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He gave an interview on Nightline, I believe, back in the late 90s or early 00s where he was contrasting biotech and digital tech. He concluded that digital wou
by aneil 9y ago
He gave an interview on Nightline, I believe, back in the late 90s or early 00s where he was contrasting biotech and digital tech. He concluded that digital would lead almost entirely to good things and biotech would lead exclusively to bad things. It's been a long time, but I distinctly remember how glib and categorical he was. I lost all respect for him.
- gt_ 9y agoWould you say that, so far, his predictions have been less than accurate? EDIT: Why is this inquiry getting downvoted? Does anybody have an idea?
- aneil 9y agoFor instance, he didn't consider loss of privacy, the ability for governments and companies to surveil people, or the effect of information bubbles, for instance. Those seem like objectively bad consequences, or at least things that he'd agree are bad. Condemning the genomics revolution as "entirely bad" is really laughable, though. The genomics era filled the drug development pipeline with thousands of new targets, and was the necessary precursor to the coming era of precision medicine and precision health. (Also - HN has downvotes?)
- gt_ 9y agoThose sound like good points to me. Thanks for sharing. I am not enough educated on biotech to draw a conclusive opinion myself. What I understand about Monsanto’s exploits into corn production seems devastating, though. Once you have a certain amount of karma, you can downvote comments. I don’t know what the necessary amount is.