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Definitely interesting work, and some very clever solutions to difficult problems, but to be clear, they only had a single unnatural base pair, and it was only

Definitely interesting work, and some very clever solutions to difficult problems, but to be clear, they only had a single unnatural base pair, and it was only in a plasmid. Addressing the other comments about this leading to some crazy scifi scenario, imagine telling someone you used machine learning to identify spam emails and they started freaking out about how you're going to start Skynet. If you understand how things really work you can see it's not just implausible, it's that things fundamentally don't work that way.

Joeri 10y ago
Then again, nobody knows how skynet will get started. If it does happen, you can be sure it'll be done by someone who is sure that things just don't work that way, right up to the moment they are crushed by a giant metal boot.
- jcoffland 10y ago
  Let's hope that Skynet is not able to feed off of spam. There's so much of it's food already. We'd never be able to stop it.
  - B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
    I expect that 'Skynet' will be descended from spambots.
- 88e282102ae2e5b 10y ago
  That's true, but my argument is that we can basically guarantee that a simple neural net won't become self-aware, in the same way that we know that a linear regression library won't become self-aware. The complexity is bounded, just like it is in the experiments described in this paper.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  ...won't get started
zepto 10y ago
Software systems are relatively predictable, and built on mathematical models and rules that we designed. Even so, there are still many negative unforeseen consequences of their operation. Biological systems are relatively unpredictable, and based on rules that we didn't design and cannot begin to claim we fully understand. Your analogy therefore strongly predicts negative unforeseen consequences.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- tstactplsignore 10y ago
  Difficult to see how this comment, as common as it is, is anything but unscientific. Biological systems are often highly predictable in many circumstances - in fact "biological predictability" is what accounts for the general success of all modern medicine and agriculture. If the field "cannot begin to claim we don't fully understand" things now, when do we reach the point where we suddenly "know enough to begin to do things", and why should we be listening to you about that point instead of experts in the field? The reality is that this system is highly predictable in the way it was intended, and the changes made are understood extremely well at a molecule and cellular level. You can't come up with a specific concern with this system because you don't have a clue about it. Anyone who does cannot come up with a specific concern of this system because it is extremely predictable. This anti-scientific Taleb-esque argument is just used by people who have no idea what they're talking about to try and speak over those who do, and is anti-intellectual and anti-scientific to its core. The OP's comment holds very well- this is no different from a layperson worrying about someone implementing an SVM on some dataset "becoming skynet, because computers aren't always predictable!" - it's nonsensical the minute you have any idea what you're talking about.
  - zepto 10y ago
    This is nothing but an appeal to authority. To suggest that accurately gauging the limits of our current knowledge about biological systems is 'anti-scientific' or 'anti-intellectual' goes against everything science stands for, and firmly crosses the line into blind scientism. It remains absolutely true that we understand the software systems we build far better than we understand the biological systems that we are intervening in. There is also a straw man in the suggestion that I have said we shouldn't 'do things' until we know more. I never said that. I simply think that pretending that our understanding of software systems is representative of our understanding of biological systems is a delusion.
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
Well one way to reduce spam is to kill all humans! /Bender
beaconstudios 10y ago
if nothing else, at the fundamental level there aren't any ribosomes that would parse the new base pairs. Engineering a new ribosome to produce something useful given an "alien" base pair would be the trigger that could make the new base pair potentially harmful. Until that point, it's completely inert.

Joeri 10y ago

Then again, nobody knows how skynet will get started. If it does happen, you can be sure it'll be done by someone who is sure that things just don't work that way, right up to the moment they are crushed by a giant metal boot.

jcoffland 10y ago
Let's hope that Skynet is not able to feed off of spam. There's so much of it's food already. We'd never be able to stop it.
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  I expect that 'Skynet' will be descended from spambots.
88e282102ae2e5b 10y ago
That's true, but my argument is that we can basically guarantee that a simple neural net won't become self-aware, in the same way that we know that a linear regression library won't become self-aware. The complexity is bounded, just like it is in the experiments described in this paper.
JoeAltmaier 10y ago
...won't get started

zepto 10y ago

Software systems are relatively predictable, and built on mathematical models and rules that we designed. Even so, there are still many negative unforeseen consequences of their operation. Biological systems are relatively unpredictable, and based on rules that we didn't design and cannot begin to claim we fully understand. Your analogy therefore strongly predicts negative unforeseen consequences.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tstactplsignore 10y ago
Difficult to see how this comment, as common as it is, is anything but unscientific. Biological systems are often highly predictable in many circumstances - in fact "biological predictability" is what accounts for the general success of all modern medicine and agriculture. If the field "cannot begin to claim we don't fully understand" things now, when do we reach the point where we suddenly "know enough to begin to do things", and why should we be listening to you about that point instead of experts in the field? The reality is that this system is highly predictable in the way it was intended, and the changes made are understood extremely well at a molecule and cellular level. You can't come up with a specific concern with this system because you don't have a clue about it. Anyone who does cannot come up with a specific concern of this system because it is extremely predictable. This anti-scientific Taleb-esque argument is just used by people who have no idea what they're talking about to try and speak over those who do, and is anti-intellectual and anti-scientific to its core. The OP's comment holds very well- this is no different from a layperson worrying about someone implementing an SVM on some dataset "becoming skynet, because computers aren't always predictable!" - it's nonsensical the minute you have any idea what you're talking about.
- zepto 10y ago
  This is nothing but an appeal to authority. To suggest that accurately gauging the limits of our current knowledge about biological systems is 'anti-scientific' or 'anti-intellectual' goes against everything science stands for, and firmly crosses the line into blind scientism. It remains absolutely true that we understand the software systems we build far better than we understand the biological systems that we are intervening in. There is also a straw man in the suggestion that I have said we shouldn't 'do things' until we know more. I never said that. I simply think that pretending that our understanding of software systems is representative of our understanding of biological systems is a delusion.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago

Well one way to reduce spam is to kill all humans! /Bender

beaconstudios 10y ago

if nothing else, at the fundamental level there aren't any ribosomes that would parse the new base pairs. Engineering a new ribosome to produce something useful given an "alien" base pair would be the trigger that could make the new base pair potentially harmful. Until that point, it's completely inert.