Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA

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CRISPR People by Henry T. Greely

Albert Einstein, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, autism spectrum disorder, bitcoin, clean water, CRISPR, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of DNA, double helix, dual-use technology, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, Gregor Mendel, Ian Bogost, Isaac Newton, Mark Zuckerberg, meta-analysis, mouse model, New Journalism, phenotype, precautionary principle, Recombinant DNA, special economic zone, stem cell, synthetic biology, traumatic brain injury, Xiaogang Anhui farmers

As far as Berg’s Nobel Prize goes, no one doubts that he and his lab made major contributions to the field and were driving forces in its advance, but Berg had another role that made him stand out from the rest of the recombinant DNA crowd. He was a leader, arguably the leader, in organizing a temporary moratorium on recombinant DNA research and in organizing and running the famous 1975 Asilomar Conference on recombinant DNA at which the moratorium was discussed. And the Asilomar Conference is an essential part of this story. The Asilomar Conference, or, to give it its full name, the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules, was held on February 24, 25, and 26, 1975, at the Asilomar State Beach and Conference Grounds, an unusual unit of the California State Park system, located on the coast just south of Monterey, California (and one of the loveliest places in the world).7 It had been spawned in June 1973 at a Gordon Conference on the topic of nucleic acids.

Greely, “Human Genomics Research: New Challenges for Research Ethics,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44, no. 2: 221–229 (spring 2001). If you ever get the chance, go. It is gorgeous and peaceful. 15. Paul Berg, David Baltimore, Sydney Brenner, et al., “Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 72, no. 6 (June 1975): 1981–1984. 16. Capron and Shapiro, “Remember Asilomar.” Some have speculated that the journalists were included as a consequence of the Watergate scandal of the previous year and other examples of secret decision-making.


pages: 608 words: 150,324

Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code by Matthew Cobb

a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Anthropocene, anti-communist, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, bioinformatics, Claude Shannon: information theory, conceptual framework, Copley Medal, CRISPR, dark matter, discovery of DNA, double helix, Drosophila, epigenetics, factory automation, From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death, Gregor Mendel, heat death of the universe, James Watt: steam engine, John von Neumann, Kickstarter, Large Hadron Collider, military-industrial complex, New Journalism, Norbert Wiener, phenotype, post-materialism, Recombinant DNA, Stephen Hawking, synthetic biology

However, a great deal of further work will be needed before this approach can be applied in the real world, and I suspect few scientists – or readers – would want to rely solely on this technique to ensure biosecurity.52 These responsible approaches to the potential impact of a new technique of unprecedented power are a direct descendant of the Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA that so successfully guided science as it was catapulted into the new world of genetic manipulation. In 2008, Paul Berg reflected on the impact of the Asilomar conference: In the 33 years since Asilomar, researchers around the world have carried out countless experiments with recombinant DNA without reported incident.

., George Beadle, an Uncommon Farmer: The Emergence of Genetics in the Twentieth Century, Cold Spring Harbor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2003. Berg, P., Baltimore, D., Boyer, H. W. et al., ‘Potential biohazards of recombinant DNA molecules’, Science, vol. 185, 1974, p. 303. Berg, P., Baltimore, D., Brenner, S. et al., ‘Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA molecules’, Science, vol. 188, 1975, pp. 991–4. Berget, S. M., Moore, C. and Sharp, P. A., ‘Spliced segments at the 5′ terminus of adenovirus 2 late mRNA’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, vol. 74, 1977, pp. 3171–5. Bergstrom, C. T. and Rosvall, M., ‘The transmission sense of information’, Biology and Philosophy, vol. 26, 2011a, pp. 159–76.

Exchange of letters between Seymour Benzer and François Jacob, André Lwoff and Jacques Monod, on the occasion of the French trio being awarded the Nobel Prize, in 1965. Benzer was renowned for his sense of humour. 29. Banner put up in Marshall Nirenberg’s laboratory at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, when news came through of his 1969 Nobel Prize. 30. Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA, 1975. Left to right: Maxine Singer, Norton Zinder, Sydney Brenner and Paul Berg. The possibility of using CRISPR to change the human germ line has recently led to calls for a ‘new Asilomar’ to debate the ethical and technical questions involved. NOTES Chapter 1 1.Wood and Orel (2001), p. 258; see also Cobb (2006a), Poczai et al. (2014). 2.López-Beltrán (1994), Müller-Wille and Rheinberger (2007, 2012). 3.Harvey basically shrugged his shoulders and gave up (Cobb, 2006b). 4.Cobb (2006a). 5.For Mendel’s work and its implications, see Bowler (1989), Gayon (1998), Hartl and Orel (1992).


pages: 422 words: 113,525

Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand

"World Economic Forum" Davos, agricultural Revolution, An Inconvenient Truth, Anthropocene, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, back-to-the-land, biofilm, borderless world, Buckminster Fuller, business process, carbon credits, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, clean water, Community Supported Agriculture, conceptual framework, Danny Hillis, dark matter, decarbonisation, demographic dividend, demographic transition, digital divide, Easter island, Elon Musk, Exxon Valdez, failed state, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, glass ceiling, Google Earth, Hans Rosling, Herbert Marcuse, Herman Kahn, Hernando de Soto, high-speed rail, informal economy, interchangeable parts, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of agriculture, invention of the steam engine, Jane Jacobs, jimmy wales, Kevin Kelly, Kibera, land tenure, lateral thinking, Lewis Mumford, low earth orbit, M-Pesa, Marshall McLuhan, megacity, megaproject, microbiome, military-industrial complex, New Urbanism, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, out of africa, Paul Graham, peak oil, Peter Calthorpe, precautionary principle, Recombinant DNA, rewilding, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, smart grid, stem cell, Stewart Brand, synthetic biology, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Thomas Malthus, Tragedy of the Commons, University of East Anglia, uranium enrichment, urban renewal, We are as Gods, wealth creators, Whole Earth Catalog, Whole Earth Review, William Langewiesche, working-age population, Y2K

Monstrous organisms would be created, environmentalists said, that could threaten everything living. There would be insulin-shock epidemics and tumor plagues. The Cambridge and Berkeley city councils—both cities the home of major universities—outlawed recombinant-DNA research. The U.S. Congress began introducing restrictive legislation. That was the atmosphere that led to the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules in California in February 1975. Coming from all over the world, some 146 genetic scientists and related professionals convened for four days to regulate their research. They instituted an array of laboratory containment practices and mandated the use of organisms that could not live outside the lab.

Ambio Amboseli National Park American Chestnut (Freinkel) American Chestnut Foundation America Needs Indians America’s Ancient Forests (Bonnicksen) Ames, Bruce Ammann, Klaus Anastas, Paul Anderson, Kat Anderson, Rip Andreae, Meinrat Angel, Roger Archer, David Arctic Arctic Marine Council Argentina Asia genetic engineering and Green Revolution and urbanization and see also specific countries Asian Development Bank Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules Association of Space Explorers asteroids Australia Ausubel, Jesse autocatalytic technologies automobiles background radiation bacteria gene transfer and human body and seawater and Baer, José Baer, Steve Bailey, Ronald Baker, Robert Baldwin, J. Bali Bangladesh Banyacya, Thomas Barcode of Life Baskin, Yvonne bats Bay Conservation and Development Commission bears beavers Bechman, Roland Beebe, Spencer Belarus Benedict XIV, Pope Benford, Gregory Benyus, Janine Berlin, Isaiah beta-carotene Betts, Richard Beyer, Peter Bezdek, Roger H.


Innovation and Its Enemies by Calestous Juma

3D printing, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, autonomous vehicles, behavioural economics, big-box store, biodiversity loss, business cycle, Cass Sunstein, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial rule, computer age, creative destruction, CRISPR, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, deskilling, disruptive innovation, driverless car, electricity market, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, fail fast, financial innovation, global value chain, Honoré de Balzac, illegal immigration, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of movable type, invention of the printing press, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, loss aversion, Marc Andreessen, means of production, Menlo Park, mobile money, New Urbanism, Nicholas Carr, pensions crisis, phenotype, precautionary principle, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, refrigerator car, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, smart grid, smart meter, stem cell, Steve Jobs, synthetic biology, systems thinking, tacit knowledge, technological singularity, The Future of Employment, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Travis Kalanick

Questioning Science Regulatory uncertainties plagued genetic engineering from the beginning, but the scientific community self-regulated those concerns in many instances, understanding the potential dangers genetic engineering posed to the public and to science. Genetic engineering’s transformative power was evident from the time the gene-cloning technique was developed in 1973 by Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen. Two years later, participants at the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA called for a voluntary moratorium on genetic engineering to allow the National Institutes of Health to develop safety guidelines for what some feared might be risky experiments. By being proactive, the scientific community took responsibility for designing safety guidelines that were themselves guided by the best available scientific knowledge and principles.

See Koran, printing of Arab Spring, 91 Archery, 15 Argentina Bt cotton in, 234 genetically edited crops regulation, 254 transgenic organisms, dispute over, 241 Armenians, as printers in Istanbul, 81–82 Al’Arraq, Muhammad ibn, 50 Arthur, W. Brian, 22, 319n5 Artificial ice industry, 197 Artificial intelligence, 13, 199, 281, 284 Artists, relationship with technology, 223 Asbestos, 31 Asia. See also specific countries agricultural systems in, 253 transgenic crops, response to, 251 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, 236 Assemblies, technology as collections of, 22–23 Associations. See names of specific organizations and associations Atatürk, Kemal, 89 Attaix (current-generating device manufacturer), 38–39 Attitudes, as barriers to technological innovation, 33, 36 Audiffren (refrigerator brand), 190 Audio recording system, magnetic, 41–42 Auerbach, Junius T., 186 Austin, Samuel, 176 Australia, genetically edited crops in, 234, 254 Authority, technological innovation and, 30–31, 71 Automation, 14, 281, 283–284.


pages: 158 words: 46,353

Future War: Preparing for the New Global Battlefield by Robert H. Latiff

Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, autonomous vehicles, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, CRISPR, cyber-physical system, Danny Hillis, defense in depth, drone strike, dual-use technology, Elon Musk, failed state, friendly fire, Howard Zinn, Internet of things, low earth orbit, military-industrial complex, Nicholas Carr, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, post-truth, precautionary principle, Recombinant DNA, self-driving car, Seymour Hersh, South China Sea, Stephen Hawking, Stewart Brand, Strategic Defense Initiative, Stuxnet, synthetic biology, VTOL, Wall-E

Since World War II, numerous efforts have been made to deal with issues of technology, weapons research, and ethics. These include the 1946 Nuremberg trials, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, and efforts by scientists to place restrictions on biomedical, genomic, and nanotechnology research. Scientists attending the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, near Monterey, California, in 1975 recognized the potential dangers of such DNA research and declared a moratorium until safe and ethical procedures could be developed. The guidelines developed were voluntary, but have been assiduously followed. Rules and theory are one thing, practical applications another.


Genentech The Beginnings of Biotech (Synthesis) -University Of Chicago Press (2011) by Sally Smith Hughes

Albert Einstein, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, barriers to entry, creative destruction, full employment, industrial research laboratory, invention of the wheel, Joseph Schumpeter, mass immigration, Menlo Park, power law, prudent man rule, Recombinant DNA, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley

Recombinant DNA felt to him “like important stuff,” important enough to build a company upon.21 His seven years in venture capital had provided valuable training in raising money and advising new companies, but the experience had also made him feel “like a coach on the sidelines.” 22 He wanted a piece of the action; he wanted a company of his own. Culling names from publicity on the 1975 Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA, he drew up a list of scientists prominent in the field. Swanson began to cold-call the scientists, asking if they thought the technology was ready to commercialize. Without exception, all believed recombinant DNA had industrial promise but surmised it would require a decade or two of development before a commercial payoff.23 Persisting despite the rebuffs, Swanson called Boyer, oblivious of the fact that he was contacting an inventor of the technology.


pages: 824 words: 218,333

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, All science is either physics or stamp collecting, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, autism spectrum disorder, Benoit Mandelbrot, butterfly effect, CRISPR, dark matter, discovery of DNA, double helix, Drosophila, epigenetics, Ernest Rutherford, experimental subject, Gregor Mendel, Internet Archive, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, longitudinal study, medical residency, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, mouse model, New Journalism, out of africa, phenotype, Pierre-Simon Laplace, planned obsolescence, Ponzi scheme, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Recombinant DNA, Scientific racism, seminal paper, stem cell, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, Thomas Malthus, twin studies

docId=kt5d5nb0zs&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire_text. On New Year’s Day 1974: John F. Morrow et al., “Replication and transcription of eukaryotic DNA in Escherichia coli,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 71, no. 5 (1974): 1743–47. Asilomar II—one of the most unusual: Paul Berg et al., “Summary statement of the Asilomar Conference on recombinant DNA molecules,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 72, no. 6 (1975): 1981–84. “You fucked the plasmid group”: Crotty, Ahead of the Curve, 107. He was promptly accused of: Brenner, “The influence of the press.” “Some people got sick of it all”: Crotty, Ahead of the Curve, 108.

abortion prenatal tests and, 267–68, 269, 269n, 273 Roe case on, 268–69 shifting attitudes toward, 269–70, 272 acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), 247, 248, 249, 375 ADA deficiency, 423, 424 ADA gene mutations, 422–24 Adam Agassiz’s race theories on, 331 as First Parent, 25 Adams, Mark, 316 ADCY5 gene, in humans, 451 addiction, genetic components of, 300, 301 adenine, 135, 155–56 adenosine metabolism, 423–24 adenovirus, as gene-therapy vector, 430, 431–32, 434, 435, 465 adoption inheritance patterns in genetic diseases involving, 300 intelligence of transracial adoptees in, 348 as option for carrier couples in genetic disorders, 291 studies of twins reared apart after, 374, 381, 383, 487 Advisory Committee on Uranium, 232 Aeschylus, 21 Agassiz, Louis, 331–32, 343 aging research, with transgenic mice, 421 AIDS, 247, 248, 249, 375 Aktion T4 program, Germany, 123–24 Albany, Prince Leopold, Duke of, 99 alcoholism eugenics on, 116 genetic components of, 301, 459 Alexandra, czarina of Russia, 98, 99, 100 Alice, Princess, 99 alleles Fisher’s mathematical research on combinations using, 104 Mendel’s experimentation on, 48–52 Morgan’s fruit-fly research on, 97 polymorphisms similar to, 280 Allfrey, Vincent, 400n Allis, David, 400, 400n alpha interferon, 251 Alu DNA sequence, 324 Alzheimer’s disease, 97, 316, 421 American Breeders’ Association, 77 American Journal of Human Genetics, 281 Amgen, 308 ammonia Miller’s “primordial soup” experiment using, 411 in ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency, 429, 430, 431, 432 amniocentesis, 267, 269, 291 Anaxagoras, 356–57 Ancestral Law of Heredity, 68–69, 72 Anderson, William French, 424–27, 428, 430 anemia, 169–70 anthropology, 29–30, 124, 331, 335 antibodies, 224, 323, 423, 435 antipsychotic medicines, 1, 6 apes evolution and, 332 pairs of chromosomes of, 322 applied biology, in Nazi Germany, 119, 120 Are You Fit to Marry? (film), 85 Arendt, Hannah, 124 Arieti, Silvano, 442–43 Aristotle, 22–24, 27, 70, 142 Asilomar conference (Asilomar I, 1973), California, 226–27 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA (Asilomar II, 1975), California influence of, 230, 231–32, 234–35 moratorium proposal of, 230, 477, 502 range of attendees at, 229, 238 recommendations of, 237, 425 restrictions on recombinant DNA from, 243, 243n sessions at, 229–31, 234, 236 Asperger, Hans, 449 association study, 385 atomic bomb, 11, 131, 232, 301, 475 atoms as basic unit, 9–10, 485 coining of word, 71 fundamental units of matter making up, 140 as organizing principle for modern physics, 12 Rutherford’s conceptual model of, 140 attention deficit disorder, 386, 491 Augustinians, Mendel’s life among, 17–18, 49 Auschwitz concentration camp, Germany, 129, 130, 137–38, 502 autism, 276 creativity in, 448, 449 epigenetics used to alter, 406 mismatch between genome and environment in, 265, 482 mutations in, 406, 444, 444n, 454, 503 autoimmune disease, 453 Avery, Oswald background and training of, 133 Griffith’s transformation experiment confirmed by, 133, 136–37 research on DNA as genetic information carrier by, 137, 139, 158, 183, 205, 259, 314, 502 bacteria defense system against invading viruses in, 470–73 drug-resistant, 228–29 gene exchange between, 112 genes turned on or off for metabolic changes in, 175–76, 176n, 307n, 392 genetic information exchanged between, 136 as model system for research, 259 twin studies of genetic variations in response to, 130 Bailey, J.


A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution by Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Anthropocene, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, carbon footprint, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, CRISPR, double helix, Drosophila, dual-use technology, Higgs boson, Mark Zuckerberg, microbiome, mouse model, phenotype, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Recombinant DNA, Richard Feynman, Silicon Valley, Skype, stem cell, Steven Pinker, zoonotic diseases

Rogers, Biohazard (New York: Knopf, 1977); P. Berg and M. F. Singer, “The Recombinant DNA Controversy: Twenty Years Later,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 92 (1995): 9011–13. Berg and his colleagues decided that most experiments should proceed: P. Berg et al., “Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules,” Science188 (1975): 991–94. gave rise to a consensus that allowed research to proceed with popular support: P. Berg, “Meetings That Changed the World: Asilomar 1975: DNA Modification Secured,” Nature 455 (2008): 290–91. the meeting failed to cast a wide enough net outside the scientific community: “After Asilomar,” Nature 526 (2015): 293–94.


pages: 416 words: 112,268

Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control by Stuart Russell

3D printing, Ada Lovelace, AI winter, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Alfred Russel Wallace, algorithmic bias, AlphaGo, Andrew Wiles, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, behavioural economics, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, brain emulation, Cass Sunstein, Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon: information theory, complexity theory, computer vision, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, connected car, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, delayed gratification, Demis Hassabis, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ernest Rutherford, fake news, Flash crash, full employment, future of work, Garrett Hardin, Geoffrey Hinton, Gerolamo Cardano, Goodhart's law, Hans Moravec, ImageNet competition, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of the wheel, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Kelly, Law of Accelerating Returns, luminiferous ether, machine readable, machine translation, Mark Zuckerberg, multi-armed bandit, Nash equilibrium, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, NP-complete, OpenAI, openstreetmap, P = NP, paperclip maximiser, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Pierre-Simon Laplace, positional goods, probability theory / Blaise Pascal / Pierre de Fermat, profit maximization, RAND corporation, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, recommendation engine, RFID, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Shiller, robotic process automation, Rodney Brooks, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart contracts, social intelligence, speech recognition, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, superintelligent machines, surveillance capitalism, Thales of Miletus, The Future of Employment, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thomas Bayes, Thorstein Veblen, Tragedy of the Commons, transport as a service, trolley problem, Turing machine, Turing test, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, vertical integration, Von Neumann architecture, Wall-E, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, web application, zero-sum game

Another claim that real AI researchers dismiss AI risks: David Kenny, “IBM’s open letter to Congress on artificial intelligence,” June 27, 2017, ibm.com/blogs/policy/kenny-artificial-intelligence-letter. 15. Report from the workshop that proposed voluntary restrictions on genetic engineering: Paul Berg et al., “Summary statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 72 (1975): 1981–84. 16. Policy statement arising from the invention of CRISPR-Cas9 for gene editing: Organizing Committee for the International Summit on Human Gene Editing, “On human gene editing: International Summit statement,” December 3, 2015. 17.


pages: 444 words: 117,770

The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century's Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, 3D printing, active measures, Ada Lovelace, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, AI winter, air gap, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, algorithmic bias, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, Alvin Toffler, Amazon Web Services, Anthropocene, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, ASML, autonomous vehicles, backpropagation, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bioinformatics, Bletchley Park, Blitzscaling, Boston Dynamics, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, ChatGPT, choice architecture, circular economy, classic study, clean tech, cloud computing, commoditize, computer vision, coronavirus, corporate governance, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, creative destruction, CRISPR, critical race theory, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, data science, decarbonisation, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Demis Hassabis, disinformation, drone strike, drop ship, dual-use technology, Easter island, Edward Snowden, effective altruism, energy transition, epigenetics, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ernest Rutherford, Extinction Rebellion, facts on the ground, failed state, Fairchild Semiconductor, fear of failure, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, future of work, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, global pandemic, GPT-3, GPT-4, hallucination problem, hive mind, hype cycle, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet Archive, Internet of things, invention of the wheel, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John von Neumann, Joi Ito, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, lab leak, large language model, Law of Accelerating Returns, Lewis Mumford, license plate recognition, lockdown, machine readable, Marc Andreessen, meta-analysis, microcredit, move 37, Mustafa Suleyman, mutually assured destruction, new economy, Nick Bostrom, Nikolai Kondratiev, off grid, OpenAI, paperclip maximiser, personalized medicine, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, plutocrats, precautionary principle, profit motive, prompt engineering, QAnon, quantum entanglement, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, Richard Feynman, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Sam Altman, Sand Hill Road, satellite internet, Silicon Valley, smart cities, South China Sea, space junk, SpaceX Starlink, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Stephen Fry, Steven Levy, strong AI, synthetic biology, tacit knowledge, tail risk, techlash, techno-determinism, technoutopianism, Ted Kaczynski, the long tail, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas Malthus, TikTok, TSMC, Turing test, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, warehouse robotics, William MacAskill, working-age population, world market for maybe five computers, zero day

He’d begun to worry about what his invention might unleash and wanted to set some ground rules and moral foundations for going forward. At the Asilomar conference center, they asked the difficult questions thrown up by this new discipline: Should we start genetically engineering humans? If so, what traits might be permissible? Two years later they returned in even larger numbers for the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA. The stakes in that sea-lapped hotel were high. It was a turning point in the biosciences, establishing durable principles for governing genetic research and technology that set guidelines and moral limits on what experiments could take place. I attended a conference in Puerto Rico in 2015 that aimed to do something similar for AI.


pages: 428 words: 121,717

Warnings by Richard A. Clarke

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, active measures, Albert Einstein, algorithmic trading, anti-communist, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Bernie Madoff, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, carbon tax, cognitive bias, collateralized debt obligation, complexity theory, corporate governance, CRISPR, cuban missile crisis, data acquisition, deep learning, DeepMind, discovery of penicillin, double helix, Elon Musk, failed state, financial thriller, fixed income, Flash crash, forensic accounting, friendly AI, Hacker News, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, knowledge worker, Maui Hawaii, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, money market fund, mouse model, Nate Silver, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, nuclear winter, OpenAI, pattern recognition, personalized medicine, phenotype, Ponzi scheme, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Sam Altman, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, smart grid, statistical model, Stephen Hawking, Stuxnet, subprime mortgage crisis, tacit knowledge, technological singularity, The Future of Employment, the scientific method, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, Tunguska event, uranium enrichment, Vernor Vinge, WarGames: Global Thermonuclear War, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, women in the workforce, Y2K

The Paul Berg Papers: Recombinant DNA Technologies and Researchers’ Responsibilities, 1973–1980, Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/Narrative/CD/p-nid/260 (accessed Oct. 11, 2016). 17. Paul Berg, David Baltimore, et al., “Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 72, no. 6 (June 1975): 1981–84. 18. Interview with Paul Berg, June 6, 2016. 19. David Baltimore, Paul Berg, et al., “A Prudent Path Forward for Genomic Engineering and Germline Gene Modification,” Science 348, no. 6230 (Apr. 3, 2015): 36–38. 20.


pages: 688 words: 147,571

Robot Rules: Regulating Artificial Intelligence by Jacob Turner

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Ada Lovelace, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, AI winter, algorithmic bias, algorithmic trading, AlphaGo, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, autonomous vehicles, backpropagation, Basel III, bitcoin, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, blockchain, brain emulation, Brexit referendum, Cambridge Analytica, Charles Babbage, Clapham omnibus, cognitive dissonance, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, crowdsourcing, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, distributed ledger, don't be evil, Donald Trump, driverless car, easy for humans, difficult for computers, effective altruism, Elon Musk, financial exclusion, financial innovation, friendly fire, future of work, hallucination problem, hive mind, Internet of things, iterative process, job automation, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Loebner Prize, machine readable, machine translation, medical malpractice, Nate Silver, natural language processing, Nick Bostrom, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, nudge unit, obamacare, off grid, OpenAI, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, Peace of Westphalia, Philippa Foot, race to the bottom, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, Rodney Brooks, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Stanislav Petrov, Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak, strong AI, technological singularity, Tesla Model S, The Coming Technological Singularity, The Future of Employment, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, trolley problem, Turing test, Vernor Vinge

See Paul Berg, “Asilomar and Recombinant DNA”, Official Website of the Nobel Prize, https://​www.​nobelprize.​org/​nobel_​prizes/​chemistry/​laureates/​1980/​berg-article.​html, accessed 1 June 2018. 79Paul Berg, David Baltimore, Sydney Brenner, Richard O. Roblin III, and Maxine F. Singer. “Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol. 72, No. 6 (June 1975), 1981–1984, 1981. 80Paul Berg, “Asilomar and Recombinant DNA”, Official Website of the Nobel Prize, https://​www.​nobelprize.​org/​nobel_​prizes/​chemistry/​laureates/​1980/​berg-article.​html, accessed 1 June 2018. 81“A principled AI Discussion in Asilomar”, Future of Life Institute, 17 January 2017, https://​futureoflife.​org/​2017/​01/​17/​principled-ai-discussion-asilomar/​, accessed 1 June 2018. 8290% approval from participants was required in order for a principle to be adopted in the final set. 83“Asilomar AI Principles”, Future of Life Institute, https://​futureoflife.​org/​ai-principles/​, accessed 1 June 2018. 84Jeffrey Ding, “Deciphering China’s AI Dream”, Governance of AI Program, Future of Humanity Institute (Oxford: Future of Humanity Institute, March 2018), 30, https://​www.​fhi.​ox.​ac.​uk/​wp-content/​uploads/​Deciphering_​Chinas_​AI-Dream.​pdf, accessed 1 June 2018. 85Anonymous comment made in discussion with the author, January 2018.


pages: 513 words: 152,381

The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity by Toby Ord

3D printing, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, Anthropocene, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, availability heuristic, biodiversity loss, Columbian Exchange, computer vision, cosmological constant, CRISPR, cuban missile crisis, decarbonisation, deep learning, DeepMind, defense in depth, delayed gratification, Demis Hassabis, demographic transition, Doomsday Clock, Dr. Strangelove, Drosophila, effective altruism, Elon Musk, Ernest Rutherford, global pandemic, Goodhart's law, Hans Moravec, Herman Kahn, Higgs boson, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Large Hadron Collider, launch on warning, Mark Zuckerberg, Mars Society, mass immigration, meta-analysis, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, Nash equilibrium, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, OpenAI, p-value, Peter Singer: altruism, planetary scale, power law, public intellectual, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, Recombinant DNA, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, seminal paper, social discount rate, Stanislav Petrov, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, supervolcano, survivorship bias, synthetic biology, tacit knowledge, the scientific method, Tragedy of the Commons, uranium enrichment, William MacAskill

And they can spend time working with policymakers to ensure national and international regulations are scientifically and technologically sound.54 A good example of successful governance is the Montreal Protocol, which set a timetable to phase out the chemicals that were depleting the ozone layer. It involved rapid and extensive collaboration between scientists, industry leaders and policymakers, leading to what Kofi Annan called “perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date.”55 Another example is the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, in which leading scientists in the field considered the new dangerous possibilities their work had opened up. In response they designed new safety requirements on further work and restricted some lines of development completely.56 An interesting, and neglected, area of technology governance is differential technological development.57 While it may be too difficult to prevent the development of a risky technology, we may be able to reduce existential risk by speeding up the development of protective technologies relative to dangerous ones.


pages: 615 words: 168,775

Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age by Leslie Berlin

AltaVista, Apple II, Arthur D. Levinson, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, Bear Stearns, beat the dealer, Bill Atkinson, Bill Gates: Altair 8800, Bob Noyce, book value, Byte Shop, Charles Babbage, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, computer age, Computer Lib, discovery of DNA, Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life?, don't be evil, Donald Knuth, double helix, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Dynabook, Edward Thorp, El Camino Real, Fairchild Semiconductor, fear of failure, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial independence, game design, Haight Ashbury, hiring and firing, independent contractor, industrial robot, informal economy, Internet of things, inventory management, Ivan Sutherland, John Markoff, Kickstarter, Kitchen Debate, Larry Ellison, Leonard Kleinrock, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, Menlo Park, Minecraft, Mother of all demos, Oklahoma City bombing, packet switching, Project Xanadu, prudent man rule, Ralph Nader, Recombinant DNA, Robert Metcalfe, ROLM, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Snapchat, software as a service, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, Ted Nelson, Teledyne, union organizing, upwardly mobile, William Shockley: the traitorous eight, women in the workforce, work culture

But he loved science—he read Scientific American cover to cover most months—he needed a job, and he had plenty of time with little to lose. So between cheap meals on the Ping-Pong table that also served as his desk and dining table at home, he cold-called scientists who had attended the Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA almost a year earlier. “I’m a businessman interested in recombinant DNA,” he would begin. Could he ask them a few questions? Some researchers said no. Others offered vague answers to the questions that Swanson considered essential: How long until recombinant DNA could be commercialized?


pages: 700 words: 160,604

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, Anne Wojcicki, Apollo 13, Apple II, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, Bernie Sanders, Colonization of Mars, contact tracing, coronavirus, COVID-19, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, Dean Kamen, discovery of DNA, discovery of penicillin, double helix, Edward Jenner, Gregor Mendel, Hacker News, Henri Poincaré, iterative process, Joan Didion, linear model of innovation, Louis Pasteur, Mark Zuckerberg, microbiome, mouse model, Nick Bostrom, public intellectual, Recombinant DNA, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Skype, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Steven Pinker, synthetic biology, the scientific method, Thomas Malthus, wikimedia commons

Fredrickson, “Asilomar and Recombinant DNA: The End of the Beginning,” in Biomedical Politics (National Academies Press, 1991); Richard Hindmarsh and Herbert Gottweis, “Recombinant Regulation: The Asilomar Legacy 30 Years On,” Science as Culture, Fall 2005; Daniel Gregorowius, Nikola Biller-Andorno, and Anna Deplazes-Zemp, “The Role of Scientific Self-Regulation for the Control of Genome Editing in the Human Germline,” EMBO Reports, Feb. 20, 2017; Jim Kozubek, Modern Prometheus (Cambridge, 2016), 124. 9. Author’s interviews with James Watson and David Baltimore. 10. Paul Berg et al., “Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules,” PNAS, June 1975. 11. Paul Berg, “Asilomar and Recombinant DNA,” The Scientist, Mar. 18, 2002. 12. Hindmarsh and Gottweis, “Recombinant Regulation,” 301. 13. Claire Randall, Rabbi Bernard Mandelbaum, and Bishop Thomas Kelly, “Message from Three General Secretaries to President Jimmy Carter,” June 20, 1980. 14.


pages: 677 words: 206,548

Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It by Marc Goodman

23andMe, 3D printing, active measures, additive manufacturing, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, airport security, Albert Einstein, algorithmic trading, Alvin Toffler, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Baxter: Rethink Robotics, Bill Joy: nanobots, bitcoin, Black Swan, blockchain, borderless world, Boston Dynamics, Brian Krebs, business process, butterfly effect, call centre, Charles Lindbergh, Chelsea Manning, Citizen Lab, cloud computing, Cody Wilson, cognitive dissonance, computer vision, connected car, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data acquisition, data is the new oil, data science, Dean Kamen, deep learning, DeepMind, digital rights, disinformation, disintermediation, Dogecoin, don't be evil, double helix, Downton Abbey, driverless car, drone strike, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, Evgeny Morozov, Filter Bubble, Firefox, Flash crash, Free Software Foundation, future of work, game design, gamification, global pandemic, Google Chrome, Google Earth, Google Glasses, Gordon Gekko, Hacker News, high net worth, High speed trading, hive mind, Howard Rheingold, hypertext link, illegal immigration, impulse control, industrial robot, information security, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Harrison: Longitude, John Markoff, Joi Ito, Jony Ive, Julian Assange, Kevin Kelly, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, knowledge worker, Kuwabatake Sanjuro: assassination market, Large Hadron Collider, Larry Ellison, Laura Poitras, Law of Accelerating Returns, Lean Startup, license plate recognition, lifelogging, litecoin, low earth orbit, M-Pesa, machine translation, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, Menlo Park, Metcalfe’s law, MITM: man-in-the-middle, mobile money, more computing power than Apollo, move fast and break things, Nate Silver, national security letter, natural language processing, Nick Bostrom, obamacare, Occupy movement, Oculus Rift, off grid, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, operational security, optical character recognition, Parag Khanna, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, personalized medicine, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Peter Thiel, pre–internet, printed gun, RAND corporation, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, refrigerator car, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rodney Brooks, Ross Ulbricht, Russell Brand, Salesforce, Satoshi Nakamoto, Second Machine Age, security theater, self-driving car, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, SimCity, Skype, smart cities, smart grid, smart meter, Snapchat, social graph, SoftBank, software as a service, speech recognition, stealth mode startup, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, strong AI, Stuxnet, subscription business, supply-chain management, synthetic biology, tech worker, technological singularity, TED Talk, telepresence, telepresence robot, Tesla Model S, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, the long tail, The Wisdom of Crowds, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, uranium enrichment, Virgin Galactic, Wall-E, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, Wave and Pay, We are Anonymous. We are Legion, web application, Westphalian system, WikiLeaks, Y Combinator, you are the product, zero day

We can no longer neglect the public policy, legal, ethical, and social implications of the rapidly emerging technological tools we are developing; we are morally responsible for our inventions. There are good examples in history where we as a society have brought together expertise in anticipation of catastrophic risk before it occurred. One such case was the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, which was held at Asilomar State Beach in Monterey, California. The event gathered 140 biologists, lawyers, ethicists, and physicians to discuss the potential biohazards of emerging DNA technologies and drew up voluntary safety guidelines. As a result of the event, scientists agreed to stop experiments involving mixing the DNA from different organisms—research at the time that held the potential to have radical, poorly understood, and potentially disastrous consequences.