“What If We Make SUPER Humans？” - AI Gene Editing Future SPARKS Human Enhancement CONTROVERSY
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Summary
In this episode, I sit down with neuroscientist, neurophysiologist, and author of the book "Aging is Dead" to talk about the growing field of aging research and how technology can help reverse aging. We cover everything from stem cell therapy, gene engineering, and artificial intelligence (AI) in general.
Transcript
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The day ChadGBT came out was revolutionary to everything.
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Then, you know, I think it was first week of ChadGBT,
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hey, do me a favor and create a song in Tupac's voice,
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How quickly do you think we're going to have new advancement
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the next 5, 10, 20 years that will be just as shocking as OpenAI?
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I'm super excited about how, you know, these language models,
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these basically like LLMs and how AI is going to help really advance science
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and particularly science in the field of aging.
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you can do everything in your capacity with your diet and your lifestyle
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to really give yourself that, you know, edge in terms of like aging better
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But at the end of the day, you do have a certain genetic potential.
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Like you could eat, you know, healthy and exercise
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There is a genetic component to living to be 100.
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Healthy and exercise and still not live to 100.
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Living to 100, believe it or not, is largely genetic.
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But that doesn't mean that, you know, diet and lifestyle don't matter.
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It's a matter of, you know, basically your quality of life
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and not having Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular disease
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and type 2 diabetes and things like that later in life,
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and perhaps giving you an extra 5 years, right?
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But you're not going to live 25, 30 years more by just being healthy, right?
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it's been progressing but at a pretty slow rate.
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So there's this – you've heard of stem cells, right?
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And have you heard of – do you know who Shinya Yamanaka is,
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He won the Nobel Prize in 2006 for basically discovering
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skin cells are falling off our body constantly.
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and you could put four different what are called transcription factors.
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It's basically just, you know, a gene that basically
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is a master regulator of many, many different genes.
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So it activates genes or it, you know, silences them so they're not active.
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And you could put four of them on this skin cell, okay?
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And you could revert that skin cell into what's called a pluripotent stem cell.
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So that would be a cell that could become pretty much any type of cell in the body.
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And this is what Dr. Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize for
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because it's really the ultimate reversal of aging.
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If you take an old cell and turn it into a stem cell,
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that can become any type of cell, a neuron, an eye cell, you know, a heart cell, right?
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You don't want to basically – you don't want – if you want to reverse aging,
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you don't want the cell to lose its identity, right?
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You want to take a cell and reverse its aging but keep it that same cell, right?
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So I just told you the skin cell becomes a stem cell,
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So now we have some new data – this is all animal data –
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where you can basically take this old skin cell
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and just kind of pulse those four different, you know, those big genes,
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those transcription factors on the skin cell, and you can epigenetically wipe out.
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So epigenetics is like those factors that are sitting on top of our DNA,
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like, you know, methyl groups, and they're activating genes or deactivating them.
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You can wipe them out and make the cell young but still keep its identity.
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And this has been done in animals, so essentially you're reversing the aging.
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No one's been able to – I mean, there's a lot of hurdles to overcome in terms of, like,
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You know, the delivery system is kind of questionable
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because what they're doing in animals is giving it this virus,
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and it's like, well, the virus could potentially integrate into the genome
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So there's a lot of things to overcome before it goes to humans,
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and I think that's where AI is going to come in
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and help us figure out how we can translate this data into humans.
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And I don't know if that made sense to you, but it's kind of this futurism type of stuff,
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I watched a movie yesterday, Saturday, called Mercy.
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What was that movie back in the days where it could predict somebody committing a future crime minority report?
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And Chris Pratt, who's a cop, comes in, and this software, this judge is AI.
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And he comes in, and all of a sudden he wakes up.
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And Mercy says, you just killed your wife, and you stabbed your wife XYZ times.
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And then eventually you have 90 minutes to make the argument that you didn't do this.
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So pull up this file, and put up that file, and pull up – you become the lawyer for yourself.
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And the way it ended, the story – I'm not going to tell you what it ended, but the line that he says.
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He says, here's what we learned, that both humans and AI can make mistakes.
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But when you watch it, it was kind of like, man, this is very realistic.
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For the average individual, if you say, okay, what are some things people want to do?
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We want to live a healthy life, enjoy it, live long, pain-free, right?
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Enjoy ourselves to the point where, you know, I can still move my body in my 90s, in my 80s, maybe make it to 100s.
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What massive, resounding, you know, innovation could happen that will shock everybody?
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They said, this is going to fix your lower back problem.
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Is there anything that you think could happen that's revolutionary?
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Well, I think that stem cells could be part of that, I would say, equation.
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So we can have, you know, stem cells then that are tuning up every organ in our body, right?
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Like, that's a new thing where people, scientists are now growing, like, even 3D printing human organs.
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So you're not going to have that rejection, you know, that rejection type of phenotype that happens.
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So this organ regrowing thing is really cool where you're basically going to get a tune-up.
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At the end of the day, I need to inject some neural cells.
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Stem cells in my brain because I'm losing, you know, my brain's atrophying.
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Like, can it be done in a way where I instantly can see results?
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Like, let's just say, you know, systems attached to my brain and it says, okay, what we just did,
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Look where you're at now just by doing this test.
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Instead of, it could work 52% of the time it works.
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Like, will there be things that I know for a fact will work?
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Well, if you're looking at, for example, brain mass, yes.
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I mean, if you see that you're injecting stem cells and now you're growing new neurons in the hippocampus,
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part of your brain, which is involved with learning and memory, then that would be something that you can measure.
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By the way, exercise can regrow brain cells in your hippocampus as well.
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So that's one of the things that we do have control over right now.
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So, like, we do know there are a variety of what are called longevity genes.
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Like, these are genes that are found in people that live to be 100.
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So these are people that live to be 110 and older.
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There's a common denominator of really highly active genes that are found in these individuals.
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And these genes happen to be genes that are involved in basically the cellular stress response,
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which is essentially when you stress your body, your body adapts and responds and goes,
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I need to respond to this so that I can stay alive.
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And it does things like increases antioxidant genes or anti-inflammatory genes or genes involved
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All kinds of these, like, stress response genes are really highly active in people that actually
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And so gene therapy can then deliver those genes to the right organs in humans.
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And then, again, you'll be able to, you know, now deal with the stresses of aging better.
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And I think that's another thing on the horizon.
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So, for example, Dr. George Church, he's really the godfather of gene engineering,
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He's done studies in rodents and mice where they took, you know, three or four genes and
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made them, you know, soluble, injected them in mice, and it extended their life expectancy.
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It's much easier to get FDA approval to do this sort of things in dogs and humans.
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But it's like, you know, once you get to the dogs, you have humans that are like,
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And so they're going to, you know, start to approve those sort of therapies for dogs.
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And then it's easier to then start them in humans.
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So I think, again, AI is going to play a role in getting some of these gene therapies,
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you know, from bench side, from, you know, this preclinical data into humans.
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And my optimism is the fact that you guys are going to figure things out.
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I think the speed of using AI and gene, what was that one company video that we saw?
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So is that kind of what you're talking about, that that's the direction we could be going?
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That's a technology that's used to change just like a single nucleotide of DNA, which can change the function of a gene.
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So, for example, some people have, you know, these variations in our genes that make us not have them work as good.
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Some people have diseases because of it, right?
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Things like that where you have just a little one nucleotide or two nucleotide change in a gene, and it completely alters the function.
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So CRISPR can come in and actually change that gene.
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So you can basically take someone who has a disease and completely wipe that disease out and reverse it so they don't have it anymore.
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Or perhaps you can alter the DNA of a gene and make it work better.
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Gene therapy is where you're basically just putting more of a gene there.
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So let's say we all, we have these longevity genes.
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Again, it's regulating multiple genes involved in everything I just said, antioxidant production, anti-inflammatory production, you know, stem cell production.
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All these things, the response to all kinds of different stressors that happens throughout our life as we age.
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And you're basically able to handle that stress better.
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So what you do with gene therapy is just give you a boost.
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You get a boost more of that gene that's going to make everything else work better, kind of like a genetic tune-up.
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So there's a little bit of difference between gene therapy and gene editing, and I think they can both work.
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It'll be more of an individual sort of personalized type of approach because everyone, we have different genetic makeups, and we have different benefits, and there's things that we aren't as good at depending on our genetic makeup, right?
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And I think I saw an article a few months ago where it said, you know, there's going to be a time we can go in and say, you know, I'd want my daughter to be 5'11".
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Will we get to a point that people would choose what their kids are going to look like?
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Because that's pretty scary if you can get to that point.
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Well, I mean, that's the ethical question because, yes, you could potentially do that with the gene editing technology and CRISPR and some of the, you know, some of the other types of technology that come out and a little bit more precise that are part of CRISPR.
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I think that, you know, right now, I mean, think about IVF, right?
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You're screening for genetic diseases if an embryo has a disease, you know, you don't do it.
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So at a certain point, like, where do you draw the line?
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Okay, well, I don't want my child to have cystic fibrosis.
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But that's the risk versus this is exactly what I want them to look like, right?
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I mean, that's, and that's where it's like, well, what if you want to make, what if you want to make an embryo that is smarter, that is more resilient to disease?
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You know, these things are probably going to be more acceptable in the community than phenotypes, than looks, right?
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It's like this blurry line and where, what's ethical, what's not, and how do you define that?
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There's going to be all sorts of questions and, I would say, problems that are going to arise as this technology advances.
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I mean, you're talking about what if we could tune up humans where we're smarter, we're more disease resistant, we live longer.
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Because for me, when I think about, you know, kids, what you would want it to look like, what you would, you know, how smart you would want them to be.
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Then it gets me to go think about, you know, the whole, I don't know if you saw the article came out last week about Chinese billionaires doing birth tourism and dropping off surrogates with hundreds of girls.
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And, hey, I want you to go to U.S., become a citizen, then come back in.
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And then now we're making superhumans, 150 IQ, strong, they can jump 48 inches.
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And, I mean, what does the world look like in 50, 100 years if we're able to do that?
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Not to mention the fact that, you know, if you start to screen for intelligence and, like, how do you define intelligence, right?
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And then you have the more conspiracy type and maybe a little more paranoid.
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And maybe sometimes they're making conclusions that might be not correct.
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But sometimes they find things that people that are really super, super analytical don't.
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And so it's a good question because, like, then you have to ask yourself, like, well, am I screening for a certain personality type?
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And how is that going to change society, right?
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And I know we're getting into these crazy ethical questions.
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At the end of the day, I'm excited about healthier living.
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I'm excited about, you know, yeah, like intelligence.
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We do know some genes that are involved in intelligence.
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And that gene is also involved in living longer and protecting against Alzheimer's disease.
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Some people have different variations of that gene that makes it more active.
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And those individuals don't get Alzheimer's disease.
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And so, you know, there is an initiative now for some researchers that are really trying to make a type of Clotho
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that people can sort of inject and take and get to the brain and help protect them from Alzheimer's disease,
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help, you know, make them live longer, perhaps be a little smarter.
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And that's actually research that's going on right now.
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So, you know, it's not like this stuff is like totally futurism stuff.
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And I do think that with the help of AI, it will advance it.
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With that said, you said something that I think is key, and that is AI makes mistakes.
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And certainly with each model that has come out, you know, over the past couple of years,
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it's gotten better, especially if we're talking about the science, the field of science and research.
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But I will say this, it depends a lot on your prompt, what input you're putting in,
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because what I've noticed about AI is it also likes to kind of appease you.
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And so if you're biased it a certain way with the way you're asking a question,
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It also depends on the model that you're using.
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I think that the free models don't ask science or research questions.
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If you're wanting to actually get a science, really evidence-based, you know, answer,
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you have to have the paid version for one and really a deep research.
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And that's something that's able to go out and look at the scientific literature.
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And that is something that I would trust much more than just using like a GPT 5.2 free,
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I'll leave it at that, because you can definitely get wrong answers
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when it comes to asking a science-based or medicine-based question.
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hey, look, they measure every month which language learning model is the most accurate.
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And right now, for the last month, it was showing me that Gemini is at the top at 38.5% accuracy
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So even until today, it's still making mistakes.
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And they're openly saying, we don't know it all.
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But, you know, in regards to brain, right, the way we think,
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back in the days, or maybe even still today, we would say, oh, my God,
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You know, how do you read a book and you retain so much of it, right?
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How impressive will that be in 10 years, 20 years,
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where we can all, you know, people choose to put a Wikipedia in here,
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all the facts that are in the world, the facts, like the day you were born,
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the day I was born, the day, you know, World War II or such and such person died
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Once that's in there, what do you think will be impressive in 20, 30 years
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What would we look at and say, man, she's pretty impressive.
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That's a, it's an interesting thought experiment because it might be something
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that is unexpected and surprising, like more just empathy or human qualities
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or arts or being able to make something really creative that you're not really
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I mean, my husband and I make AI music for my son to help him.
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And it's like amazing, like the music that AI can make.
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It's almost frightening because you might go, wow, like, you know,
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But I do think that at the end of the day, what's going to happen is as we get
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more, you know, advanced with AI and as you mentioned, perhaps we do become
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smarter maybe through gene engineering and all sorts of other techniques
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I think it's going to go back to the human condition and that's going to be
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I mean, I mean, you know, the arts and empathy and just, you know, being
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creative and, and creating something that's, that you're not going to be able
00:19:53.280
I guess in bodybuilding, they'll say, you know, this is the natural Mr.
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They put nothing in their body and this is open.
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You know, this guy is, you know, you can use anything and everything and he's
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I wonder if we're going to get to the, even today, I think we have an Olympic
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games today that they're talking about called the enhanced games or something.
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And in this enhanced games, they encourage you to do PD.
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And just let's find out what does it look like if we're freely able to use
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So I wonder, I wonder if it's going to be like, you know, he naturally looks like
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He hasn't put the stuff in his brain to be interested in what he has to say or
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Is there going to be two personalities like Gemini's Mary is doing a podcast with
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open AI's Bobby and they're debating politics and we can program one to be a
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leftist, one to be a conservative and go ahead and debate this issue and state
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Are we going to be like, man, I would much rather talk to, listen to these guys
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because they're regular human beings making mistakes.
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Is it going to be attractive to make, you know, dumb comments?
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I really wonder what's going to happen in 20, 30 years because it's going to be a
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Like, you know, we would hear people say, I knew how to study for two days,
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memorize everything, go ace the test and forgot all of it.
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But I really wonder what's going to happen and what will be turned, what will we be turned
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Yesterday, I'm talking to a guy who's a very successful business guy.
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He's telling me he's got a hundred million dollar EBIT on all this other stuff.
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And he said, hey, how come my content is not, you know, doing better?
00:22:03.540
So on everything, it looks good, bodybuilding, physique.
00:22:22.540
I think in 20 years, as this advances, we're going to want to see human error.
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Just like today, you see a lot of companies rely on AI on customer service.
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Some companies are like, clients are like, I don't want to talk to a machine.
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So anyways, we'll see what will happen with this.
00:22:43.760
I'm just wondering sometimes where you're at with it.
00:22:46.660
I feel the same way when I get an email in, and it's so obvious when it's AI generated.
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I crave the real, authentic email, not AI generated, right?
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