Is Synthetic Biology (Artificial Life) A Blessing Or A Curse?

There have been game changers in science, but this Synthetic Biology (Artificial Life) is a whopper. Days ago, it was reported that scientists had created Artificial Life in the lab; this Artificial Life could basically mimic what the scientists wanted it to do.

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photo credit: Zack Akukumba

For example, it is said that scientists will be able to create these “Artificial Lives,” say, to eat the globs of oil currently polluting the waters of the gulf; or to consume the cancerous cells spreading in a patient’s body. The possibilities are endless what this invention can do for human kind; but I know, like me, your minds are teeming with all the positive possibilities, but you are also asking what if this Synthetic Biology usage is perverted?

Many ethicists are pondering the advent of this new discovery and its impact on our lives. One question that begs itself is there going to come a time when these “Artificial Lives” will be deemed sentient… with the all the attendant rights human enjoy? This scenario is right out of Star Trek and the questions that lingered and were debated in that fictional world will be raging here in our reality shortly.

I do not know how we are going to police the proverbial rogue, mad scientist somewhere out in some jungle, who has the financial means and void of qualms in not adhering to the ethical conventions governing this Synthetic Biology. I shudder to think that if Aids or the Ebola virus can wreak such havoc, I can only imagine what the perversions of Artificial Lives will be able to do. There are times when I do not envy my daughter’s generation and this is such a time because I force myself to ponder all the variables that can be had due to the game changing advent of this Synthetic Biology.

It is said that Oppenheimer, the father of the Nuclear Bomb, had such reservations about letting the nuclear genie out of the bottle… that for the rest of his life, he advocated against its usage. We can only hope that the inventors of this Synthetic Biology (Artificial Life) will not end up like Oppenheimer… seeing and feeling guilty for the victims of Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I can hear the mantra now, Artificial Lives do not kill… man has programmed Artificial Lives to do so.