The movie Gattaca is a futuristic story about life in a genetically engineered society. Lab-crafted embryos lead to a super sub-species, while the rest of the human race faces discrimination and limited prospects. But this future could be getting closer. Scientists have worked out ways to change human genes cost effectively. The plus side is that the technology can prevent disease but there are also huge risks. So, can our global community of such diverse values and governance capabilities work out a good set of rules to manage the technology? A recent story in the New Yorker explains:
“Inevitably, the technology will also permit scientists to correct genetic flaws in human embryos. Any such change, though, would infiltrate the entire genome and eventually be passed down to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and every subsequent generation. That raises the possibility, more realistically than ever before, that scientists will be able to rewrite the fundamental code of life, with consequences for future generations that we may never be able to anticipate. Vague fears of a dystopian world, full of manufactured humans, long ago became a standard part of any debate about scientific progress. Yet not since J. Robert Oppenheimer realized that the atomic bomb he built to protect the world might actually destroy it have the scientists responsible for a discovery been so leery of using it.”
