stuff, we atract stuff, just look in your room. Ascience man needs to eat, lije i am, but he eats a diferent kind of food, he needs his mind to work to live on, put him as a merchandiser fir the rest of his life, and he will shoot himself in the head. Ho says , i am from the same species as i am. He only says a word and he can move mountains, start a war, and drain a lake. If i am sayng this, nothing hapens. Pieces of metal and plastic does not make a computer instantly. He uses neurons more, better and faster than i am. We need to bee like him, and more, to listen to the nature ho created us. I am not for , party now , party now, but save me later , we should be responsible for what are we doing. Sometime we invest more in comercial, fun, and close, than we do in educatin and studing the enviroment and nature. I do not wan to save a man ho is seek from the drugs , or ho is not adapted in a proper way to the enviroment to feed him laterr with comercial, and with consumerism stuff. I do not wan to save a drunk man ho had a fight, and ho is in a hospital, there are other people ho are healthy but not living in a proper enviroment for there development. We have to accept death as a cure to our society.

Sometimes death is agood thing, in this maner our body is built, apoptosis and other stuff, construct, a good imune sistem is that killing better when it needs to. This man is investing his energy in something creative ho is developing him and society, we just have toe eat the same thing that he does, and that is imagination, curiosity, food for the

brain, and things will turn better REPLY

6 DAYS AGO

10/20/2011

Sorry for the mistakes mihai_sherbu

I am writing this from a mobile phone, please correct if you will publish!

REPLY

2 Comments

5 DAYS AGO

10/21/2011

mTech: Get Ready for a New Human Species sedarous 2 Comments

One word, naive. A simple one dimensional only scientific understanding of life. you are not the first, and many already along the way.

REPLY 4 DAYS AGO

10/22/2011

Hold the presses, we're not ready!

PrimeSense 1 Comment

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer and this is my first post here.

So, with some humility,, I'll state my opinions. If somebody could blow through my thinking, I'd be most appreciative for the new perspective. “creating organisms with new capabilities.”

Creating? The organism already existed, new capability was added.

Nature creates things from the inside out. We’re just playing with the parts we can fathom.

“The new human species is one that begins to engineer the evolution of viruses, plants, animals, and itself.”

You’re not a “new human species” when you’re beginning to do something.

“As we do that, Darwin's rules get significantly bent, and sometimes even broken.

Bending the rules of a single mans written description of how things work?” Two levels of disconnect to the real thing, which will always be indescribable.

“By taking direct and deliberate control over our evolution,” Direct and deliberate control over something multidimensional? With single dimension thinking, how will this be successful?

“we are living in a world where we are modifying stuff according to our desires.”

Individual compartmentalized privately funded modification programs does not represent human desires (or the desires of anyone I know), which comes from openness. If real desires were being addressed, you wouldn’t have to write a book about your findings.

“Today's plastic surgery is going to seem tame compared to what's coming.”

Considering the role the industry/media played in convincing people they were ugly, I’d venture to guess the advances you speak of will certainly take us the wrong direction.

An uninformed public never makes good choices.

The successful venture capitalist writing a book to drum up interest in his ventures speaking at high minded universities that long ago tossed out curiosity for contracts.

Should we know up front we're being sold?

Would the common man have the same access to these labs and research? If it’s too much effort, it’s because the science industry isn’t actually trying or isn’t set-up to be inclusive. I’ll assume this new species business will come on us like GMO foods did, misunderstood, not labeled and through the back door.

I liken this industry to the food additive industry, forever looking for a replacement for actual food. People looking at life as if it needs a overhaul.

Wears me out thinking about the tom foolery being done in the name of desire.

The first sign that as humans are in the position to even think of making multidimensional decisions for the rest of humanity, will be the removal of “Employees must wash hands after using the bathroom” sign. Yes it’s the local burger guy and your heart surgeon I speak of.

Until then, I say good day sir.

REPLY 3 DAYS AGO

10/23/2011

Just in time for Halloween justahick

Gosh, this could never be used as a basis for weapons, right?

19 Comments

It's not like we haven't millenia of experience with human behavior, or documentation of its consequences.

REPLY 3 DAYS AGO

10/23/2011

Create Organisms Mexjewel1 1 Comment

If you created the present organisms, no reason why you couldn't create more. You did, didn't you?

REPLY

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