They are mapping our genomes and helping us understand the human being in detail that was previously unimaginable.
I attended SXSW 2016. An event like this makes us rethink many aspects, not only from a technology perspective but also how much it can help us easily cross boundaries, sometimes even legal and ethical ones.
We can see today in the panel "The Holy Grail: Machine Learning and Extreme Robotics" how far we humans have come in creating machines increasingly similar to our own species. It was striking to see the robot Sophia participate in the panel, seated at the table alongside other presenters, with poise and with a large part of human body language incorporated into her movements. The artificial intelligence and machine learning adopted by the team that created Sophia is truly remarkable.
But that was not what unsettled me most that day. It was something going in the opposite direction. Machines that are mapping our genomes and helping us understand the human being in detail that was previously unimaginable.
With the growing capacity to understand the human genome through the use of machine learning and projections, we will soon have a new chapter in the history of medicine. In the talk conducted by Riccardo Sabatini and Loic Le Meur, titled "Cracking the human code", the discussion covered not only the technology used to decode and project the human code, but also the situations that could arise from this research. We may have personalized medicines, preventing the onset of predisposed diseases, super abilities will be better explored, and the long sought cure for aging may finally be within reach.
But many debates will emerge from this. Imagine that many premises could be built from having access to everyone's genome. Jobs may require genomes with specific characteristics. Marriages will be guided by genomic traits. Teenagers or children will already be selected for future roles based on assumptions about their ability to perform them. It is unsettling to think about the possibilities that technology will soon give us to know ourselves, and how this could even change the way we relate to one another and fit into society.
There are many beneficial aspects to this genome mapping capability, but there are just as many deeply concerning ones.
Without a doubt, between watching a robot machine interact like a human being and watching a machine capable of publicly revealing far more about what we are, I prefer the amusement of the talking machine.
Both subjects will still generate many discussions involving ethics, medicine, religion, and even legal aspects. Only time will tell how we will be able to handle these new technologies.
In the meantime, we move forward here in Austin, trying to find other unsettling talks.
