The Economist - USA (2019-11-09)

14 Leaders The EconomistNovember 9th 2019

2 mar, where antipathy towards Muslims is widespread, detrac-

tors of Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de facto leader, circulated

a photo manipulated to show her wearing a hijab. By contrast in

Iran, an Islamist theocracy, a woman was disqualified from tak-

ing the seat she had won when a photo, which she claims is doc-

tored, leaked showing her without one.

High-tech sexual slander has not replaced the old-fashioned

sort, which remains rife wherever politicians and their propa-

gandists can get away with it. In Russia, female dissidents are

dubbed sexual deviants in pro-Kremlin media. In the Philip-

pines, President Rodrigo Duterte has joked about showing a

pornographic video of a female opponent, which she says is a

fake, to the pope. In China, mainland-based trolls have spread

lewd quotes falsely attributed to Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s first fe-

male president. Beijing’s state media say she is “extreme” and

“emotional” as a result of being unmarried and childless.

Stamping out the problem altogether will be impossible. Any-

one can make a deepfake sex video, or hire someone to do it, for a

pittance, and then distribute it anonymously. Politicians will in-

evitably be targets. Laws against libel or invasion of privacy may

deter some abuses, but they are not much use when the perpetra-

tor is unknown. Reputable tech firms will no doubt try to remove

the most egregious content, but there will always be other plat-

forms, some of them hosted by regimes that actively sow disin-

formation in the West.

So the best defence against sexual lies is scepticism. People

should assume that videos showing female politicians naked or

having sex are probably bogus. Journalists should try harder to

expose the peddlers of fake footage, rather than mindlessly link-

ing to it. Some day, one hopes, voters may even decide that it is

none of their business what public figures look like under their

clothes, or which consenting adults they sleep with. 7

D

ebate aboutusing science to create “bespoke” human be-

ings of one sort or another usually revolves around the ideas

of genetic engineering and cloning. People worry about these for

two reasons. One is practical. The tinkering involved could end

up harming the resulting individual. The other is a more visceral

dislike of interfering with the process of reproduction, perhaps

best encapsulated in the phrase “playing God”.

There is, however, a third way that the genetic dice which are

thrown at the beginning of human life might be loaded—and it

does not involve any risky tinkering. It is a twist on the well-es-

tablished procedure of in vitrofertilisation (ivf). The twist would

be to decide, on the basis of their dna, which of a group of avail-

able embryos should be implanted and brought to term.

The result would be a child optimised with the best-available

genetic profile for a long and healthy life. And

this is not science fiction. Two American firms

have been working on the idea for some time,

and one of them is now implementing it (see

Science & technology section).

Single-nucleotide polymorphism (snp, or

“snip”) profiling, as the technique is called,

promises healthier offspring—a clear good. It

may also provide a way to upgrade things only

tangentially associated with health, such as height and, more

controversially, intelligence. Moreover, it is a technique that

could be applied generation on generation, to improve grand-

children and great-grandchildren still further.

snps are the smallest possible differences between individ-

uals’ dna—single genetic letters. Individually, most have little

consequence. But there are millions of them in every human ge-

nome and their combined effects can be big. snpprofiling looks

for particular combinations of snps that research has shown are

associated with the risks of developing illnesses such as cancer,

diabetes and heart disease. This is important medical informa-

tion for people now alive, and can be used to recommend screen-

ing programmes, changes of behaviour and prophylactic drugs.

For those willing to undergo ivf, and with the money to pay

for it, it may also be possible to snp-profile an embryo and thus

foretell its future. As well as disease risk, height and intelligence,

snp-profiling might eventually be capable of predicting (albeit

imperfectly, for environment also plays a role) things as diverse

as television-viewing habits, likelihood of being bullied at

school and probability of getting divorced.

At the moment, non-medical attributes are not on the menu

offered by would-be embryo snp-profilers. But if the technique

works it is hard to believe that they will not be on someone’s

menu in the future. And that does raise questions.

What all this amounts to is, in essence, a supercharged ver-

sion of an existing process known as assortative mating. It is al-

ready true that intelligent, successful (and therefore probably

rich) people seek each other out as partners. In doing so, they

bring to the table whatever genetic variations

helped make them intelligent, successful and

rich, which they then pass on to their children.

snpprofiling—available, at least to start with,

only to those who can afford it—will enhance

that by letting parents pick tall, good-looking

and above all clever offspring.

For a single generation, that may not matter

too much to the rest of society. It would be but

one extra privilege that the rich enjoy. Piled generation on gener-

ation, however, it really might create a genetic elite. snp-profil-

ing is already used to enhance desired attributes in livestock, so

it seems reasonable to assume it will work on people.

The gene genie is out of the bottle

Perhaps that is tomorrow’s problem. For the moment there

seems no reason beyond envy to oppose embryosnp-profiling.

But, from H.G. Wells’s Eloi in “The Time Machine” to Aldous

Huxley’s Alphas in “Brave New World”, science fiction is full of

breeding programmes for elite humans that have gone wrong.

Sci-fi always enjoys portraying dystopias, and mostly they do not

come true. But it might be wise to debate the matter now, just in

case this time people really are unknowingly playing God. 7

A design for life

A new type of genetic profiling promises cleverer, better-looking children. What could possibly go wrong?

Genetics