We’ve spent the better part of the last two decades unravelling exactly how the human genome works and which specific letter changes in our DNA affect things like diabetes risk or college graduation rates. Our knowledge has advanced to the point where, if we had a safe and reliable means of modifying genes in embryos, we could literally create superbabies. Children that would live multiple decades longer than their non-engineered peers, have the raw intellectual horsepower to do Nobel prize worthy scientific research, and very rarely suffer from depression or other mental health disorders.

The scientific establishment, however, seems to not have gotten the memo. If you suggest we engineer the genes of future generations to make their lives better, they will often make some frightened noises, mention “ethical issues” without ever clarifying what they mean, or abruptly change the subject. It's as if humanity invented electricity and decided [...]

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Outline:

(02:17) How to make (slightly) superbabies

(05:08) How to do better than embryo selection

(08:52) Maximum human life expectancy

(12:01) Is everything a tradeoff?

(20:01) How to make an edited embryo

(23:23) Sergiy Velychko and the story of super-SOX

(24:51) Iterated CRISPR

(26:27) Sergiy Velychko and the story of Super-SOX

(28:48) What is going on?

(32:06) Super-SOX

(33:24) Mice from stem cells

(35:05) Why does super-SOX matter?

(36:37) How do we do this in humans?

(38:18) What if super-SOX doesn't work?

(38:51) Eggs from Stem Cells

(39:31) Fluorescence-guided sperm selection

(42:11) Embryo cloning

(42:39) What if none of that works?

(44:26) What about legal issues?

(46:26) How we make this happen

(50:18) Ahh yes, but what about AI?

(50:54) There is currently no backup plan if we can't solve alignment

(55:09) Team Human

(57:53) Appendix

(57:56) iPSCs were named after the iPod

(58:11) On autoimmune risk variants and plagues

(59:28) Two simples strategies for minimizing autoimmune risk and pandemic vulnerability

(01:00:29) I don't want someone else's genes in my child

(01:01:08) Could I use this technology to make a genetically enhanced clone of myself?

(01:01:36) Why does super-SOX work?

(01:06:14) How was the IQ grain graph generated?

The original text contained 19 images which were described by AI.

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First published:
February 19th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DfrSZaf3JC8vJdbZL/how-to-make-superbabies

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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