[cromwellian]

I gloriously await from teenage hackers 10 years from now release CRISPR viruses/worms that insert GIF meme pranks into the human population germ line, eventually triggering the apocalypse.

It seems our ability to mess stuff up is growing faster than our ability to defend against bugs. I shudder to think what happens when sloppy engineering practices or "WannaCry" meet biology. Hey, we've encrypted your germ line, and sterilized you, send Bitcoin to XXXXX to restore your fertility.

[ohyes]

Genecoin, cryptocurrency implemented in the human genome. We take a blood sample to check your balance.

edit: putting the bank in blood bank

[ghostbrainalpha]

So vampires would suck your blood.... as a way to rob your bank account?

I think we may have a good (trashy) sci-fi novel here.

[searine]

>I gloriously await from teenage hackers 10 years from now release CRISPR viruses/worms

You're going to be waiting awhile.

The hard part about biology is that it often doesn't work. To get things working even semi-reliably you need tens of thousands of dollars of sensitive equipment and reagents. Equipment and reagents that would catch the attention of interested authorities if you bought it as an independent.

Computer viruses are the result of a tractable ecosystem and a low cost to participation. Biology is largely untractable, with a tremendous cost of entry.

Yes, CRISPR helps us insert DNA, but it doesn't change all the sensitive steps up to the point of transformation. Even then, CRISPR is limited to the cells being treated.

A custom biological virus is what you are imagining, with the ability to both insert DNA/RNA and with a capsule that protect it during transmission. Unfortunately we are likely centuries away from being able to code a completely custom life form, and even then, the cost and training needed to create such life forms will be cost prohibitive, leaving only corporations and governments the ability to do so.

[cromwellian]

I don't think you need a completely custom from scratch lifeform. It seems to me you just have to find a flexible existing pathogen that can tolerate a CRISPR edit sequence tagging a long. Perhaps a virus is too small, maybe some common gut bacteria or fungus can be weaponized.

Admittedly, we're a "long way" from that, but for me, I define "long way" as 20 years. Centuries? Seems way past the singularity horizon for me. I think it's really hard to say at this point something is too hard to be solved in 100 years unless it's something that defies the laws of physics, or takes ungodly amounts of mass or energy.

[searine]

> It seems to me you just have to find a flexible existing pathogen

We can do that now. It's fairly easy for anyone to edit viruses or bacteria using non-crispr methods to make something more virulent.

The problem is there is an evolutionary trade-off. To be more virulent means dedicating resources to it, to the detriment of other kinds of fitness. The result is your virulent pathogen cannot spread, defeating the point of a weapon.

We are many decades away from achieving systemic understanding necessary to improve an organisms fitness using molecular tools, and also account for compensatory changes to fitness.

You can however use selective breeding to do this, but that's millenia old technology.

> I define "long way" as 20 years.

We don't even understand most of the existing proteins in databases yet, and it is going to take decades to meticulously characterize these sequences.

Worse, nobody has come close to a useful denovo protein sequence yet, let alone a genomes worth of proteins and their interactions. I feel safe in saying we are at least 50 years off from these goals, probably more.

[Giroflex]

Not too many decades ago, computers were also prohibitively expensive and largely only available to corporations and governments.

I don't think we can discard any possibility given the exponential nature of human advancement.

[searine]

You are assuming growth will continue.

A flash in the pan is also exponential, for a time.

[rubatuga]

Aren’t you just afraid because you don’t really understand how CRISPR works? It’s not a virus or anything, nor is it airborne.

[cromwellian]

No, at a high level I understand how it works. I didn't claim CRISPR is a virus. I'm talking about people using other pathogens to piggyback CRISPR edits.

[amyjess]

Then again, I know a lot of childfree people who would pay good money to have CRISPR sterilize them.

I'd say "myself included", but my gender transition will take care of that. Hmm... I wonder if a future version of CRISPR could get my body to produce its own estrogen.