A billion years of evolution in a single afternoon — George Church

This seems like the sort of thing that could wipe out all competing life if we're properly weaponized. The thing that's alarming to people like me is that biotechnology enables smaller and smaller efforts, harder and harder to detect. If we handle that properly, then we're probably going to have almost perfect health. Why?

Why wouldn't we? You know, evolution might incorporate a few base pair changes in a million years. Now we can make billions of changes in an afternoon. All the materials we use in mechanical and electrical engineering should be made better by biotechnologies.

We might even finally get a room temperature superconductor that way. Today I have the pleasure of interviewing George Church. I don't know how to introduce you. It would honestly, this is not even a exaggeration.

It would honestly be easier to list out the um the major breakthroughs in biology over the last few decades that you haven't been involved in. from the human genome project to crisper age reversal to deextinction. So um you weren't exactly an easy prep. Sorry.

Okay. So let's start here. By what year would it be the case that if you make it to that year technology will keep in bio will keep progressing to such an extent that your lifespan will increase by a year every year or more. Escape velocity is sometimes what it's called for aging.

um different people have estimates and all those estimates are including mine are going to be uh take with a big grain of salt. I think that looking at how mainly looking at the exponentials in biotechnology and the progress that's been made in understanding not just understanding causes of aging but seeing real examples where you can reverse subsets of the aging phenotype. you know, so you're getting close to all of aging. Um, in other words, you're seeing instead of just saying, "Oh, I'm going to fix the damage in this collagen in this tendon in this limb." You're saying, "Oh, I'm going to change a lot of things that that are that are common to aged related diseases and I'm going to get more than one at a time." I think looking at those two phenomena, the exponentials in biotechnologies and the the breakthrough in general uh aging um not just observ not just analysis but synthesis and and therapies and a lot of ...