How To Program Your DNA Using a Simple Text File
That’s a scary proposition, don’t you think? Replying to your personal bot with a text message to edit a piece of your DNA while having a drink and chatting with friends?
What if you don’t bother to QA it, or you’re tired one day from lack of sleep the night before and mistype a single key on your keyboard without noticing. Some errant period in the middle of a million lines of code that just so happens to compile.
And then you push to production and upload to your body. All of a sudden you turn into a rattlesnake. And then what are you going to do? It’s not like you have opposable thumbs. Heck you ain’t even got arms, man!
For example, what if you were editing the below text file that controls your liver function while you’re drinking, made a mistake, and now your liver is working overtime, all the time. Not a good situation to be in.
Of course you would think we’d have all manner of controls and automated tests in place so you couldn’t inadvertently turn yourself into a snake but what if there’s one we forgot?
As humans we are inherently flawed. Even the best of us aren’t perfect. So how can we assure ourselves that we wouldn’t damage ourselves with a text editor and a lightning cable plugged into our butts?
Is the answer machines and “AI”? Of course then our problem is the Borg and Terminators could control is through a simple over-the-air update.
Leaves me wondering about Pandora and all that. Not the service competing against Apple Music, but that Greek thing where they tell you the curious cat who opens the box died at the end.
But as a species, we make tools so that we may yield them. The trouble comes when we edit a Shield to make it a Sword.
— Sean
