Una pregunta important.
Here's a question that matters.
[És ètic evolucionar el cos humà?]
[Is it ethical to evolve the human body?]
Perquè ja quasi comptem amb les eines per fer-ho. Podem evolucionar bactèries i també plantes i podem evolucionar animals, i estem arribant a un punt en el qual ens hem de preguntar, és ètic i ens interessa evolucionar éssers humans? I mentre penseu en això, us en parlaré en el context dels prostètics, en el passat, el present i el futur.
Because we're beginning to get all the tools together to evolve ourselves. And we can evolve bacteria and we can evolve plants and we can evolve animals, and we're now reaching a point where we really have to ask, is it really ethical and do we want to evolve human beings? And as you're thinking about that, let me talk about that in the context of prosthetics, prosthetics past, present, future.
Açò és la mà de ferro que va gastar un dels comtes alemanys. Li agradava la brega, va perdre el braç a una batalla. Cap problema, es va fer una nova armadura, se la va posar, pròtesi perfecta. D'aquí ve la dita "governar amb mà de ferro".
So this is the iron hand that belonged to one of the German counts. Loved to fight, lost his arm in one of these battles. No problem, he just made a suit of armor, put it on, perfect prosthetic. That's where the concept of ruling with an iron fist comes from.
Naturalment eixes pròtesis són cada vegada més funcionals, s'han anat modernitzant. Ja pots subjectar ous durs. Podeu fer tota mena de coses, i mentre penseu en això, hi ha gent meravellosa com Hugh Herr que ha estat construint protèsis extraordinàries. Així que Aimee Mullins un dia qualsevol pot dir, quant vull medir avui? O Hugh dirà quin tipus de penya-segat escalaré avui? I si algú vol córrer una marató, o algú vol anar a ballar? I mentre adaptem aquestes coses, les pròtesis han anat introduïnt-se dins del cos. Estes pròtesis externes s'han convertit en genolls artificials. S'han convertit en malucs artificials. I han seguit evolucionant més encara i ja no són només un accessori útil sinó una part essencial.
And of course these prosthetics have been getting more and more useful, more and more modern. You can hold soft-boiled eggs. You can have all types of controls, and as you're thinking about that, there are wonderful people like Hugh Herr who have been building absolutely extraordinary prosthetics. So the wonderful Aimee Mullins will go out and say, how tall do I want to be tonight? Or Hugh will say what type of cliff do I want to climb? Or does somebody want to run a marathon, or does somebody want to ballroom dance? And as you adapt these things, the interesting thing about prosthetics is they've been coming inside the body. So these external prosthetics have now become artificial knees. They've become artificial hips. And then they've evolved further to become not just nice to have but essential to have.
Quan parlem d'un marcapassos com a prostètic, no estem dient només "em falta una cama", sinó, "ho necessite per a viure". I en aquest punt, la pròtesi entra en una relació simbiòtica amb el cos humà.
So when you're talking about a heart pacemaker as a prosthetic, you're talking about something that isn't just, "I'm missing my leg," it's, "if I don't have this, I can die." And at that point, a prosthetic becomes a symbiotic relationship with the human body.
Quatre de les persones més intel·ligents que conec -- Ed Boyden, Hugh Herr, Joe Jacobson, Bob Lander -- treballen en un Centre de Biònica Extrema. I el que fa interessant aquest projecte és que ara les pròtesis s'intengren dins de l'òs. S'integren a la pell. S'integren al múscul. I una altra cosa en la que treballa Ed és en trobar una forma de connectar el cervell amb l'ajuda de la llum o altres mecanismes a coses com estes pròtesis. I si podem fer això, podem canviar aspectes fonamentals de la humanitat. La nostra velocitat de reacció depén del diàmetre del nervi. I si tenim nervis externs o prostètics, fets de llum o de metall líquid, podríem incrementar eixe diàmetre i podríem incrementar-lo fins al punt en que, si veiessis la flamarada del canó, podries esquivar la bala. Aquesta és la magnitud dels canvis de què parlem.
And four of the smartest people that I've ever met -- Ed Boyden, Hugh Herr, Joe Jacobson, Bob Lander -- are working on a Center for Extreme Bionics. And the interesting thing of what you're seeing here is these prosthetics now get integrated into the bone. They get integrated into the skin. They get integrated into the muscle. And one of the other sides of Ed is he's been thinking about how to connect the brain using light or other mechanisms directly to things like these prosthetics. And if you can do that, then you can begin changing fundamental aspects of humanity. So how quickly you react to something depends on the diameter of a nerve. And of course, if you have nerves that are external or prosthetic, say with light or liquid metal, then you can increase that diameter and you could even increase it theoretically to the point where, as long as you could see the muzzle flash, you could step out of the way of a bullet. Those are the order of magnitude of changes you're talking about.
Açò és com un quart nivell de pròtesis. Estos són els audiòfons Phonak, i la raó per la que són tan interessants és que creuen la barrera entre les pròtesis com una cosa per als "discapacitats" i es converteixen en coses que una persona "normal" podria voler tindre, perquè el que fa aquesta pròtesi i que és molt interessant, és que no només t'ajuda a sentir, sinó que pot enfocar l'oïda, podries escoltar aquella conversa. Pots tindre superoïda. Podries escoltar en 360 graus. Podries sentir soroll blanc. Podries gravar i, per cert, també porten telèfon. Així que fan la funció d'audiòfon i de telèfon. I en aquest cas, algú podria posar-se una pròtesi voluntàriament.
This is a fourth sort of level of prosthetics. These are Phonak hearing aids, and the reason why these are so interesting is because they cross the threshold from where prosthetics are something for somebody who is "disabled" and they become something that somebody who is "normal" might want to actually have, because what this prosthetic does, which is really interesting, is not only does it help you hear, you can focus your hearing, so it can hear the conversation going on over there. You can have superhearing. You can have hearing in 360 degrees. You can have white noise. You can record, and oh, by the way, they also put a phone into this. So this functions as your hearing aid and also as your phone. And at that point, somebody might actually want to have a prosthetic voluntarily.
Totes aquestes xicotetes parts amb gairebé cap relació comencen a ajuntar-se i va sent hora que ens preguntem, com volem evolucionar l'ésser humà en els segles vinents? I recorrem a un gran filòsof, que era un home molt intel·ligent malgrat ser fan dels Yankees.
All of these thousands of loosely connected little pieces are coming together, and it's about time we ask the question, how do we want to evolve human beings over the next century or two? And for that we turn to a great philosopher who was a very smart man despite being a Yankee fan.
(Riures)
(Laughter)
I el que Yogi Berra deia és que costa molt fer prediccions, sobretot respecte al futur.
And Yogi Berra used to say, of course, that it's very tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
(Riures)
(Laughter)
Així que en lloc de començar fent una predicció del futur, parlem del que està passant al present amb gent com Tony Atala, que està redissenyant uns 30 òrgans. I potser la pròtesi definitiva no siga un aparell extern de titani. Potser es tracte de prendre el teu codi genètic, i reconstruir les parts del teu cos, perquè això és molt més efectiu que qualsevol pròtesi. Però mentrestant, mirem el treball de Craig Venter i Ham Smith. I una de les coses que han estat fent és intentar descobrir com reprogramar cèl·lules. I en cas de poder reprogramar una cèl·lula, podríem canviar les cèl·lules dels órgans. I si poguérem canviar eixes cèl·lules, podríem fer els órgans resistents a la radiació. Podríem fer que absorbiren més oxígen. Podríem fer-los més eficients a l'hora de filtrar coses que no volem al cos.
So instead of making a prediction about the future to begin with, let's take what's happening in the present with people like Tony Atala, who is redesigning 30-some-odd organs. And maybe the ultimate prosthetic isn't having something external, titanium. Maybe the ultimate prosthetic is take your own gene code, remake your own body parts, because that's a whole lot more effective than any kind of a prosthetic. But while you're at it, then you can take the work of Craig Venter and Ham Smith. And one of the things that we've been doing is trying to figure out how to reprogram cells. And if you can reprogram a cell, then you can change the cells in those organs. So if you can change the cells in those organs, maybe you make those organs more radiation-resistant. Maybe you make them absorb more oxygen. Maybe you make them more efficient to filter out stuff that you don't want in your body.
I estes setmanes George Church ha eixit molt a les notícies perquè parla d'agafar una d'eixes cèl·lules programables i insertar un genoma humà dins d'eixa cèl·lula. I una volta podem fer això, ens comencem a fer la pregunta, volem millorar alguna part d'aquest genoma? Volem millorar el cos humà? Com voldríem millorar el cos humà? Quan és étic millorar un cos humà i quan no és ètic millorar un cos humà? I de sobte, el que ha passat és que ens trobem amb aquest tauler d'escacs multidimensional on podem canviar la genètica humana amb l'ajuda de virus que ataquen el sida, per exemple, o podem canviar el codi genètic mitjançant teràpia genètica per desfer-nos d'enfermetats hereditàries, o podem canviar l'entorn, i canviar l'expressió d'eixos gens a l'epigenoma i passar-ho a les següents generacions. I de sobte, ja no parlem d'una part xicoteta, són totes aquestes parts una damunt l'altra que et permeten prendre porcions menudes fins que aquestes porcions es junten i resulten en una cosa molt distinta.
And over the last few weeks, George Church has been in the news a lot because he's been talking about taking one of these programmable cells and inserting an entire human genome into that cell. And once you can insert an entire human genome into a cell, then you begin to ask the question, would you want to enhance any of that genome? Do you want to enhance a human body? How would you want to enhance a human body? Where is it ethical to enhance a human body and where is it not ethical to enhance a human body? And all of a sudden, what we're doing is we've got this multidimensional chess board where we can change human genetics by using viruses to attack things like AIDS, or we can change the gene code through gene therapy to do away with some hereditary diseases, or we can change the environment, and change the expression of those genes in the epigenome and pass that on to the next generations. And all of a sudden, it's not just one little bit, it's all these stacked little bits that allow you to take little portions of it until all the portions coming together lead you to something that's very different.
I a molts això els fa molta por. I la veritat és que fa por, i correm molts riscos amb açò. I per què caram voldríem clavar-nos a fer açò? Per què voldríem alterar el cos humà d'una forma fonamental?
And a lot of people are very scared by this stuff. And it does sound scary, and there are risks to this stuff. So why in the world would you ever want to do this stuff? Why would we really want to alter the human body in a fundamental way?
La resposta es troba en part amb Lord Rees, astrònom reial de Gran Bretanya. I el que deia era que l'univers és 100 per cent malèvol. Què vol dir això? Significa que si agafem qualsevol dels vostres cossos, i els soltem a qualsevol part de l'univers, si el soltem a l'espai, morim. Si el soltem al sol, morim. A la superfície de Mercuri, morim. Prop d'una supernova, morim. Per sort açò només es compleix en un 80 per cent.
The answer lies in part with Lord Rees, astronomer royal of Great Britain. And one of his favorite sayings is the universe is 100 percent malevolent. So what does that mean? It means if you take any one of your bodies at random, drop it anywhere in the universe, drop it in space, you die. Drop it on the Sun, you die. Drop it on the surface of Mercury, you die. Drop it near a supernova, you die. But fortunately, it's only about 80 percent effective.
Com deia un gran físic, hi ha uns xicotets remolins de la biologia que creen ordre dins del torrent de l'entropia. Així que mentre l'univers dissipa l'energia, aquests remolins creen ordre biològic. El problema amb els remolins és que solen desaparèixer. Canvien. Es mouen en rius. I per això, quan un remolí canvia, quan la Terra es congela o s'escalfa molt, quan rep l'impacte d'un asteroid o quan tenim supervolcans, quan hi han flamarades solars, quan ocórren esdeveniments que amenacen amb l'extinció com les properes eleccions --
So as a great physicist once said, there's these little upstream eddies of biology that create order in this rapid torrent of entropy. So as the universe dissipates energy, there's these upstream eddies that create biological order. Now, the problem with eddies is, they tend to disappear. They shift. They move in rivers. And because of that, when an eddy shifts, when the Earth becomes a snowball, when the Earth becomes very hot, when the Earth gets hit by an asteroid, when you have supervolcanoes, when you have solar flares, when you have potentially extinction-level events like the next election --
(Riures)
(Laughter)
De sobte, podem trobar-nos amb extincions periòdiques. Per cert, açò ja ha passat cinc vegades a la Terra, i per tant és molt probable que la raça humana desapareixi un dia. No la propera setmana, ni tampoc el més vinent, potser a novembre, però pot ser d'ací 10,000 anys. Mentre penseu en les consequències d'açò, si creieu que les extincions són fets comuns i naturals i que ocorren periòdicament, és un imperatiu moral diversificar la nostra espècie.
then all of a sudden, you can have periodic extinctions. And by the way, that's happened five times on Earth, and therefore it is very likely that the human species on Earth is going to go extinct someday. Not next week, not next month, maybe in November, but maybe 10,000 years after that. As you're thinking of the consequence of that, if you believe that extinctions are common and natural and normal and occur periodically, it becomes a moral imperative to diversify our species.
I és un imperatiu moral perquè serà molt difícil viure a Mart si no modifiquem els fonaments del cos humà. Val? Partim d'una cèl·lula, el pare i la mare s'ajunten per fer una cèl·lula, en una cascada de 10 bilions de cèl·lules. No sabem, si al variar la gravetat de forma substancial, el mateix passarà quan creem un cos. No sabem si al exposar el nostre cos tal com es troba a nivells alts de radiació, morirem. Així que considerant açò, és precís redissenyar les coses per arribar a Mart. Ni parlar de les llunes de Neptú o Júpiter.
And it becomes a moral imperative because it's going to be really hard to live on Mars if we don't fundamentally modify the human body. Right? You go from one cell, mom and dad coming together to make one cell, in a cascade to 10 trillion cells. We don't know, if you change the gravity substantially, if the same thing will happen to create your body. We do know that if you expose our bodies as they currently are to a lot of radiation, we will die. So as you're thinking of that, you have to really redesign things just to get to Mars. Forget about the moons of Neptune or Jupiter.
I com deia Nikolai Kardashev, pensem en la vida com una sèrie d'escales. La civilització de primer nivell comença a alterar la seua aparença. I portem fent-ho durant milers d'anys. Tenim liposuccions i tal i qual. Canviem d'aparença i pel que tinc entés no totes estes alteracions es deuen a raons mèdiques.
And to borrow from Nikolai Kardashev, let's think about life in a series of scales. So Life One civilization is a civilization that begins to alter his or her looks. And we've been doing that for thousands of years. You've got tummy tucks and you've got this and you've got that. You alter your looks, and I'm told that not all of those alterations take place for medical reasons.
(Riures)
(Laughter)
És estrany.
Seems odd.
La civilització de segon nivell és diferent a la primera. Aquesta altera aspectes fonamentals del cos. Li posem hormones de creixement i la persona és més alta, o posem tal cosa i la persona es fa més grossa o perd metabolisme o fa tota mena de coses, però el que fem és alterar les funcions a nivell fonamental.
A Life Two civilization is a different civilization. A Life Two civilization alters fundamental aspects of the body. So you put human growth hormone in, the person grows taller, or you put x in and the person gets fatter or loses metabolism or does a whole series of things, but you're altering the functions in a fundamental way.
Per convertir-nos en una civilització intrasolar, necessitem crear una civilització de tercer nivell, i esta no es pareix en res al que veieu ací. Pot ser ens dividim en Deinococcus radiodurans i així les cèl·lules poden dividir-se quan s'exposen a molta radiació. Potser respirem i l'oxígen passa per la sang en lloc de pels pulmons. Però parlem de redissenys radicals, i una de les coses interessants que han passat esta última dècada és que hem descobert un bon garbó de planetes. I alguns podrien ser similars a la Terra. El problema és que si volem arribar a ells, els objectes humans més ràpids -- com ara la Juno i la Voyager i la resta d'aparells -- tarden desenes de milers d'anys en anar d'ací al sistema solar més proper. Així que si volem explorar platges en altres llocs, o si volem veure capvespres de dos sols, aleshores necessitem quelcom totalment diferent, perquè hauríem de canviar l'escala temporal i el nostre cos de forma totalment irreconeixible. I açò seria una civilització de quart nivell.
To become an intrasolar civilization, we're going to have to create a Life Three civilization, and that looks very different from what we've got here. Maybe you splice in Deinococcus radiodurans so that the cells can resplice after a lot of exposure to radiation. Maybe you breathe by having oxygen flow through your blood instead of through your lungs. But you're talking about really radical redesigns, and one of the interesting things that's happened in the last decade is we've discovered a whole lot of planets out there. And some of them may be Earth-like. The problem is, if we ever want to get to these planets, the fastest human objects -- Juno and Voyager and the rest of this stuff -- take tens of thousands of years to get from here to the nearest solar system. So if you want to start exploring beaches somewhere else, or you want to see two-sun sunsets, then you're talking about something that is very different, because you have to change the timescale and the body of humans in ways which may be absolutely unrecognizable. And that's a Life Four civilization.
De moment no podem ni imaginar quin aspecte tindria, però comencem a rebre indicis d'instruments que podrien portar-nos allà. I us mostraré dos exemples.
Now, we can't even begin to imagine what that might look like, but we're beginning to get glimpses of instruments that might take us even that far. And let me give you two examples.
Aquest és el meravellós Floyd Romesberg, i una de les coses que Floyd ha estat fent és jugar amb la química bàsica de la vida. Tota la vida d'aquest planeta està feta de ATCG, les lletres de l'ADN. Les bactèries, les plantes, els animals, els humans, les vaques, i tota la resta. I el que Floyd ha fet és canviar dos de les parelles bàsiques, i les ha convertit en ATXY. I això significa que ara tenim un sistema paral·lel per fer vida, per fer nadons, reproduir-nos, evolucionar, que no encaixa amb la majoria de coses de la Terra o potser en res del que hi ha a la Terra. Podríem fer plantes immunes a les bactèries. O plantes immunes als virus. Però per què és tan interessant? Açò significa que no sóm una solució única. Significa que podem crear químiques alternatives a la nostra que podrien adaptar-se a un planeta diferent i que podrien crear vida.
So this is the wonderful Floyd Romesberg, and one of the things that Floyd's been doing is he's been playing with the basic chemistry of life. So all life on this planet is made in ATCGs, the four letters of DNA. All bacteria, all plants, all animals, all humans, all cows, everything else. And what Floyd did is he changed out two of those base pairs, so it's ATXY. And that means that you now have a parallel system to make life, to make babies, to reproduce, to evolve, that doesn't mate with most things on Earth or in fact maybe with nothing on Earth. Maybe you make plants that are immune to all bacteria. Maybe you make plants that are immune to all viruses. But why is that so interesting? It means that we are not a unique solution. It means you can create alternate chemistries to us that could be chemistries adaptable to a very different planet that could create life and heredity.
El segon experiment, o l'altra implicació d'aquest experiment, és que tot ésser viu està basat en 20 amino àcids. Si no substituïm dos amino àcids, si no diem ATXY, si diem ATCG + XY, aleshores passem de 20 blocs de construcció a 172, i de sobte tenim 172 blocs d'amino àcids per construir formes de vida d'aspectes molt diferents.
The second experiment, or the other implication of this experiment, is that all of you, all life is based on 20 amino acids. If you don't substitute two amino acids, if you don't say ATXY, if you say ATCG + XY, then you go from 20 building blocks to 172, and all of a sudden you've got 172 building blocks of amino acids to build life-forms in very different shapes.
El segon experiment que cal tenir en compte és molt estrany i està desenvolupant-se a la Xina. Este senyor ha estat transplantant centenars de caps de ratolí. Val? I per què és interessant? Penseu en els primers transplants de cor. Una de les proves que feien era que portaven a la dona o la filla del donant i els metges li preguntaven al receptor, "Reconeixes esta persona? T'estimes esta persona? Sents cap cosa per esta persona?" Hui açò ens fa riure. Riem perquè sabem que el cor és un múscul, però durant centenars de milers d'anys, o desenes de milers d'anys deiem, "M'ha robat el cor. M'ha trencat el cor." Pensàvem que era emoció i que potser les emocions podien transplantar-se amb el cor. Però no.
The second experiment to think about is a really weird experiment that's been taking place in China. So this guy has been transplanting hundreds of mouse heads. Right? And why is that an interesting experiment? Well, think of the first heart transplants. One of the things they used to do is they used to bring in the wife or the daughter of the donor so the donee could tell the doctors, "Do you recognize this person? Do you love this person? Do you feel anything for this person?" We laugh about that today. We laugh because we know the heart is a muscle, but for hundreds of thousands of years, or tens of thousands of years, "I gave her my heart. She took my heart. She broke my heart." We thought this was emotion and we thought maybe emotions were transplanted with the heart. Nope.
I què passa amb el cervell? L'experiment té dos resultats possibles. Si aconsegueixes un ratolí que siga funcional aleshores podrem veure si el nou cervell és una pissarra en blanc. Ostres, això té moltes implicacions. Segona opció: el nou ratolí reconeix a Minnie Mouse. El nou ratolí recorda les coses que li fan por, recorda com recórrer el laberint, i si açò es compleix, llavors podem transplantar la memòria i la consciència. I la pregunta vertaderament interessant és, si podem transplantar això, significa que l'únic mecanisme d'entrada i eixida és açò? O podríem transplantar eixa consciència a alguna cosa molt diferent, que sobreviuria a l'espai que podria durar desenes de milers d'anys, que seria un cos completament redissenyat que podria retindre la consciència durant un llarg període de temps?
So how about the brain? Two possible outcomes to this experiment. If you can get a mouse that is functional, then you can see, is the new brain a blank slate? And boy, does that have implications. Second option: the new mouse recognizes Minnie Mouse. The new mouse remembers what it's afraid of, remembers how to navigate the maze, and if that is true, then you can transplant memory and consciousness. And then the really interesting question is, if you can transplant this, is the only input-output mechanism this down here? Or could you transplant that consciousness into something that would be very different, that would last in space, that would last tens of thousands of years, that would be a completely redesigned body that could hold consciousness for a long, long period of time?
I tornem a la primera pregunta: Per què voldríem fer això? Jo us ho diré. Perquè esta és la selfie definitiva.
And let's come back to the first question: Why would you ever want to do that? Well, I'll tell you why. Because this is the ultimate selfie.
(Riures)
(Laughter)
Esta fotografía s'ha fet a sis mil milions de kilòmetres, i això és la Terra. I aquí estem tots nosaltres. I si eixe puntet s'apaga, l'humanitat sencera també. I la raó per la qual ens interessa alterar el cos humà és perquè en algún moment voldrem tenir una foto que diga, eixos som nosaltres, i eixos, i eixos també, perquè així és com la humanitat sobreviurà l'extinció. I per esta raó resulta que no seria ètic renunciar a evolucionar el cos humà encara que ens faci por, encara que siga un repte, però si ens permet explorar i viure i arribar a llocs que encara no podem ni somiar, però que siguen una realitat pels nostres re-re-re-rebesnets.
This is taken from six billion miles away, and that's Earth. And that's all of us. And if that little thing goes, all of humanity goes. And the reason you want to alter the human body is because you eventually want a picture that says, that's us, and that's us, and that's us, because that's the way humanity survives long-term extinction. And that's the reason why it turns out it's actually unethical not to evolve the human body even though it can be scary, even though it can be challenging, but it's what's going to allow us to explore, live and get to places we can't even dream of today, but which our great-great-great-great- grandchildren might someday.
Moltes gràcies.
Thank you very much.
(Aplaudiments)
(Applause)