New York Magazine - USA (2019-11-11)

24 newyork| november11–24, 2019

Cancer Won’t Be Cured by Robots

But Will Be Detected by SmartBras

WHEN THE FDA cautioned against usingsur-

gical robots to treat cancer, MD Anderson

quickly stopped using them. But high-endsur-

geries aren’t really where the importantbreak-

throughs are. “You’ll go your family physician,

they’ll take a blood draw, and you’ll beonyour

way” saysDavidCrosby, headofearly-detec-

tion research at Cancer Research UKimagin-

ing a new future of screening. Or you coulduse

somethinglike a Breathalyzer,sincecancer

also excretes metabolic by-products thatevap-

orate out of your lungs. “In ten to 15years

time,” Crosby predicts, “I don’t see whyyou

couldn’t go down to Walmart and buya cancer

breath test that sits in your kitchen drawer.”

Current cancer treatments “are StoneAge

therapies,” says Azra Raza, an oncologistat

Columbia University. We already knowhowto

improve early detection, she says. For example,

tumors require more and more bloodsupply;

new vessels create greater heat, and thesehot

spots can be located with scanning devices. “So

we put you to bed in bedsheets that scan you,”

Raza offers. “You take a shower in a shower

that scans you. Women wear a smart bra

equipped with 200 biothermal tactile sensors

that detect changes in temperature.” (That bra

is already in clinical trials, actually.)

A child born in the future couldhave a

cancer-detection chip implanted at birth. “It

would just sit inside your body and continuously

monitor the mixture of molecules in your blood,”

says Crosby. “The moment anything indicative of

cancer emerges, you get a ping on yoursmart-

watch or something that says, ‘You probably want

to go see a doctor.’ ” —CLINTRAINEY

Your Loved Ones Will Become

Monkey-Human Hybrids

SURE, IT WILL SEEM GROSS, at first, when

your uncle receives a heart transplanted not

from an organ donor but a pig or monkey that

had been genetically engineered to grow

human parts inside it. But it won’t take long

for the public to be persuaded—so many peo-

ple getting the help they need, designed spe-

cifically for their bodies to avoid transplant

rejection—even though the animal-rights

activists will have a field day.

New Drugs Will Be Tested Noton

Human Subjects or Animals Buton

“Mini-Brains” Grown in Labs

We Will Break Up Big Tech

TODAY, anyone who hopes to restore the

competitive, pluralistic, decentralized internet

has to overcome not just the tech companies’

commanding market dominance but also the

political influence Big Tech can buy with its

monopoly profits. This can seem hopeless: We

have to weaken Big Tech’s profits in order to

robitofpoliticalpower,butwhileit wields

that political power, it’s hard to imagine ever

eroding those profits.

Howthenmightwearriveat a 2029 where

the internet is restored to its sunwalled glory

and chaos?

Perhaps it could come in the form of a plea

bargain. Big Tech companies are notoriously

incorrigible, getting into trouble with the likes

of the FTC, being given a second chance in the

form of a “consent decree”—a pledge of good

behavior—and then getting into worse trouble

for flagrantly violating the terms of its parole

(looking at you, Facebook).

When that happens, the FTC could offer the

repeat offenders another chance but also attach

arbitrary conditions to that chance: For example,

the FTC might tell Facebook that it must not use

legal or technical countermeasures to prevent

third parties from plugging competing services

into Facebook Messenger, Instagram, or even

Facebook itself. (This is called “interoperability.”)

After all, a court recently found that LinkedIn

could not seek to prevent HiQ from scraping its

publicly available data. Not only did the court

find in HiQ’s favor: It also ordered LinkedIn not

to take technical countermeasures to keep its

competitor off the service.

The implications of that kind of plea- bargain

protection would be enormous. It could allow

“adversarial interoperability”: nonprofits, tinker-

ers, and even venture-funded start-ups building

tools and services to help internet users gain

more control over their online lives, even if doing

so violates a patent, bypasses a copyright lock, or

breaks the terms of service (which are, after all,

neither read nor complied with by anyone,

anywhere, ever). A million small and

medium-size enterprises could offer a mil-

lion different sets of house rules, and the

monopoly would be effectively disrupted.

—CORY DOCTOROW

Climate Change

Will (Slightly)

Accelerate Demo-

graphic Decline

MAR 08

At a rally in

Long Island

City, Senator

Elizabeth

Warren

pro poses yet

another plan:

regulating tech

conglomerates.

MAR 12

A groupof

activists

announce

they’re going

ona “birth

strike”to

protestclimate

change. PHOTOGRAPH: RON ADAR/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (WARREN)

MAR 07

Scientists
unveila new
modeltest-
tube “brain.”

FEB 28

Some cancers
are likelier to
recur after
robot surgery,
the FDA
warns.

MAR 01

Japan lifts a
ban on
growing
human cells in
animal
embryos.