World-leading scientists have called for a halt on research to create “mirror life” microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an “unprecedented risk” to life on Earth.
The international group of Nobel laureates and other experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could become established in the environment and slip past the immune defences of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections.
Many molecules for life can exist in two distinct forms, each the mirror image of the other. The DNA of all living organisms is made from “right-handed” nucleotides, while proteins, the building blocks of cells, are made from “left-handed” amino acids. Why nature works this way is unclear: life could have chosen left-handed DNA and right-handed proteins instead.
The fresh concerns over the technology are revealed in a 299-page report and a commentary in the journal Science. While enthusiastic about research on mirror molecules, the report sees substantial risks in mirror microbes and calls for a global debate on the work.
I am NOT a religious man but I’m a strong believer that we are so eager to play God we are forgetting to ask the important questions around if we should.
Personally speaking I think we need to pause on things like this, or AI as another example. We have proven repeatedly we lack the maturity as a species for what we are learning.
That said, you can’t put everything back in Pandora’s box so for everyone reading this sharing my concern, YOLO and cover your head and wait for the worst.
Edit - the biggest threat to humanity is our unyielding curiosity.
It’s like that old saying … Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
And again, like a child, we lack the maturity as a species to understand that.
It’s not that old, I remember when the film came out.
The saying is old, not the film.
AI is one of those things that’s stupidly overblown. The true downsides to AI are it’s uses in spreading misinformation and it’s enormous environmental impact. When companies are buying nuclear plants for enough electricity, the whole thing has gone off the rails. There are other downsides but those two are the largeat to me. In short though, we’ve nothing like true AI anyways so playing god is a stretch.
Edit: tbf I do understand your point and find it valid.
I think the only way to grow past our immaturity is to break out of our boundaries as human. I’d rather try than stagnate with all our flaws into extinction.
Or do it offworld at least, wired up to a dead man’s switch connected to like…a nuke. Nobody infected can leave, and any localized research or pathogens are crisped and blown apart.
Like, seriously, we only have this one green planet for potentially hundreds of light-years around us, which even at the speed of light would take us centuries to reach another earth-like world. We really cannot afford to damage this lifeboat in a vast sea of barren, rocky islands devoid of life, water, or food.
Even climate change is mind boggling to think about, when you realize there’s no alternatives anywhere even close. Even with incredibly optimistic technology breakthroughs, we are still centuries away from travelling outside this solar system and making it to the next closest star system (light-years away).
But is it not our curiosity that defines us? What separates us from machines, outside of needing to sleep, if we don’t have our curiosity, our passion for the unknown? It’s not like we can only have a little curiosity, curious enough to try a new meal but not to work towards breakthroughs that might unlock ways of bettering our lives.
How else would we have gotten all of our vaccines without people “playing god”? I think while the garbage AI is a bit scary, it’s not the AI part that terrifies me, it’s the coldness “the economy” has towards people’s livelihoods, otherwise AI is nothing special in pushing forward or downfall as a society, it’s just highlighting something that was always there, a class conflict