MIT Technology Review 2018-01

17.2 MB·English

An Internet-Brain
Interface
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Can China Tame
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V The New Wave of
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Can gene editing delete the fear of GMOs?
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MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
VOL. 121 | NO. 1 TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM
From the Editor
Gene Editing Could Rewrite
the GMO Debate
Decades of fretting over the safety and virtue of genetically modified organisms have
led to a perverse outcome. Plant scientists in academia and startup companies have
largely shied away from creating new GM crop varieties because it takes, on average,
more than a hundred million dollars and over a decade to get such a plant approved
by regulators in the United States, and also because the idea of GMO food has elic-
ited public outrage. As a result, a few large agricultural and chemical producers like
Monsanto—or MonSatan, if you prefer—dominate the GM industry, making a killing
off herbicide- and insect-resistant corn and soybeans.
The outcome has been just what GMO critics most dreaded: many farmers
depend on a few large companies, whose researchers focus on traits designed to
improve profits rather than produce healthier foods for consumers. For noncorporate
researchers, meanwhile, genetic engineering of plants has been expensive and risky. David Rotman is editor of
That stunts progress in plant breeding just as climate change and population growth MIT Technology Review.
are putting growing pressure on agriculture (see “Why We Will Need Genetically
Modified Foods,” January/February 2014).
That’s why the work described in “These Are Not Your Father’s GMOs” (page
30), by our senior biomedicine editor, Antonio Regalado, is so important. Regalado
explains how a leading plant geneticist is using gene editing to create a healthier
soybean that farmers in South Dakota and elsewhere are beginning to plant and
harvest. New gene-editing tools, either CRISPR or the slightly older TALEN, don’t
insert a foreign gene into the plant to create a new trait (as typically happens with
conventional GMOs) but, rather, tweak the plant’s existing DNA. The engineered
crops thus sidestep the lengthy regulatory process and could avoid the stigmas sur-
rounding GMOs entirely.
Gene editing is cheap, powerful, and precise. Most important, it puts many more
plant scientists back in the game of creating new varieties of crops, dreaming up
blight-resistant potatoes, tastier tomatoes, drought-tolerant rice, and higher-fiber
wheat. Until now, there has been little progress in commercializing such agricultural
innovations, which are likely to represent far smaller and less lucrative markets than
herbicide-resistant corn and soybeans. Getting gene editing into the hands of a far
larger group of scientists could return us to the original vision for genetic engineer-
ing as an invaluable tool for growing healthier and cheaper foods, helping to feed the
world’s growing population.
Or will it? That depends on public perception. Will gene editing be viewed as
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a state-of-the-art tool for improving crops, or an easier and faster way to create RD
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frankenf oods? One can only hope it’s the former, and that plant science can fully enter NA P
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the modern age of genomics, leaving fears of GMOs and MonSatan in the shadows. OX
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2 FEATURES
From the Editor
30

Not Your Father’s GMOs

VIEWS A new wave of modified

crops is dodging regulators.
8
By Antonio Regalado
Lessons from the Atom Bomb
Ash Carter on getting technology 44
to work for the public good. Your Next Internet Connection
May Be a Brain Implant
Brain-computer interfaces
UPFRONT
could radically alter humans.
11 By Adam Piore
A Survival Guide for
60
Clean-Energy Startups
Can China Contain Bitcoin?
Battery startups have to learn
The cryptocurrency may be
they can’t do it all by themselves.
difficult to fully tame.

By Emily Parker
15
A Chatbot for Depression 66
Andrew Ng sees a big future for A Fanciful Fake Future
digital mental health. Meet the new wave of mobile
VR and AR apps.
16 By Rachel Metz
Pick Your Kids’ Genes
AI plus DNA databases will mean
REVIEWS
many new choices for parents.
70
20 War in Virtual Reality
That Old Bitcoin Religion Conflict has a human side. This
The fervor is about more than exhibit lets you see it up close.
just an investment opportunity.
76
24 The AI Paradox
Getting to Quantum Supremacy Fears about superintelligent
Despite recent advances, we’re machines are just a distraction
still far from making good use of from the real problems.
quantum computers.

DEMO
And more.
84
Sending Heat into Space
Q+A
Advanced materials could
28 reinvent air-conditioning.
Raffi Krikorian By James Temple
He left Uber to help the DNC
regain its big-data mojo.

This page: Eric
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MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
VOL. 121 | NO. 1 TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM
EDITORIAL BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Editor David Rotman, Senior Editor, MIT News Alice Dragoon, Senior Editor, AI and Robotics Will Knight, Senior Editor, Martin A. Schmidt
Mobile Rachel Metz, Senior Editor, Biomedicine Antonio Regalado, Senior Editor, News and Commentary Michael Reilly, Whitney Espich
Jerome I. Friedman
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MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
VOL. 121 | NO. 1 TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM
Views
to the problems that arise in connection secretary of defense for today—defeat-
INNOVATION with fast-paced technological change. ing ISIS and deterring war with Russia,
What I Learned from Such solutions will emerge only if the China, North Korea, and Iran—but also
new generation of young tech innovators the secretary of defense for tomorrow,
the People Who Built
is encouraged and inspired to assume making sure new technology was avail-
the Atom Bomb the civic responsibilities that come with able for whatever unforeseen dangers
creating changes of great consequence. might emerge.
Technologists want their creations to do There haven’t been many technolo- With that goal in mind, I helped
good for the world. We should make it easier gists who became secretary of defense. create an expanding network of Penta-
for them to accomplish that. But for me, there was a direct cause- gon outposts called Defense Innovation
and-effect relationship between my Units Experimental (DIUx)—in tech
When I began my career in elementary training in physics and the responsibili- hubs like Silicon Valley, Boston, and
particle physics, the great figures who ties of that job. Earlier in my career I Austin, Texas—where technologists and
taught and inspired me had been part of worked on defense issues—of great con- new companies can learn about defense
the Manhattan Project generation that sequence at the time—that had a strong issues. They are also places to learn
developed the atomic bomb. They were technical component. One was evalu- about funding—the Pentagon spends
proud to have created a “disruptive” ating President Reagan’s idea of space- $72 billion per year on research and
technology that ended World War II and
deterred a third world war through more
Young technologists I’ve met know that if they don’t join the
than 50 years of tense East-West stand-
effort, choices will be made by politicians or judges who
off. They were also proud to have made
might not have much technical background or insight.
nuclear power possible. But their under-
standing of the underlying technology
also gave them a deep regard for the awe- based defense against missiles, a.k.a. development, more than twice the total
some, unavoidable risks that came with Star Wars, for the Pentagon (I concluded for Google, Apple, and Microsoft com-
those technologies. that it wouldn’t work). Another task I bined. And it works both ways: at DIUx,
As a consequence, they dedicated took on, first in academia and then in a the Pentagon’s sluggish bureaucracy can
themselves to inventing, in parallel, second job in the Pentagon during the learn the ways of the startup culture.
the technologies behind arms control Clinton administration, was controlling While in Washington, I also created
(like reconnaissance satellites to verify the nuclear weapons of the Soviet Union the Defense Digital Service to bring
agreements) and nuclear reactor safety when that country disintegrated at the technologists into the Pentagon and give
(like containment vessels for radioac- end of the Cold War (an effort that for- them a chance to do a “tour of duty” for
tive leakages). By working on both the tunately did work). a few months or a year to solve critical
bright opportunities and the complex I had the satisfaction of knowing problems like planning air strikes pre-
quandaries of nuclear technology, these that better paths were taken because my cisely to avoid harming civilians, or pro-
scientists tried to round out its effect technical knowledge contributed to deci- tecting defense networks from hacking.
on humanity. They recognized that the sions. Big issues and a chance to see your People who joined often told me their
advance of knowledge is inevitable, but training make a difference are a powerful work there was the most meaningful of
it needs to be steered in the direction of combination for a young scientist. I felt their early careers and changed their
public good. that strong attraction from the start, and outlook when they returned to the pri-
Technologists in my generation in the years ahead I returned again and vate sector.
understood that we had an opportu- again to Pentagon service. I wanted even more ideas for linking
nity—and an obligation—to use our Much later, when I became secretary the tech community to defense. So I set
knowledge in the service of civic life and of defense under President Obama, a up a Defense Innovation Board that was
public purpose. It’s obvious that tech- priority of mine was to make sure that chaired by Alphabet’s executive chair-
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tion, and also that society is in need of the tech community were strong. I tech thinkers like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos DY FRI
practical, analytically driven solutions believed that I needed to be not only the and LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman. I wanted N
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