Eric Nguyen

What if we added new DNA?

All of our DNA is organized into 23 pairs of chromosomes.

Chapters, if you will, in the book that is our genome.

What if evil learned to generate a 24th chapter?

A whole new chromosome equipped with all the machinery needed to fight hundreds of diseases on demand.

With DNA generation, what is the limit of what's possible?

We've all seen Jurassic Park.

We all thought it was science fiction, and it is.

Mostly.

Researchers are now reconstructing the genomes of extinct species, with one company planning to resurrect the woolly mammoth by as early as 2028.

Now, instead of bringing back extinct species, can we create new ones?

Researchers are now engineering microbes for colonizing Mars.

If we one day wish to be a multi-planetary species, we'd have to figure out how to grow things on Mars, make it more hospitable and possibly terraform.

And it is possible we have microbes on Earth that can handle a range of extreme conditions that we call extremophiles.

Now, I understand some of these things might sound scary.

One of the biggest concerns is biosecurity, the potential to create bioweapons.

Can AI be used to generate more infectious viruses?

Yes.

But AI can also defend and monitor against these threats as well.

And so perhaps you feel like me in that you have to choose between advocating for innovation versus safety.