What will humans look like in 100 years?
-
0:03 - 0:04Here's a question that matters.
-
0:05 - 0:07[Is it ethical to evolve the human body?]
-
0:07 - 0:10Because we're beginning to get all
the tools together to evolve ourselves. -
0:10 - 0:13And we can evolve bacteria
and we can evolve plants -
0:13 - 0:14and we can evolve animals,
-
0:14 - 0:17and we're now reaching a point
where we really have to ask, -
0:17 - 0:20is it really ethical
and do we want to evolve human beings? -
0:21 - 0:23And as you're thinking about that,
-
0:23 - 0:27let me talk about that
in the context of prosthetics, -
0:27 - 0:30prosthetics past, present, future.
-
0:31 - 0:32So this is the iron hand
-
0:33 - 0:35that belonged to one of the German counts.
-
0:35 - 0:39Loved to fight, lost his arm
in one of these battles. -
0:39 - 0:42No problem, he just made a suit of armor,
-
0:42 - 0:43put it on,
-
0:43 - 0:44perfect prosthetic.
-
0:44 - 0:48That's where the concept
of ruling with an iron fist comes from. -
0:50 - 0:53And of course these prosthetics
have been getting more and more useful, -
0:53 - 0:54more and more modern.
-
0:54 - 0:57You can hold soft-boiled eggs.
-
0:57 - 1:00You can have all types of controls,
and as you're thinking about that, -
1:00 - 1:02there are wonderful people like Hugh Herr
-
1:02 - 1:05who have been building
absolutely extraordinary prosthetics. -
1:06 - 1:09So the wonderful Aimee Mullins
will go out and say, -
1:09 - 1:10how tall do I want to be tonight?
-
1:11 - 1:14Or Hugh will say what type of cliff
do I want to climb? -
1:14 - 1:18Or does somebody want to run a marathon,
or does somebody want to ballroom dance? -
1:18 - 1:20And as you adapt these things,
-
1:20 - 1:25the interesting thing about prosthetics
is they've been coming inside the body. -
1:25 - 1:28So these external prosthetics
have now become artificial knees. -
1:28 - 1:30They've become artificial hips.
-
1:30 - 1:32And then they've evolved further
-
1:32 - 1:34to become not just nice to have
-
1:34 - 1:35but essential to have.
-
1:36 - 1:40So when you're talking
about a heart pacemaker as a prosthetic, -
1:40 - 1:43you're talking about something
that isn't just, "I'm missing my leg," -
1:44 - 1:46it's, "if I don't have this, I can die."
-
1:46 - 1:50And at that point, a prosthetic
becomes a symbiotic relationship -
1:50 - 1:51with the human body.
-
1:53 - 1:55And four of the smartest people
that I've ever met -- -
1:55 - 2:00Ed Boyden, Hugh Herr,
Joe Jacobson, Bob Lander -- -
2:00 - 2:03are working on a Center
for Extreme Bionics. -
2:03 - 2:06And the interesting thing
of what you're seeing here is -
2:06 - 2:08these prosthetics
now get integrated into the bone. -
2:08 - 2:10They get integrated into the skin.
-
2:10 - 2:11They get integrated into the muscle.
-
2:12 - 2:15And one of the other sides of Ed
-
2:15 - 2:18is he's been thinking
about how to connect the brain -
2:18 - 2:21using light or other mechanisms
-
2:21 - 2:23directly to things like these prosthetics.
-
2:25 - 2:26And if you can do that,
-
2:26 - 2:29then you can begin changing
fundamental aspects of humanity. -
2:30 - 2:34So how quickly you react to something
depends on the diameter of a nerve. -
2:35 - 2:39And of course, if you have nerves
that are external or prosthetic, -
2:40 - 2:41say with light or liquid metal,
-
2:42 - 2:44then you can increase that diameter
-
2:44 - 2:47and you could even increase it
theoretically to the point where, -
2:47 - 2:51as long as you could see the muzzle flash,
you could step out of the way of a bullet. -
2:52 - 2:55Those are the order of magnitude
of changes you're talking about. -
2:56 - 2:59This is a fourth
sort of level of prosthetics. -
2:59 - 3:01These are Phonak hearing aids,
-
3:01 - 3:03and the reason
why these are so interesting -
3:03 - 3:07is because they cross the threshold
from where prosthetics are something -
3:07 - 3:08for somebody who is "disabled"
-
3:10 - 3:14and they become something
that somebody who is "normal" -
3:14 - 3:16might want to actually have,
-
3:16 - 3:19because what this prosthetic does,
which is really interesting, -
3:19 - 3:20is not only does it help you hear,
-
3:20 - 3:22you can focus your hearing,
-
3:22 - 3:24so it can hear the conversation
going on over there. -
3:24 - 3:25You can have superhearing.
-
3:25 - 3:28You can have hearing in 360 degrees.
You can have white noise. -
3:28 - 3:32You can record, and oh, by the way,
they also put a phone into this. -
3:32 - 3:35So this functions as your hearing aid
and also as your phone. -
3:36 - 3:41And at that point, somebody might actually
want to have a prosthetic voluntarily. -
3:42 - 3:45All of these thousands
of loosely connected little pieces -
3:45 - 3:46are coming together,
-
3:47 - 3:49and it's about time we ask the question,
-
3:49 - 3:52how do we want to evolve human beings
over the next century or two? -
3:54 - 3:56And for that we turn
to a great philosopher -
3:57 - 4:00who was a very smart man
despite being a Yankee fan. -
4:00 - 4:02(Laughter)
-
4:03 - 4:07And Yogi Berra used to say, of course,
that it's very tough to make predictions, -
4:07 - 4:08especially about the future.
-
4:08 - 4:09(Laughter)
-
4:09 - 4:12So instead of making a prediction
about the future to begin with, -
4:12 - 4:16let's take what's happening in the present
with people like Tony Atala, -
4:16 - 4:18who is redesigning 30-some-odd organs.
-
4:19 - 4:23And maybe the ultimate prosthetic
isn't having something external, titanium. -
4:23 - 4:25Maybe the ultimate prosthetic
is take your own gene code, -
4:26 - 4:27remake your own body parts,
-
4:28 - 4:32because that's a whole lot more effective
than any kind of a prosthetic. -
4:32 - 4:36But while you're at it, then you can take
the work of Craig Venter and Ham Smith. -
4:36 - 4:39And one of the things
that we've been doing -
4:39 - 4:41is trying to figure out
how to reprogram cells. -
4:42 - 4:44And if you can reprogram a cell,
-
4:44 - 4:46then you can change the cells
in those organs. -
4:47 - 4:50So if you can change
the cells in those organs, -
4:50 - 4:52maybe you make those organs
more radiation-resistant. -
4:52 - 4:54Maybe you make them absorb more oxygen.
-
4:54 - 4:56Maybe you make them more efficient
-
4:56 - 4:58to filter out stuff
that you don't want in your body. -
4:59 - 5:03And over the last few weeks,
George Church has been in the news a lot -
5:03 - 5:06because he's been talking about taking
one of these programmable cells -
5:06 - 5:08and inserting an entire human genome
-
5:08 - 5:09into that cell.
-
5:10 - 5:14And once you can insert
an entire human genome into a cell, -
5:14 - 5:16then you begin to ask the question,
-
5:16 - 5:19would you want
to enhance any of that genome? -
5:21 - 5:24Do you want to enhance a human body?
-
5:24 - 5:26How would you want
to enhance a human body? -
5:26 - 5:28Where is it ethical
to enhance a human body -
5:28 - 5:31and where is it not ethical
to enhance a human body? -
5:32 - 5:33And all of a sudden, what we're doing
-
5:33 - 5:36is we've got this
multidimensional chess board -
5:36 - 5:40where we can change
human genetics by using viruses -
5:40 - 5:41to attack things like AIDS,
-
5:42 - 5:45or we can change the gene code
through gene therapy -
5:45 - 5:47to do away with some hereditary diseases,
-
5:48 - 5:49or we can change the environment,
-
5:49 - 5:52and change the expression
of those genes in the epigenome -
5:52 - 5:54and pass that on to the next generations.
-
5:55 - 5:58And all of a sudden,
it's not just one little bit, -
5:58 - 6:00it's all these stacked little bits
-
6:00 - 6:02that allow you
to take little portions of it -
6:03 - 6:05until all the portions coming together
-
6:06 - 6:08lead you to something
that's very different. -
6:10 - 6:12And a lot of people
are very scared by this stuff. -
6:12 - 6:15And it does sound scary,
and there are risks to this stuff. -
6:16 - 6:19So why in the world would you
ever want to do this stuff? -
6:19 - 6:22Why would we really want
to alter the human body -
6:22 - 6:23in a fundamental way?
-
6:25 - 6:27The answer lies in part
-
6:27 - 6:29with Lord Rees,
-
6:29 - 6:31astronomer royal of Great Britain.
-
6:33 - 6:36And one of his favorite sayings
is the universe is 100 percent malevolent. -
6:36 - 6:38So what does that mean?
-
6:38 - 6:41It means if you take
any one of your bodies at random, -
6:41 - 6:42drop it anywhere in the universe,
-
6:42 - 6:44drop it in space, you die.
-
6:45 - 6:46Drop it on the Sun, you die.
-
6:46 - 6:48Drop it on the surface
of Mercury, you die. -
6:48 - 6:50Drop it near a supernova, you die.
-
6:50 - 6:53But fortunately, it's only
about 80 percent effective. -
6:55 - 6:57So as a great physicist once said,
-
6:58 - 7:02there's these little
upstream eddies of biology -
7:02 - 7:07that create order
in this rapid torrent of entropy. -
7:08 - 7:11So as the universe dissipates energy,
-
7:11 - 7:15there's these upstream eddies
that create biological order. -
7:16 - 7:18Now, the problem with eddies is,
-
7:18 - 7:20they tend to disappear.
-
7:20 - 7:22They shift. They move in rivers.
-
7:23 - 7:25And because of that, when an eddy shifts,
-
7:25 - 7:28when the Earth becomes a snowball,
when the Earth becomes very hot, -
7:28 - 7:31when the Earth gets hit by an asteroid,
when you have supervolcanoes, -
7:32 - 7:33when you have solar flares,
-
7:33 - 7:37when you have potentially
extinction-level events -
7:37 - 7:38like the next election --
-
7:38 - 7:40(Laughter)
-
7:41 - 7:45then all of a sudden,
you can have periodic extinctions. -
7:45 - 7:48And by the way, that's happened
five times on Earth, -
7:48 - 7:50and therefore it is very likely
-
7:50 - 7:54that the human species on Earth
is going to go extinct someday. -
7:54 - 7:56Not next week,
-
7:56 - 7:58not next month,
-
7:58 - 8:01maybe in November,
but maybe 10,000 years after that. -
8:02 - 8:05As you're thinking
of the consequence of that, -
8:05 - 8:08if you believe that extinctions
are common and natural -
8:08 - 8:10and normal and occur periodically,
-
8:10 - 8:13it becomes a moral imperative
to diversify our species. -
8:15 - 8:16And it becomes a moral imperative
-
8:16 - 8:19because it's going to be
really hard to live on Mars -
8:19 - 8:22if we don't fundamentally
modify the human body. -
8:23 - 8:24Right?
-
8:24 - 8:25You go from one cell,
-
8:25 - 8:28mom and dad coming together
to make one cell, -
8:28 - 8:30in a cascade to 10 trillion cells.
-
8:30 - 8:34We don't know, if you change
the gravity substantially, -
8:34 - 8:37if the same thing will happen
to create your body. -
8:38 - 8:41We do know that if you expose
our bodies as they currently are -
8:41 - 8:43to a lot of radiation, we will die.
-
8:45 - 8:48So as you're thinking of that,
you have to really redesign things -
8:48 - 8:49just to get to Mars.
-
8:49 - 8:52Forget about the moons
of Neptune or Jupiter. -
8:53 - 8:55And to borrow from Nikolai Kardashev,
-
8:55 - 8:58let's think about life
in a series of scales. -
8:58 - 9:00So Life One civilization
-
9:00 - 9:03is a civilization that begins
to alter his or her looks. -
9:04 - 9:06And we've been doing that
for thousands of years. -
9:06 - 9:10You've got tummy tucks
and you've got this and you've got that. -
9:10 - 9:13You alter your looks, and I'm told
-
9:13 - 9:16that not all of those alterations
take place for medical reasons. -
9:17 - 9:19(Laughter)
-
9:19 - 9:20Seems odd.
-
9:20 - 9:23A Life Two civilization
is a different civilization. -
9:24 - 9:29A Life Two civilization alters
fundamental aspects of the body. -
9:30 - 9:33So you put human growth hormone in,
the person grows taller, -
9:33 - 9:37or you put x in and the person
gets fatter or loses metabolism -
9:37 - 9:38or does a whole series of things,
-
9:38 - 9:41but you're altering the functions
in a fundamental way. -
9:41 - 9:44To become an intrasolar civilization,
-
9:44 - 9:46we're going to have to create
a Life Three civilization, -
9:48 - 9:50and that looks very different
from what we've got here. -
9:51 - 9:53Maybe you splice in
Deinococcus radiodurans -
9:53 - 9:57so that the cells can resplice
after a lot of exposure to radiation. -
9:58 - 10:01Maybe you breathe by having oxygen
flow through your blood -
10:01 - 10:03instead of through your lungs.
-
10:04 - 10:06But you're talking about
really radical redesigns, -
10:07 - 10:11and one of the interesting things
that's happened in the last decade -
10:11 - 10:13is we've discovered
a whole lot of planets out there. -
10:13 - 10:15And some of them may be Earth-like.
-
10:17 - 10:21The problem is, if we ever
want to get to these planets, -
10:21 - 10:23the fastest human objects --
-
10:23 - 10:25Juno and Voyager
and the rest of this stuff -- -
10:25 - 10:28take tens of thousands of years
-
10:28 - 10:30to get from here
to the nearest solar system. -
10:31 - 10:34So if you want to start exploring
beaches somewhere else, -
10:34 - 10:37or you want to see two-sun sunsets,
-
10:38 - 10:41then you're talking
about something that is very different, -
10:41 - 10:46because you have to change
the timescale and the body of humans -
10:46 - 10:49in ways which may be
absolutely unrecognizable. -
10:50 - 10:52And that's a Life Four civilization.
-
10:54 - 10:57Now, we can't even begin
to imagine what that might look like, -
10:57 - 10:59but we're beginning to get glimpses
-
10:59 - 11:02of instruments that might
take us even that far. -
11:03 - 11:05And let me give you two examples.
-
11:05 - 11:07So this is the wonderful Floyd Romesberg,
-
11:07 - 11:09and one of the things
that Floyd's been doing -
11:09 - 11:12is he's been playing
with the basic chemistry of life. -
11:12 - 11:17So all life on this planet
is made in ATCGs, the four letters of DNA. -
11:17 - 11:20All bacteria, all plants,
all animals, all humans, all cows, -
11:20 - 11:21everything else.
-
11:22 - 11:27And what Floyd did is he changed out
two of those base pairs, -
11:27 - 11:28so it's ATXY.
-
11:30 - 11:35And that means that you now have
a parallel system to make life, -
11:35 - 11:40to make babies, to reproduce, to evolve,
-
11:40 - 11:42that doesn't mate
with most things on Earth -
11:42 - 11:44or in fact maybe with nothing on Earth.
-
11:45 - 11:47Maybe you make plants
that are immune to all bacteria. -
11:47 - 11:50Maybe you make plants
that are immune to all viruses. -
11:50 - 11:51But why is that so interesting?
-
11:52 - 11:55It means that we
are not a unique solution. -
11:55 - 11:59It means you can create
alternate chemistries to us -
11:59 - 12:04that could be chemistries
adaptable to a very different planet -
12:04 - 12:06that could create life and heredity.
-
12:08 - 12:09The second experiment,
-
12:10 - 12:13or the other implication
of this experiment, -
12:13 - 12:18is that all of you, all life
is based on 20 amino acids. -
12:18 - 12:20If you don't substitute two amino acids,
-
12:20 - 12:26if you don't say ATXY,
if you say ATCG + XY, -
12:26 - 12:28then you go from
20 building blocks to 172, -
12:30 - 12:33and all of a sudden you've got
172 building blocks of amino acids -
12:33 - 12:35to build life-forms
in very different shapes. -
12:37 - 12:41The second experiment to think about
is a really weird experiment -
12:41 - 12:43that's been taking place in China.
-
12:44 - 12:48So this guy has been transplanting
hundreds of mouse heads. -
12:49 - 12:50Right?
-
12:50 - 12:52And why is that an interesting experiment?
-
12:53 - 12:55Well, think of the first
heart transplants. -
12:56 - 12:57One of the things they used to do
-
12:57 - 13:01is they used to bring in
the wife or the daughter of the donor -
13:01 - 13:05so the donee could tell the doctors,
-
13:05 - 13:07"Do you recognize this person?
Do you love this person? -
13:07 - 13:09Do you feel anything for this person?"
-
13:09 - 13:11We laugh about that today.
-
13:12 - 13:14We laugh because we know
the heart is a muscle, -
13:14 - 13:17but for hundreds of thousands of years,
or tens of thousands of years, -
13:17 - 13:20"I gave her my heart.
She took my heart. She broke my heart." -
13:20 - 13:22We thought this was emotion
-
13:22 - 13:25and we thought maybe emotions
were transplanted with the heart. Nope. -
13:26 - 13:27So how about the brain?
-
13:29 - 13:31Two possible outcomes to this experiment.
-
13:32 - 13:34If you can get a mouse
-
13:34 - 13:36that is functional,
-
13:36 - 13:37then you can see,
-
13:38 - 13:40is the new brain a blank slate?
-
13:41 - 13:43And boy, does that have implications.
-
13:45 - 13:46Second option:
-
13:47 - 13:49the new mouse recognizes Minnie Mouse.
-
13:50 - 13:52The new mouse
remembers what it's afraid of, -
13:52 - 13:54remembers how to navigate the maze,
-
13:54 - 13:55and if that is true,
-
13:56 - 13:59then you can transplant
memory and consciousness. -
14:01 - 14:03And then the really
interesting question is, -
14:04 - 14:07if you can transplant this,
is the only input-output mechanism -
14:07 - 14:09this down here?
-
14:09 - 14:12Or could you transplant
that consciousness into something -
14:12 - 14:14that would be very different,
-
14:14 - 14:15that would last in space,
-
14:15 - 14:17that would last
tens of thousands of years, -
14:18 - 14:20that would be a completely redesigned body
-
14:20 - 14:23that could hold consciousness
for a long, long period of time? -
14:26 - 14:28And let's come back to the first question:
-
14:29 - 14:30Why would you ever want to do that?
-
14:32 - 14:34Well, I'll tell you why.
-
14:34 - 14:35Because this is the ultimate selfie.
-
14:36 - 14:38(Laughter)
-
14:38 - 14:41This is taken from six billion miles away,
-
14:42 - 14:43and that's Earth.
-
14:45 - 14:46And that's all of us.
-
14:47 - 14:51And if that little thing goes,
all of humanity goes. -
14:52 - 14:55And the reason you want
to alter the human body -
14:55 - 14:57is because you eventually
want a picture that says, -
14:57 - 14:59that's us, and that's us,
-
14:59 - 15:01and that's us,
-
15:01 - 15:04because that's the way humanity
survives long-term extinction. -
15:05 - 15:08And that's the reason why it turns out
-
15:08 - 15:12it's actually unethical
not to evolve the human body -
15:12 - 15:15even though it can be scary,
even though it can be challenging, -
15:15 - 15:18but it's what's going
to allow us to explore, live -
15:18 - 15:21and get to places
we can't even dream of today, -
15:22 - 15:25but which our great-great-great-great-
grandchildren might someday. -
15:26 - 15:27Thank you very much.
-
15:27 - 15:32(Applause)
- Title:
- What will humans look like in 100 years?
- Speaker:
- Juan Enriquez
- Description:
-
We can evolve bacteria, plants and animals -- futurist Juan Enriquez asks: Is it ethical to evolve the human body? In a visionary talk that ranges from medieval prosthetics to present day neuroengineering and artificial DNA science, Enriquez sorts out the ethics associated with evolving humans and imagines the ways we'll have to transform our own bodies if we hope to explore and live in places other than Earth.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 15:45
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for What will humans look like in 100 years? | ||
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Brian Greene approved English subtitles for What will humans look like in 100 years? | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for What will humans look like in 100 years? | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz accepted English subtitles for What will humans look like in 100 years? | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for What will humans look like in 100 years? | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for What will humans look like in 100 years? | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for What will humans look like in 100 years? |