Interesting article! Thanks for writing. But I am suspicious of claims about increasing IQ because, if it was possible, surely someone would have done a proof-of-concept with animals.
It’s difficult to do such experiments with humans because (1) ethical issues; (2) humans take 9 months to be born (long gestation period); and (3) a few years for them to mature enough to get any objective results. I imagine the effort to increase IQ would be iterative. That needs a quick feedback loop which is not possible with humans.
There must be some animal with (1) no ethical issues like mice or chicken; (2) a somewhat similar brain structure to humans; (3) short gestation period; and (4) matures faster due to short lifespan. All of this contributes to a faster feedback loop. Somewhat similar to what Neuralink is doing.
Is the fact that no one has done a proof-of-concept with any animal evidence that increasing IQ through gene editing is not possible?
As for the importance of a proof-of-concept with animals, you mentioned funding to iterate to improve humans. If someone shows the world a rat understanding prime numbers, there would be practically infinite funding to optimize human intelligence.
First of all, no one has really done large scale genetic engineering of animals before, so we wouldn’t know.
Almost all mouse studies or genetic studies in other animals are very simple knockout experiments where they break a protein to try to assess its function.
We really haven’t seen a lot of multiplex editing experiments in animals yet.
But even if someone were to do that it would be hard to evaluate the effects on intelligence in animals.
The genetic variants that control IQ in humans don’t always have analogous sequences in animals. So you’d be working with a subset of possible edits at best.
The first proof of concept here will probably be something like “do tons of edits in cows to make them produce more milk and beef”. In fact, that’s one of the earliest commercial applications of this multiplex editing tech.
We’re hoping to show a demonstration of this in the next couple of years as one of the first steps towards demonstrating plausible safety and efficacy in humans.
Interesting article! Thanks for writing. But I am suspicious of claims about increasing IQ because, if it was possible, surely someone would have done a proof-of-concept with animals.
It’s difficult to do such experiments with humans because (1) ethical issues; (2) humans take 9 months to be born (long gestation period); and (3) a few years for them to mature enough to get any objective results. I imagine the effort to increase IQ would be iterative. That needs a quick feedback loop which is not possible with humans.
There must be some animal with (1) no ethical issues like mice or chicken; (2) a somewhat similar brain structure to humans; (3) short gestation period; and (4) matures faster due to short lifespan. All of this contributes to a faster feedback loop. Somewhat similar to what Neuralink is doing.
Is the fact that no one has done a proof-of-concept with any animal evidence that increasing IQ through gene editing is not possible?
As for the importance of a proof-of-concept with animals, you mentioned funding to iterate to improve humans. If someone shows the world a rat understanding prime numbers, there would be practically infinite funding to optimize human intelligence.
First of all, no one has really done large scale genetic engineering of animals before, so we wouldn’t know.
Almost all mouse studies or genetic studies in other animals are very simple knockout experiments where they break a protein to try to assess its function.
We really haven’t seen a lot of multiplex editing experiments in animals yet.
But even if someone were to do that it would be hard to evaluate the effects on intelligence in animals.
The genetic variants that control IQ in humans don’t always have analogous sequences in animals. So you’d be working with a subset of possible edits at best.
The first proof of concept here will probably be something like “do tons of edits in cows to make them produce more milk and beef”. In fact, that’s one of the earliest commercial applications of this multiplex editing tech.
We’re hoping to show a demonstration of this in the next couple of years as one of the first steps towards demonstrating plausible safety and efficacy in humans.