Group items tagged

Summary: Supporters see the biotechnology revolution in agriculture as a Promethean step forward, whereas critics see it as the start down a slope to futuristic disaster. The supporters are right about the potential benefits of genetically engineered crops, but the critics are correct that the situation calls for government regulation.

* Filmed: February 2003 * Running time: 22:20 * Description: Juan Enriquez talks about the future of genomics and genetically modified organisms. He discusses why it will be important for everyone to have an understanding genetics. Draft 82 * Rating: Good (It's a bit dry) * 7-Revolutions: Technology

* Running Time: 5:35 * Description: This gives a short report about genetically modified salmon and some of the concerns related to natural stocks of salmon. * Rating: Very Good * 7-Revolutions: Technology, Resources

Renowned\ninventor Kurzweil (The Age of Spiritual Machines) may be technology's most credibly\nhyperbolic optimist. Elsewhere he has argued that eliminating fat intake can prevent\ncancer; here, his quarry is the future of consciousness and intelligence. Humankind, it\nruns, is at the threshold of an epoch ("the singularity," a reference to the theoretical\nlimitlessness of exponential expansion) that will see the merging of our biology with the\nstaggering achievements of "GNR" (genetics, nanotechnology and robotics) to create a\nspecies of unrecognizably high intelligence, durability, comprehension, memory and so\non. The word "unrecognizable" is not chosen lightly: wherever this is heading, it won't look like us. Kurzweil's argument is necessarily twofold: it's not enough to argue that\nthere are virtually no constraints on our capacity; he must also convince readers that\nsuch developments are desirable. In essence, he conflates the wholesale transformation\nof the species with "immortality," for which read a repeal of human limit. In less capable\nhands, this phantasmagoria of speculative extrapolation, which incorporates a\nbewildering variety of charts, quotations, playful Socratic dialogues and sidebars, would\nbe easier to dismiss. But Kurzweil is a true scientist-a large-minded one at that-and\ngives due space both to "the panoply of existential risks" as he sees them and the many\npresumed lines of attack others might bring to bear. What's arresting isn't the degree to\nwhich Kurzweil's heady and bracing vision fails to convince-given the scope of his\nprojections, that's inevitable-but the degree to which it seems downright plausible.\n(Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights\nreserved.)

* Released 1998 * Running time: 106 minutes * In this science fiction film, being genetically engineered is an asset while those naturally born are considered flawed. It is part thriller, part futuristic drama and cautionary tale.