7 ms·

Evolution is nothing more than dumb luck trial and error. There has to be a better way. I remember a quote from Gattaca "I not only think we will tamper with Mo

Evolution is nothing more than dumb luck trial and error. There has to be a better way. I remember a quote from Gattaca "I not only think we will tamper with Mother Nature. I think Mother wants us to." It would be folly to think that we know how to improve the Human genome. I don't think we understand enough of how the genome works. We certainly can't predict how genetic changes will affect an organism. But I'd like to think that someday we will get there

cyberlogika 9y ago
I'd like to think someday AI will help us make those technical decisions, even though we won't fully understand them because the human brain simply can't process the multi-dimensional complexity that a computer theoretically handles no problem. That leaves a lot of room for fear-mongering, but one man's utopia is another man's dystopia, I suppose. As long as humans benefit, I say it's a worthwhile goal to at least explore. If that leads to the extinction of the human race through genetic defect or similar existential tragedy stemming from this, then maybe we just weren't cut out for this gig and should go the way of the dodo. Maybe on another planet, a higher intelligence will figure out how to peacefully coexist with an intelligence of their own creation/modification. Maybe this is just all an inevitable aspect of the evolutionary algorithm at work; who are we to think we can avoid it?
- noobermin 9y ago
  I've seen a number of articles that there is suspicion that AI (ie., ML'd coefficients in a set of matrices) just reinforces already held prejudices in certain cases which do not actually jive with the facts. How are we to know the AI won't make decisions based on current prejudices that end up also dooming mankind in the future?
  - cyberlogika 9y ago
    And those are definitely valid concerns. And if those 'bugs' aren't preventable or fixed, I guess the question then becomes: whose irrationality kills everyone first, human's or machine's? Perhaps the situation is inevitable, just part of the Great Filter that decides which intelligence-type survives the birthing process into post-evolution. If machines don't threaten our very survival, something (or someone) else will. Perhaps prejudices may be unavoidable in any intelligence, since we build stereotypes as predictive models and ML makes similar abstractions and assumptions which influence perception and predictions. Tangentially related, when TBI patients whose emotional centers are impaired, so is their ability to make decisions [1]. Building a decision-making network without an emotional center may be impossible, since the two seem to be naturally correlated. It's probable an AI won't ever truly be 'emotional,' at least not in the near term. So, in the end, it's reasonable to assume that the AI of the future that can crunch these complex problems won't tell people the answers, they will merely provide possible solutions with varying likelihood of success depending on goals and constraints. In the end, we will have to decide our own fate, and my point is maybe we don't have control over deciding our fate either way--such is the nature of fate. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032808/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032808/
noobhacker 9y ago
I agree with you that purposeful gene editing ought to be better than random evolution at the individual level. However, grand parent raises a good point about reduced diversity, which is bad at the species level. There is really no way to guard against this because: 1. Even though diversity is good at the species level to safeguard against future disaster, everyone will race to have the same set of (currently) desirable traits. Framed another way, since human genetic diversity is a public goods, few people will help maintain it at the cost of their own benefit 2. While we could theoretically understand the genome in full, I'd argue it's impossible to foresee all the potential disasters that can wipe out a genetically homogeneous humankind.
- zerostar07 9y ago
  hasnt diversity already been reduced by transportation? didnt it prove to be a bad things for american indians?
  - p10_user 9y ago
    The opposite is true - transportation has increased diversity. The American Indians suffered due to a lack of exposure to diseases (smallpox) common in Europe due to their relative isolation
    - hutzlibu 9y ago
      Erm ... that's also a way to put it. Another way to put it, they would not have suffered if not for rapid transportation. But genetic diversity did increased - through mating.
- dynofuz 9y ago
  a lack of diversity is only really bad in a changing world. however humans have made the world far more stable than before, and as we move our civilization into space, we'll find likely more stability (in the long run)
  - 9y ago
ImaCake 9y ago
There is some indications that organisms have ways of controlling evolution to some extent. Certainly, organisms have ways of increasing or decreasing how many mutations they accrue depending on environmental signals.
msiyer 9y ago
I agree with most of what you say. We know of no "better way". Nature is infinitely more intelligent. If Nature wanted us to not know or do something, we would not have been able to. Our ability to edit genes is a result of Nature's willingness to let us experiment. We still have very little understanding of what genes are or how Nature edits them for evolutionary purposes. One thing that I know is that ethics have no meaning in Nature's eyes.
- arkh 9y ago
  Nature is not a fucking intelligent being. Just tell it like you mean it and replace Nature with God in your message. Even if it is intelligent with a purpose, it would have made us with all our capacities. An important one being able to make tools and soon alter voluntarily our genes. Humans are not some superior or inferior beings outside of Nature. They're part of it as are all they produce.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    I think it’s more accurate to say “nature is not a singular intentional personality”. Evolution is a form of intelligence, just utterly unlike us. Azathoth rather than Yahweh, as Eliezer Yudkowsky puts it.
  - oreo81 9y ago
    Found the easily triggered neck beard. He never said anything about God.
yters 9y ago
If evolution is so horrible, and we are so brilliant, why can't we outdo or even reproduce to any degree the biological organisms it has created?
- red75prime 9y ago
  Do you mean why don't we have gray or green goo? The thing that outreproduce and outsurvive biological organisms. Maybe because engineers optimize for other things usually.
- ben_w 9y ago
  We can. In multiple different senses. Synthetic biology covers literal reproduction of organisms: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology “Outdo” has multiple meanings, but pure engineering has made us go faster, fly higher, and survive worse cold, than anything purely evolved. And if you mean purely organic items, not engineered, then you still need to explain the sense of “outdo”, because GM foods outdo non-GM foods in many ways we care about (e.g. bacterial rennet replacing cow stomach in cheese making, outdoing it by cost-efficiency and coincidentally making more cheeses suitable for vegetarians).
  - paulie_a 9y ago
    I accidentally bought some Vegetarian cheese last week and it is not suitable for anyone
    - ben_w 9y ago
      Are you sure you mean vegetarian and not vegan? Vegetarian cheese is pretty much the default in UK supermarkets these days, and almost nobody even knows that things like Parmesan are non-vegetarian. Vegan cheese, on the other hand… oh dear. I try it sometimes; vegan cheddar-alike tastes like vanilla ice cream that refuses to melt, but vegan feta-alike sort-of works.
      - zimpenfish 9y ago
rdlecler1 9y ago
Nature invented higher intelligence because of how it could outperform instinct. Gene editing is the improvement to evolution by random variation. Just don’t expect a free lunch.
intended 9y ago
Considering we are reinventing that same process with black boxes of statiscal correlation engines - there’s a lot to be said about trial and error at scale and over massive time scales. Not to mention this all occurs with co-evolving systems and predators/prey dynamics.

cyberlogika 9y ago

I'd like to think someday AI will help us make those technical decisions, even though we won't fully understand them because the human brain simply can't process the multi-dimensional complexity that a computer theoretically handles no problem. That leaves a lot of room for fear-mongering, but one man's utopia is another man's dystopia, I suppose. As long as humans benefit, I say it's a worthwhile goal to at least explore. If that leads to the extinction of the human race through genetic defect or similar existential tragedy stemming from this, then maybe we just weren't cut out for this gig and should go the way of the dodo. Maybe on another planet, a higher intelligence will figure out how to peacefully coexist with an intelligence of their own creation/modification. Maybe this is just all an inevitable aspect of the evolutionary algorithm at work; who are we to think we can avoid it?

noobermin 9y ago
I've seen a number of articles that there is suspicion that AI (ie., ML'd coefficients in a set of matrices) just reinforces already held prejudices in certain cases which do not actually jive with the facts. How are we to know the AI won't make decisions based on current prejudices that end up also dooming mankind in the future?
- cyberlogika 9y ago
  And those are definitely valid concerns. And if those 'bugs' aren't preventable or fixed, I guess the question then becomes: whose irrationality kills everyone first, human's or machine's? Perhaps the situation is inevitable, just part of the Great Filter that decides which intelligence-type survives the birthing process into post-evolution. If machines don't threaten our very survival, something (or someone) else will. Perhaps prejudices may be unavoidable in any intelligence, since we build stereotypes as predictive models and ML makes similar abstractions and assumptions which influence perception and predictions. Tangentially related, when TBI patients whose emotional centers are impaired, so is their ability to make decisions [1]. Building a decision-making network without an emotional center may be impossible, since the two seem to be naturally correlated. It's probable an AI won't ever truly be 'emotional,' at least not in the near term. So, in the end, it's reasonable to assume that the AI of the future that can crunch these complex problems won't tell people the answers, they will merely provide possible solutions with varying likelihood of success depending on goals and constraints. In the end, we will have to decide our own fate, and my point is maybe we don't have control over deciding our fate either way--such is the nature of fate. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032808/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032808/

noobhacker 9y ago

I agree with you that purposeful gene editing ought to be better than random evolution at the individual level. However, grand parent raises a good point about reduced diversity, which is bad at the species level. There is really no way to guard against this because: 1. Even though diversity is good at the species level to safeguard against future disaster, everyone will race to have the same set of (currently) desirable traits. Framed another way, since human genetic diversity is a public goods, few people will help maintain it at the cost of their own benefit 2. While we could theoretically understand the genome in full, I'd argue it's impossible to foresee all the potential disasters that can wipe out a genetically homogeneous humankind.

zerostar07 9y ago
hasnt diversity already been reduced by transportation? didnt it prove to be a bad things for american indians?
- p10_user 9y ago
  The opposite is true - transportation has increased diversity. The American Indians suffered due to a lack of exposure to diseases (smallpox) common in Europe due to their relative isolation
  - hutzlibu 9y ago
    Erm ... that's also a way to put it. Another way to put it, they would not have suffered if not for rapid transportation. But genetic diversity did increased - through mating.
dynofuz 9y ago
a lack of diversity is only really bad in a changing world. however humans have made the world far more stable than before, and as we move our civilization into space, we'll find likely more stability (in the long run)
- 9y ago

ImaCake 9y ago

There is some indications that organisms have ways of controlling evolution to some extent. Certainly, organisms have ways of increasing or decreasing how many mutations they accrue depending on environmental signals.

msiyer 9y ago

I agree with most of what you say. We know of no "better way". Nature is infinitely more intelligent. If Nature wanted us to not know or do something, we would not have been able to. Our ability to edit genes is a result of Nature's willingness to let us experiment. We still have very little understanding of what genes are or how Nature edits them for evolutionary purposes. One thing that I know is that ethics have no meaning in Nature's eyes.

arkh 9y ago
Nature is not a fucking intelligent being. Just tell it like you mean it and replace Nature with God in your message. Even if it is intelligent with a purpose, it would have made us with all our capacities. An important one being able to make tools and soon alter voluntarily our genes. Humans are not some superior or inferior beings outside of Nature. They're part of it as are all they produce.
- ben_w 9y ago
  I think it’s more accurate to say “nature is not a singular intentional personality”. Evolution is a form of intelligence, just utterly unlike us. Azathoth rather than Yahweh, as Eliezer Yudkowsky puts it.
- oreo81 9y ago
  Found the easily triggered neck beard. He never said anything about God.

yters 9y ago

If evolution is so horrible, and we are so brilliant, why can't we outdo or even reproduce to any degree the biological organisms it has created?

red75prime 9y ago
Do you mean why don't we have gray or green goo? The thing that outreproduce and outsurvive biological organisms. Maybe because engineers optimize for other things usually.
ben_w 9y ago
We can. In multiple different senses. Synthetic biology covers literal reproduction of organisms: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology “Outdo” has multiple meanings, but pure engineering has made us go faster, fly higher, and survive worse cold, than anything purely evolved. And if you mean purely organic items, not engineered, then you still need to explain the sense of “outdo”, because GM foods outdo non-GM foods in many ways we care about (e.g. bacterial rennet replacing cow stomach in cheese making, outdoing it by cost-efficiency and coincidentally making more cheeses suitable for vegetarians).
- paulie_a 9y ago
  I accidentally bought some Vegetarian cheese last week and it is not suitable for anyone
  - ben_w 9y ago
    Are you sure you mean vegetarian and not vegan? Vegetarian cheese is pretty much the default in UK supermarkets these days, and almost nobody even knows that things like Parmesan are non-vegetarian. Vegan cheese, on the other hand… oh dear. I try it sometimes; vegan cheddar-alike tastes like vanilla ice cream that refuses to melt, but vegan feta-alike sort-of works.
    - zimpenfish 9y ago

rdlecler1 9y ago

Nature invented higher intelligence because of how it could outperform instinct. Gene editing is the improvement to evolution by random variation. Just don’t expect a free lunch.

intended 9y ago

Considering we are reinventing that same process with black boxes of statiscal correlation engines - there’s a lot to be said about trial and error at scale and over massive time scales. Not to mention this all occurs with co-evolving systems and predators/prey dynamics.