MSP41: Buying into Biotech

Biotech conjures images of cloning, lab meat and mind control. But biotechnology has been fuelling humankind’s progress for thousands of years. Today we look past the fear and celebrate the promise. It’s time to Mattsplain. It’s time to Mattsplain.⠀

Excerpt:
Biotech is one of those words that’s often thrown around – like blockchain – but that mean very little to most people.
•That analogy with blockchain is a really good one.
•People often imagine that topics like biotech and block chain are easily definable, like say artificial intelligence or the Internet.
•Biotechnology especially is extremely broad.
•That’s one of the reasons that we don’t talk about it here too often.
•It tends to pop up more often on our geeks squawk show, because there will be a news item about a specific piece of biotech but that technology may not be big enough for us to consider on this show.

Presumably that means that there is some enormous breakthrough in the Biotech sphere did you want to talk about today?
•That would be the way that we normally go about it.
•people seem to respond very well to the hit-and-run format of last week’s show, I thought that today we could try and explain a little about what biotechnology is.
•And then have a look at some of the stories and breakthroughs that we’ve seen in that sector this year.

Just to be clear, we are not going to be talking about really intelligent Machines that start building organic bodies to host their minds while they wipe out humanity?
•No.

Or enhancement technologies that create a race of superhumans who will enslave everyone else?
•No.
•Look, every technology has its Dark side.
•And often when we hear reports about biotechnology, it’s those negative aspects that gets stressed.
•So we’ll hear stories about the dangers of crisper DNA editing.
•Or cloning or stem cell research.
•Or, as we talk about a lot on this show, the gradual convergence of intelligent machines and humans.

You mean where humans have so many mechanical replacement parts and machines have so many organic parts that it’s difficult to tell which is which?
•Yes. Now, I generally take that nightmarish and negative tone because I’m trying to demonstrate how extreme the result of this technology could be if we allow it to spread unchecked.
•It also might be that that is exactly the future that you would choose.
•As we mentioned in a previous show, a billionaire’s nightmare might be a poor person’s paradise.
•So, if I come onto the show and paint a picture of a future of teddy bears, cotton candy and infinite episodes of Star Trek, then people may look at the world and think the future’s going to be great and stop bothering to look around them.
•With biotechnology we so often see the negative portrayal, that the truly incredible advances in this sector get overlooked.