Steven Pinker: evaluation

Transcript context

…But not now. Say we apply big data, Monte Carlo methods — you only raise the chance of your kid being a certain way by 1 percent, but there’s that technology — and let it rip for 50 generations. At the end, aren’t people very, very different? Depends on what the tradeoffs are. We don’t know how much boost in brain power you can get without an increase in the chances of brain cancer or of other tradeoffs. A neural network that’s too dense actually is stupider. I’m rooted enough in what we know about behavioral genetics to think that these science-fiction scenarios are not particularly productive. It’s probably a scenario that we’re not going to have to worry about just because it’s too complicated, especially since every time you monkey with a gene you are taking some chance that something will go wrong. Admittedly CRISPR‑Cas9 has become extraordinarily accurate. But if you’re talking about changing 1,000 genes in your offspring, or 10,000 genes, we’re so risk‑averse in genetic manipulation even when it comes to our tomatoes. People won’t eat a tomato if it’s genetically modified. The idea that you’re going to take that kind of risk with your children — I think it’s extraordinary unlikely that we’ll get there from here. Do you want me to speculate about the science-fiction scenario in which we do? Sure, speculate a bit.…

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