So, I had this vision of how AI and DNA would interact, many many years ago. I never actually published, so this is a first. Lets explore. When we have a broad swath of the human population sequenced, and we have superpowerful pattern-recognition AIs that can eat Big Data (petabytes? exabytes?) for breakfast, AND we have Match.com owning 80% of all dating apps and websites… what dish do those three ingredients make?
I got my DNA sequenced by two companies waaaay back in 2015: 23andMe, and Ancestry.com. Astonishingly, in 2018, 23andMe offered me the option to download, to my local hard drive, my entire DNA sequence. Yes, a near-infinite string of As, Gs, Cs, and Ts, with only 23 line breaks in the entire fire, designating the start of each new chromosome.
The entire file was something like 21GB, and I revelled at the power of technology. I now could store my entire genetic heritage on a fricking $5 microSD card! CRAZY!
…but that was only the beginning.
very cool. But…
Thesis: AI and DNA and Dating Apps
A little background first. Have you ever used Match.com? eHarmony? Tinder? Tewl? Those dating apps, certainly, each have very different value propositions, and target vastly different demographics and relationship goals (are you looking for a soulmate, or a hookup (or both?)).
So this might surprise you:
Interesting…
but why did we choose to highlight tinder, PoF, okCupid, and Hinge? Well, unbeknownst to most people, there is a multinational corporation, Match Group, who also happens to be one of the largest users of AI on planet earth. You might be curious as to what sites and apps are owned by this AI megacorp:
So, a simple question for you, dear reader:
If a powerful AI has access to your dating profile, AND your DNA sequence, AND the DNA sequences of all your potential mates…
How might it use that data to bring people together, to selectively encourage procreation, and…
…see where all this is headed?
You could be matched based on what the AI feels is best (or not!) for our species to survive on earth. You could be matched like this without your knowledge. With AI and DNA combined like this, we could be witnessing the start of the largest (first!) eugenics program ever to be launched in the history of humanity.
A mathematical model connects the evolution of our species into a coherent (multi-paralell!) linearity. This could dwarf the application of artificial intelligence in clinical settings… this is applying AI to social dynamics — mating!!! — of the highest order.
But wait, there’s more!
What happens when your DNA gets hacked?
Oops. Large “data breaches” (translation: an international criminal organization breaks into your bank’s digital vault, and instead of stealing money, it steals the identities of millions of customers, to re-sell on the dark data black market) have become commonplace, every day occurrences in the past decade.
We take some precautionary measures, but largely, we just trust a combination of “it won’t happen to me” and, if it does, that “the companies insurance will cover my loss.” All well and good for simple financial matters, an errant charge to your VISA every few years that, once flagged, the issuing card company happily reverses.
But what about when the hacked data includes…
your DNA sequence?
Witness:
read the whole story on Gizmodo (developing)
AI and DNA: CRISPR Cas-9
Next up: why wait for breeding and natural selection? Just hack the genome!
And all that’s not even considering the latest: gene-editing software therapy. With the FDA’s approval (today!) of Vertex Pharmaceuticals’s CRISPR Cas-9 gene therapy for sickle cell disease, we now have the first clinical application of a nanobot bespoke designed virus that will rip through your body, copying and pasting sequences into your actual DNA genome with reckless abandon until it has “fixed” every cell in your body.
WHAT?!?!?
prompt: “create for me an image of adam and eve. The theme is ‘AI and DNA’. A massive model of a DNA double helix should bisect the image, running like a colorful glass stairwell, top to bottom.”
engine: DALL-E3, with GPT4