Source

https://iceni.substack.com/p/private-public-partnerships-for-mad?publication_id=766426&post_id=104809386&isFreemail=true

“Artificial Intelligence, but not only artificial intelligence, but also, the metaverse, near-space technologies, and I could go on and on - synthetic biology. Our life in ten years from now, will be completely different, very much affected, and - who masters those technologies, in some way, will be the master of the world.”

Here’s the problem: he’s not wrong. People get pissed off when they hear statements like master of the world because they think it’s an empty threat; little more than the idle bluster of a megalomaniac. It most certainly isn’t. The reason why people don’t see what this technology is capable of is because, for one thing, they aren’t cursed with an overactive imagination, and for another, they aren’t used to holistic systems thinking, and lastly, there has been next to no mainstream media coverage of synthetic biology, because if there was, people would rightly be having a conniption fit.

I’m going to ask you something that may strike you as a little bit strange. What is an internal organ? The textbook answer is something along the lines of specialized tissue in the body that performs a specific function. But what if I told you that an internal organ can be whatever the heck we want it to be?

RSC - A morphospace for synthetic organs and organoids: the possible and the actual

Efforts in evolutionary developmental biology have shed light on how organs are developed and why evolution has selected some structures instead of others. These advances in the understanding of organogenesis along with the most recent techniques of organotypic cultures, tissue bioprinting and synthetic biology provide the tools to hack the physical and genetic constraints in organ development, thus opening new avenues for research in the form of completely designed or merely altered settings. Here we propose a unifying framework that connects the concept of morphospace (i.e. the space of possible structures) with synthetic biology and tissue engineering. We aim for a synthesis that incorporates our understanding of both evolutionary and architectural constraints and can be used as a guide for exploring alternative design principles to build artificial organs and organoids. We present a three-dimensional morphospace incorporating three key features associated to organ and organoid complexity. The axes of this space include the degree of complexity introduced by developmental mechanisms required to build the structure, its potential to store and react to information and the underlying physical state. We suggest that a large fraction of this space is empty, and that the void might offer clues for alternative ways of designing and even inventing new organs.

What if the organs found in humans and animals - kidneys, spleen, liver, heart, brain, et cetera - do not represent all possible configurations of cells, but only the narrowly defined ones selected by evolution? What if there is a giant unexamined blank spot where you can have things like thinking muscle tissue chock-full of neurons, or an all-in-one liver and kidney (lidney?) right under your skin that makes you sweat filtered toxins out? What if we could manufacture entirely new organs from scratch that never existed in nature before and have completely novel functions? What if a guy could have little brains implanted in every joint in his body and give his arms and legs a mind of their own, like an octopus?

This is something that has been explored in science fiction numerous times, in the past. In Warhammer 40,000, the highly augmented and superhuman Space Marines are implanted with numerous scratch-built organs, and if you’ve ever read Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl or the late Greg Bear’s Blood Music, then you know exactly how bizarre this sort of thing can get. There’s just one problem, here, and it’s that this stuff is getting alarmingly close to not being science fiction anymore, and there are basically no ethical frameworks in place to make sure it isn’t horribly abused.

This is just one example of what you can do with synthetic biology. Another thing you can do is design completely new enzymes from scratch, insert the genes coding for them into bacteria, and use them as reagents to produce entirely new compounds.

Still not convinced? If you go on the Government of Canada’s website, right now, this is one of the articles they have up. I recommend archiving it.

Policy Horizons Canada - Exploring Biodigital Convergence

I wake up to the sunlight and salty coastal air of the Adriatic sea. I don’t live anywhere near the Mediterranean, but my AI, which is also my health advisor, has prescribed a specific air quality, scent, and solar intensity to manage my energy levels in the morning, and has programmed my bedroom to mimic this climate.

The fresh bed sheets grown in my building from regenerating fungi are better th