guardian | As science progresses the upgrades that become available will
increasingly widen the gap between rich and poor. Research on
implantable devices called brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are in
trials to help disabled people move their defunct limbs or robotic
prosthetics.
More advanced devices could link people's brains directly to the
internet, giving them vast and faithful memory storage, and seamless
access to information, even if that does include endless footage of cats
in hats.
Work
is ongoing into BCIs that connect many brains at once, allowing animals
to cooperate by accessesing each others' brain power - work which
raises deep questions about the future meaning of identity.
Genetic engineering will be more disruptive still. A new genome
editing procedure called Crispr has given scientists their first real
hope of making safe, precise changes to the human genome. They have
already used it to correct cells with genetic faults that cause
cataracts and cystic fibrosis. Similar therapies might allow
improvements to human performance.
Western history has made many of today's researchers flinch at
studies into the genetic basis of intelligence. But the Beijing Genomics
Institute, the world's largest genomics research centre, has taken on
the job . If the project bears fruit, it might drive attempts to boost
human intelligence by genetically modifying embryos.
George Church, a geneticist at Harvard University, suggests another
radical possibility. He has developed tools that can scramble the
genetic code leaving it functional but unrecognisable to invading
viruses. His first goal is to engineer a bacterium that is resistant to viral infection. But he does not dimiss the possibility of changing human DNA too – leading to a biologically new kind of human.
"In the 21st century, there is a real possibility of creating
biological castes, with real biological differences between rich and
poor," said Harari. "The end result could be speciation. We're used to
being the only human species around, but there is no law of nature that
says there can only be one species of human. With this kind of upgrading
treatment we could have, in the not too distant future, more than one
human species on Earth again."
