WEBVTT

00:00:02.760 --> 00:00:04.280
Here's a question that matters.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:04.880 --> 00:00:06.856
[Is it ethical to evolve the human body?]

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:06.880 --> 00:00:10.376
Because we're beginning to get all
the tools together to evolve ourselves.

00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:12.816
And we can evolve bacteria
and we can evolve plants

00:00:12.840 --> 00:00:14.256
and we can evolve animals,

00:00:14.280 --> 00:00:17.096
and we're now reaching a point
where we really have to ask,

00:00:17.120 --> 00:00:19.960
is it really ethical
and do we want to evolve human beings?

00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:23.336
And as you're thinking about that,

00:00:23.360 --> 00:00:27.096
let me talk about that
in the context of prosthetics,

00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:29.800
prosthetics past, present, future.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:30.920 --> 00:00:32.496
So this is the iron hand

00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:34.856
that belonged to one of the German counts.

00:00:34.880 --> 00:00:39.296
Loved to fight, lost his arm
in one of these battles.

00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:41.776
No problem, he just made a suit of armor,

00:00:41.800 --> 00:00:43.136
put it on,

00:00:43.160 --> 00:00:44.416
perfect prosthetic.

00:00:44.440 --> 00:00:48.360
That's where the concept
of ruling with an iron fist comes from.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:49.600 --> 00:00:53.056
And of course these prosthetics
have been getting more and more useful,

00:00:53.080 --> 00:00:54.336
more and more modern.

00:00:54.360 --> 00:00:56.816
You can hold soft-boiled eggs.

00:00:56.840 --> 00:01:00.336
You can have all types of controls,
and as you're thinking about that,

00:01:00.360 --> 00:01:02.376
there are wonderful people like Hugh Herr

00:01:02.400 --> 00:01:05.239
who have been building
absolutely extraordinary prosthetics.

00:01:05.720 --> 00:01:08.536
So the wonderful Aimee Mullins
will go out and say,

00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:10.240
how tall do I want to be tonight?

00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:13.936
Or Hugh will say what type of cliff
do I want to climb?

00:01:13.960 --> 00:01:18.456
Or does somebody want to run a marathon,
or does somebody want to ballroom dance?

00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:20.456
And as you adapt these things,

00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:24.616
the interesting thing about prosthetics
is they've been coming inside the body.

00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:27.616
So these external prosthetics
have now become artificial knees.

00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:29.696
They've become artificial hips.

00:01:29.720 --> 00:01:31.936
And then they've evolved further

00:01:31.960 --> 00:01:33.976
to become not just nice to have

00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:35.200
but essential to have.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:39.776
So when you're talking
about a heart pacemaker as a prosthetic,

00:01:39.800 --> 00:01:43.496
you're talking about something
that isn't just, "I'm missing my leg,"

00:01:43.520 --> 00:01:45.936
it's, "if I don't have this, I can die."

00:01:45.960 --> 00:01:50.056
And at that point, a prosthetic
becomes a symbiotic relationship

00:01:50.080 --> 00:01:51.280
with the human body.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:52.560 --> 00:01:55.096
And four of the smartest people
that I've ever met --

00:01:55.120 --> 00:02:00.376
Ed Boyden, Hugh Herr,
Joe Jacobson, Bob Lander --

00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:02.976
are working on a Center
for Extreme Bionics.

00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:05.616
And the interesting thing
of what you're seeing here is

00:02:05.640 --> 00:02:08.056
these prosthetics
now get integrated into the bone.

00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:09.735
They get integrated into the skin.

00:02:09.759 --> 00:02:11.475
They get integrated into the muscle.

00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:15.336
And one of the other sides of Ed

00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:18.256
is he's been thinking
about how to connect the brain

00:02:18.280 --> 00:02:20.976
using light or other mechanisms

00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:23.280
directly to things like these prosthetics.

00:02:24.520 --> 00:02:25.776
And if you can do that,

00:02:25.800 --> 00:02:29.000
then you can begin changing
fundamental aspects of humanity.

00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:33.840
So how quickly you react to something
depends on the diameter of a nerve.

00:02:34.920 --> 00:02:38.800
And of course, if you have nerves
that are external or prosthetic,

00:02:39.600 --> 00:02:41.480
say with light or liquid metal,

00:02:42.280 --> 00:02:43.976
then you can increase that diameter

00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.056
and you could even increase it
theoretically to the point where,

00:02:47.080 --> 00:02:51.120
as long as you could see the muzzle flash,
you could step out of the way of a bullet.

00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:54.960
Those are the order of magnitude
of changes you're talking about.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:56.200 --> 00:02:58.776
This is a fourth
sort of level of prosthetics.

00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:01.336
These are Phonak hearing aids,

00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:03.416
and the reason
why these are so interesting

00:03:03.440 --> 00:03:06.856
is because they cross the threshold
from where prosthetics are something

00:03:06.880 --> 00:03:08.309
for somebody who is "disabled"

00:03:09.560 --> 00:03:13.616
and they become something
that somebody who is "normal"

00:03:13.640 --> 00:03:15.536
might want to actually have,

00:03:15.560 --> 00:03:18.536
because what this prosthetic does,
which is really interesting,

00:03:18.560 --> 00:03:20.216
is not only does it help you hear,

00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:21.576
you can focus your hearing,

00:03:21.600 --> 00:03:24.056
so it can hear the conversation
going on over there.

00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:25.336
You can have superhearing.

00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:28.296
You can have hearing in 360 degrees.
You can have white noise.

00:03:28.320 --> 00:03:31.520
You can record, and oh, by the way,
they also put a phone into this.

00:03:32.440 --> 00:03:35.320
So this functions as your hearing aid
and also as your phone.

00:03:35.920 --> 00:03:41.080
And at that point, somebody might actually
want to have a prosthetic voluntarily.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:45.096
All of these thousands
of loosely connected little pieces

00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:46.320
are coming together,

00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:49.056
and it's about time we ask the question,

00:03:49.080 --> 00:03:52.240
how do we want to evolve human beings
over the next century or two?

00:03:53.640 --> 00:03:55.680
And for that we turn
to a great philosopher

00:03:56.920 --> 00:03:59.976
who was a very smart man
despite being a Yankee fan.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:01.880
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:06.616
And Yogi Berra used to say, of course,
that it's very tough to make predictions,

00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:08.016
especially about the future.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:08.040 --> 00:04:09.136
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:09.160 --> 00:04:12.216
So instead of making a prediction
about the future to begin with,

00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:15.576
let's take what's happening in the present
with people like Tony Atala,

00:04:15.600 --> 00:04:17.839
who is redesigning 30-some-odd organs.

00:04:19.200 --> 00:04:22.776
And maybe the ultimate prosthetic
isn't having something external, titanium.

00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:25.496
Maybe the ultimate prosthetic
is take your own gene code,

00:04:25.520 --> 00:04:26.840
remake your own body parts,

00:04:27.920 --> 00:04:31.520
because that's a whole lot more effective
than any kind of a prosthetic.

00:04:32.440 --> 00:04:36.456
But while you're at it, then you can take
the work of Craig Venter and Ham Smith.

00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:38.536
And one of the things
that we've been doing

00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:41.120
is trying to figure out
how to reprogram cells.

00:04:42.280 --> 00:04:43.856
And if you can reprogram a cell,

00:04:43.880 --> 00:04:46.120
then you can change the cells
in those organs.

00:04:47.400 --> 00:04:49.616
So if you can change
the cells in those organs,

00:04:49.640 --> 00:04:52.136
maybe you make those organs
more radiation-resistant.

00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:54.056
Maybe you make them absorb more oxygen.

00:04:54.080 --> 00:04:55.736
Maybe you make them more efficient

00:04:55.760 --> 00:04:58.240
to filter out stuff
that you don't want in your body.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:59.440 --> 00:05:03.096
And over the last few weeks,
George Church has been in the news a lot

00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:06.416
because he's been talking about taking
one of these programmable cells

00:05:06.440 --> 00:05:08.176
and inserting an entire human genome

00:05:08.200 --> 00:05:09.400
into that cell.

00:05:10.480 --> 00:05:14.296
And once you can insert
an entire human genome into a cell,

00:05:14.320 --> 00:05:16.456
then you begin to ask the question,

00:05:16.480 --> 00:05:19.160
would you want
to enhance any of that genome?

00:05:21.440 --> 00:05:23.776
Do you want to enhance a human body?

00:05:23.800 --> 00:05:26.096
How would you want
to enhance a human body?

00:05:26.120 --> 00:05:28.216
Where is it ethical
to enhance a human body

00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:31.496
and where is it not ethical
to enhance a human body?

00:05:31.520 --> 00:05:33.416
And all of a sudden, what we're doing

00:05:33.440 --> 00:05:36.376
is we've got this
multidimensional chess board

00:05:36.400 --> 00:05:39.656
where we can change
human genetics by using viruses

00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:41.120
to attack things like AIDS,

00:05:42.120 --> 00:05:44.536
or we can change the gene code
through gene therapy

00:05:44.560 --> 00:05:47.496
to do away with some hereditary diseases,

00:05:47.520 --> 00:05:49.136
or we can change the environment,

00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:51.827
and change the expression
of those genes in the epigenome

00:05:51.851 --> 00:05:53.811
and pass that on to the next generations.

00:05:55.320 --> 00:05:58.456
And all of a sudden,
it's not just one little bit,

00:05:58.480 --> 00:06:00.336
it's all these stacked little bits

00:06:00.360 --> 00:06:02.440
that allow you
to take little portions of it

00:06:03.280 --> 00:06:05.280
until all the portions coming together

00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:08.240
lead you to something
that's very different.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:09.600 --> 00:06:12.336
And a lot of people
are very scared by this stuff.

00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:15.280
And it does sound scary,
and there are risks to this stuff.

00:06:16.040 --> 00:06:18.736
So why in the world would you
ever want to do this stuff?

00:06:18.760 --> 00:06:21.776
Why would we really want
to alter the human body

00:06:21.800 --> 00:06:23.000
in a fundamental way?

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:25.040 --> 00:06:27.336
The answer lies in part

00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:28.560
with Lord Rees,

00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:30.920
astronomer royal of Great Britain.

00:06:32.560 --> 00:06:36.376
And one of his favorite sayings
is the universe is 100 percent malevolent.

00:06:36.400 --> 00:06:37.616
So what does that mean?

00:06:37.640 --> 00:06:40.536
It means if you take
any one of your bodies at random,

00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:42.456
drop it anywhere in the universe,

00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:44.200
drop it in space, you die.

00:06:44.720 --> 00:06:46.096
Drop it on the Sun, you die.

00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:48.136
Drop it on the surface
of Mercury, you die.

00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:49.800
Drop it near a supernova, you die.

00:06:50.240 --> 00:06:53.360
But fortunately, it's only
about 80 percent effective.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:54.640 --> 00:06:56.680
So as a great physicist once said,

00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:02.136
there's these little
upstream eddies of biology

00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:06.800
that create order
in this rapid torrent of entropy.

00:07:08.080 --> 00:07:11.056
So as the universe dissipates energy,

00:07:11.080 --> 00:07:14.560
there's these upstream eddies
that create biological order.

00:07:15.960 --> 00:07:18.376
Now, the problem with eddies is,

00:07:18.400 --> 00:07:19.896
they tend to disappear.

00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:21.800
They shift. They move in rivers.

00:07:22.680 --> 00:07:24.656
And because of that, when an eddy shifts,

00:07:24.680 --> 00:07:28.216
when the Earth becomes a snowball,
when the Earth becomes very hot,

00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:31.496
when the Earth gets hit by an asteroid,
when you have supervolcanoes,

00:07:31.520 --> 00:07:33.376
when you have solar flares,

00:07:33.400 --> 00:07:36.736
when you have potentially
extinction-level events

00:07:36.760 --> 00:07:37.976
like the next election --

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:40.160
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:41.440 --> 00:07:44.680
then all of a sudden,
you can have periodic extinctions.

00:07:45.400 --> 00:07:47.840
And by the way, that's happened
five times on Earth,

00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:50.456
and therefore it is very likely

00:07:50.480 --> 00:07:53.520
that the human species on Earth
is going to go extinct someday.

00:07:54.440 --> 00:07:55.936
Not next week,

00:07:55.960 --> 00:07:57.776
not next month,

00:07:57.800 --> 00:08:00.680
maybe in November,
but maybe 10,000 years after that.

00:08:01.880 --> 00:08:04.696
As you're thinking
of the consequence of that,

00:08:04.720 --> 00:08:08.136
if you believe that extinctions
are common and natural

00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:10.456
and normal and occur periodically,

00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:13.360
it becomes a moral imperative
to diversify our species.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:14.520 --> 00:08:16.136
And it becomes a moral imperative

00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:19.136
because it's going to be
really hard to live on Mars

00:08:19.160 --> 00:08:21.880
if we don't fundamentally
modify the human body.

00:08:22.880 --> 00:08:24.096
Right?

00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:25.456
You go from one cell,

00:08:25.480 --> 00:08:27.696
mom and dad coming together
to make one cell,

00:08:27.720 --> 00:08:29.896
in a cascade to 10 trillion cells.

00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:34.376
We don't know, if you change
the gravity substantially,

00:08:34.400 --> 00:08:36.880
if the same thing will happen
to create your body.

00:08:38.159 --> 00:08:41.216
We do know that if you expose
our bodies as they currently are

00:08:41.240 --> 00:08:43.360
to a lot of radiation, we will die.

00:08:45.040 --> 00:08:48.096
So as you're thinking of that,
you have to really redesign things

00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:49.376
just to get to Mars.

00:08:49.400 --> 00:08:52.320
Forget about the moons
of Neptune or Jupiter.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:55.456
And to borrow from Nikolai Kardashev,

00:08:55.480 --> 00:08:57.656
let's think about life
in a series of scales.

00:08:57.680 --> 00:09:00.176
So Life One civilization

00:09:00.200 --> 00:09:03.200
is a civilization that begins
to alter his or her looks.

00:09:04.080 --> 00:09:06.376
And we've been doing that
for thousands of years.

00:09:06.400 --> 00:09:09.560
You've got tummy tucks
and you've got this and you've got that.

00:09:10.280 --> 00:09:12.696
You alter your looks, and I'm told

00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:16.040
that not all of those alterations
take place for medical reasons.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:16.680 --> 00:09:18.736
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:18.760 --> 00:09:19.960
Seems odd.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:20.360 --> 00:09:22.880
A Life Two civilization
is a different civilization.

00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:28.880
A Life Two civilization alters
fundamental aspects of the body.

00:09:29.840 --> 00:09:32.696
So you put human growth hormone in,
the person grows taller,

00:09:32.720 --> 00:09:36.656
or you put x in and the person
gets fatter or loses metabolism

00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:38.296
or does a whole series of things,

00:09:38.320 --> 00:09:41.016
but you're altering the functions
in a fundamental way.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:41.040 --> 00:09:43.656
To become an intrasolar civilization,

00:09:43.680 --> 00:09:46.400
we're going to have to create
a Life Three civilization,

00:09:47.720 --> 00:09:50.320
and that looks very different
from what we've got here.

00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:53.056
Maybe you splice in
Deinococcus radiodurans

00:09:53.080 --> 00:09:57.200
so that the cells can resplice
after a lot of exposure to radiation.

00:09:58.320 --> 00:10:01.336
Maybe you breathe by having oxygen
flow through your blood

00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:02.800
instead of through your lungs.

00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:06.320
But you're talking about
really radical redesigns,

00:10:07.480 --> 00:10:10.696
and one of the interesting things
that's happened in the last decade

00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:13.456
is we've discovered
a whole lot of planets out there.

00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:15.160
And some of them may be Earth-like.

00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:21.056
The problem is, if we ever
want to get to these planets,

00:10:21.080 --> 00:10:22.736
the fastest human objects --

00:10:22.760 --> 00:10:25.336
Juno and Voyager
and the rest of this stuff --

00:10:25.360 --> 00:10:27.856
take tens of thousands of years

00:10:27.880 --> 00:10:30.000
to get from here
to the nearest solar system.

00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:33.680
So if you want to start exploring
beaches somewhere else,

00:10:34.400 --> 00:10:36.800
or you want to see two-sun sunsets,

00:10:37.840 --> 00:10:40.976
then you're talking
about something that is very different,

00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:46.056
because you have to change
the timescale and the body of humans

00:10:46.080 --> 00:10:49.000
in ways which may be
absolutely unrecognizable.

00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:51.840
And that's a Life Four civilization.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:53.720 --> 00:10:56.656
Now, we can't even begin
to imagine what that might look like,

00:10:56.680 --> 00:10:59.016
but we're beginning to get glimpses

00:10:59.040 --> 00:11:02.400
of instruments that might
take us even that far.

00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:04.576
And let me give you two examples.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:04.600 --> 00:11:06.553
So this is the wonderful Floyd Romesberg,

00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:09.336
and one of the things
that Floyd's been doing

00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:11.896
is he's been playing
with the basic chemistry of life.

00:11:11.920 --> 00:11:16.776
So all life on this planet
is made in ATCGs, the four letters of DNA.

00:11:16.800 --> 00:11:19.936
All bacteria, all plants,
all animals, all humans, all cows,

00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:21.160
everything else.

00:11:22.440 --> 00:11:26.616
And what Floyd did is he changed out
two of those base pairs,

00:11:26.640 --> 00:11:28.160
so it's ATXY.

00:11:29.760 --> 00:11:35.456
And that means that you now have
a parallel system to make life,

00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:39.776
to make babies, to reproduce, to evolve,

00:11:39.800 --> 00:11:41.976
that doesn't mate
with most things on Earth

00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:43.880
or in fact maybe with nothing on Earth.

00:11:44.880 --> 00:11:47.416
Maybe you make plants
that are immune to all bacteria.

00:11:47.440 --> 00:11:49.936
Maybe you make plants
that are immune to all viruses.

00:11:49.960 --> 00:11:51.496
But why is that so interesting?

00:11:51.520 --> 00:11:54.680
It means that we
are not a unique solution.

00:11:55.400 --> 00:11:59.136
It means you can create
alternate chemistries to us

00:11:59.160 --> 00:12:03.976
that could be chemistries
adaptable to a very different planet

00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:06.360
that could create life and heredity.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:08.120 --> 00:12:09.360
The second experiment,

00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:12.560
or the other implication
of this experiment,

00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:17.576
is that all of you, all life
is based on 20 amino acids.

00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:20.056
If you don't substitute two amino acids,

00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:25.656
if you don't say ATXY,
if you say ATCG + XY,

00:12:25.680 --> 00:12:28.440
then you go from
20 building blocks to 172,

00:12:29.520 --> 00:12:32.656
and all of a sudden you've got
172 building blocks of amino acids

00:12:32.680 --> 00:12:35.480
to build life-forms
in very different shapes.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:37.480 --> 00:12:40.536
The second experiment to think about
is a really weird experiment

00:12:40.560 --> 00:12:42.640
that's been taking place in China.

00:12:43.920 --> 00:12:47.960
So this guy has been transplanting
hundreds of mouse heads.

00:12:48.920 --> 00:12:50.296
Right?

00:12:50.320 --> 00:12:52.400
And why is that an interesting experiment?

00:12:53.440 --> 00:12:55.496
Well, think of the first
heart transplants.

00:12:55.520 --> 00:12:57.136
One of the things they used to do

00:12:57.160 --> 00:13:00.696
is they used to bring in
the wife or the daughter of the donor

00:13:00.720 --> 00:13:04.616
so the donee could tell the doctors,

00:13:04.640 --> 00:13:07.256
"Do you recognize this person?
Do you love this person?

00:13:07.280 --> 00:13:09.136
Do you feel anything for this person?"

00:13:09.160 --> 00:13:10.640
We laugh about that today.

00:13:11.560 --> 00:13:13.776
We laugh because we know
the heart is a muscle,

00:13:13.800 --> 00:13:17.296
but for hundreds of thousands of years,
or tens of thousands of years,

00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:20.216
"I gave her my heart.
She took my heart. She broke my heart."

00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:21.616
We thought this was emotion

00:13:21.640 --> 00:13:24.880
and we thought maybe emotions
were transplanted with the heart. Nope.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:27.480
So how about the brain?

00:13:29.040 --> 00:13:31.120
Two possible outcomes to this experiment.

00:13:31.880 --> 00:13:34.296
If you can get a mouse

00:13:34.320 --> 00:13:35.936
that is functional,

00:13:35.960 --> 00:13:37.160
then you can see,

00:13:38.040 --> 00:13:39.640
is the new brain a blank slate?

00:13:41.280 --> 00:13:43.320
And boy, does that have implications.

00:13:45.120 --> 00:13:46.320
Second option:

00:13:46.800 --> 00:13:48.920
the new mouse recognizes Minnie Mouse.

00:13:49.760 --> 00:13:51.856
The new mouse
remembers what it's afraid of,

00:13:51.880 --> 00:13:53.576
remembers how to navigate the maze,

00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:54.800
and if that is true,

00:13:56.040 --> 00:13:59.360
then you can transplant
memory and consciousness.

00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:03.496
And then the really
interesting question is,

00:14:03.520 --> 00:14:07.456
if you can transplant this,
is the only input-output mechanism

00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:08.680
this down here?

00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:12.136
Or could you transplant
that consciousness into something

00:14:12.160 --> 00:14:14.136
that would be very different,

00:14:14.160 --> 00:14:15.416
that would last in space,

00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:17.496
that would last
tens of thousands of years,

00:14:17.520 --> 00:14:19.520
that would be a completely redesigned body

00:14:19.544 --> 00:14:23.224
that could hold consciousness
for a long, long period of time?

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:26.040 --> 00:14:28.080
And let's come back to the first question:

00:14:28.560 --> 00:14:30.440
Why would you ever want to do that?

00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:33.576
Well, I'll tell you why.

00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:35.320
Because this is the ultimate selfie.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:37.800
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:38.440 --> 00:14:41.000
This is taken from six billion miles away,

00:14:42.040 --> 00:14:43.240
and that's Earth.

00:14:44.800 --> 00:14:46.000
And that's all of us.

00:14:47.240 --> 00:14:50.760
And if that little thing goes,
all of humanity goes.

00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:54.536
And the reason you want
to alter the human body

00:14:54.560 --> 00:14:57.336
is because you eventually
want a picture that says,

00:14:57.360 --> 00:14:59.296
that's us, and that's us,

00:14:59.320 --> 00:15:00.736
and that's us,

00:15:00.760 --> 00:15:03.880
because that's the way humanity
survives long-term extinction.

00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:07.696
And that's the reason why it turns out

00:15:07.720 --> 00:15:11.656
it's actually unethical
not to evolve the human body

00:15:11.680 --> 00:15:15.016
even though it can be scary,
even though it can be challenging,

00:15:15.040 --> 00:15:18.416
but it's what's going
to allow us to explore, live

00:15:18.440 --> 00:15:20.960
and get to places
we can't even dream of today,

00:15:21.760 --> 00:15:25.496
but which our great-great-great-great-
grandchildren might someday.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:25.520 --> 00:15:26.736
Thank you very much.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:26.760 --> 00:15:32.280
(Applause)