**6. Conclusions**

*Synthetic Biology - New Interdisciplinary Science*

algorithm that really drives us.

gene editing technology [63].

AI integrate? (See, e.g., [14].)

of new drugs.

is algorithmic, then it must be mechanizable and converted into computation. We believe the DNA is a book of knowledge about the birth and death of life. In principle, it is in machine-readable form. AI and quantum computing are the most powerful tools we presently have to decipher it. When AI drives our lives, it is the

Some recent bold experiments using CRISPR gene editing have provided glimpses of DNA editing as a new source of creating a variety of biomatter and life forms. For example, experiments are in progress for producing meat (beef, pork, poultry, and sea food) without killing animals by growing meat in the laboratory from cultured stem cells by multiplying them dramatically and allowing them to differentiate into primitive fibers that then bulk up to form muscle tissue. This would substantially reduce environmental costs of meat production and eliminate much of the cruel and unethical treatment of animals [62]. Another example is producing offsprings from same-sex mice parents, again using stem cells and CRISPR

In another development, till recently it was believed that mitochondrion DNA (mtDNA) in nearly all mammals (including humans) is inherited exclusively from the mother. However, recently, Luo et al. [64] have uncovered multiple instances of biparental inheritance of mtDNA "spanning three unrelated multiple generation families, a result confirmed by independent sequencing across multiple unrelated laboratories with different methodologies. Surprisingly, this pattern of inheritance appears to be determined in an autosomal dominant like manner." Given that the mitochondrion is an energy-producing organelle in the cell, this discovery will have profound implications in synthetic biology and in the design

Once humans master the art of designing DNA for self-replicating, multicellular organisms (we already know how to design cells not found in Nature and edit DNA), they will create living species of their own design. We also anticipate that when AI machines master the art of learning from mistakes (i.e., the art of making conjectures and refuting them in a spiraling process toward better knowledge, a possibility that mathematically exists), they would have taught themselves how to handily beat humans in intelligent activities and thereby break the human monopoly on intelligence. The seeds of this were sown when the AI program called AlphaGo decisively defeated the world's greatest Go players in 2016 [65, 66]. AlphaGo has achieved what many scientific researchers had dreamed of achieving. It means that a machine can teach itself in a tiny fraction of the time it takes humans to explore *ab initio* any axiomatic system. The last bastion of human supremacy over all other creatures on Earth in the form of intelligence has been cracked by AI machines. This is the world the millennials have stepped into. We have no idea how AI machines may organize themselves into networks and network with humans and *vice versa*. Will the future be written and created by humanoids with humans finding themselves relegated to footnotes and appendices once biotechnology and

So, what comes after *Homo sapiens*? Given the accelerating march of AI and computing, everything points to the dominating power of algorithms created and executed by quantum computers. It is a matter of understanding how to create novel DNA sequences and creating an environment for it to thrive. It is about writing lengthy books of life using natural and artificial nucleotides. With AI-embedded quantum computers capable of surpassing human intelligence, and the smartest among them developing Godlike abilities, the raw material they will be hunting for is massive amounts of data and mining that data for usable information for the welfare of one or more new species to whom the *Homo sapiens* will be

**30**

ancestors.

The stage appears set for some remarkable advances in synthetic biology including artificial speciation as an alternative to the natural evolution of species. *Homo sapiens* are now poised to change the evolutionary destiny of life forms (including their own) they choose to target and even design-to-order new life forms. The ramifications are far and wide (see, e.g., [67]). Creating species that can thrive on other planets, colonizing the Moon with single-celled life, etc. are no longer science fiction fantasies.

We, the *Homo sapiens*, 7 have been around for about 300,000 years [17, 18]. Records of our civilization date back approximately 6000 years. Since *Homo sapiens* are still evolving, speciation may yet produce superior creatures with new attributes that can give them superior knowledge of the Universe and its origin. After all, it is speciation that made the *Homo sapiens* overwhelmingly superior in intellect from the great apes and our cousins, the chimpanzees with whom we share 96% of our DNA sequence. "Darwin wasn't just provocative in saying that we descend from the apes—he didn't go far enough. We are apes in every way, from our long arms and tailless bodies to our habits and temperament."8 Yet, at an intellectual level, within a span of few centuries, at the knee of the exponential curve that breathed energetic intellectual life into our neural and socioeconomic networks, we have attained such remarkable feats as formalizing and mechanizing axiomatic systems, discovering deep secrets of the Universe, partially mechanizing brain-mind activities, developing technologies that augment, supplement, and amplify our comparatively puny brain and brawn capacities. Within the past century or so, we have fathomed the power and limitations of rational thought and binary arithmetic to express it in, mechanized arithmetical calculations to unimaginable heights, and used this mechanization to develop robotics, 3D precision manufacturing, biotechnology, AI, QC, cloud computing, etc. These developments are now rapidly networking, the scale of which is such that we now see the combined effects of phase transition of graph theory in the Internet of Things (IoT) (creation and destruction of interlinked man-machine-idea components), of the logistic map in the rapidly changing socioeconomic scenarios that have increasingly made predicting the future at all levels of aggregating individuals a game of dice. The relationship between the logistic map and the Mandelbrot set implies that the future of *Homo sapiens* will indeed be so complex that a new species capable of handling that level of complexity must either evolve or be artificially created.

The raw physical limitations of the *Homo sapiens*' brain-mind system is distressingly visible in its waning ability to earn a living. Barring exceptional *Homo sapiens*, our search for meaning in life is now propelled by search engines roaming the Internet and not by our brains. The World Wide Web (WWW) has changed the way we think, what we think about, and how we communicate our thoughts. The millennials' cognitive abilities are very different from those they were born with and weaned on before the Internet invaded their lives. They are shaped not just by what they read but by how they read. Not only has their lifestyle changed but also has their thought style. All the work of the mind—deep thinking, exhaustive reading, deep analysis, introspection, etc.—is now delegated to AI machines. Humans have thus relinquished their right to control their individual lives and direct their souls (maybe deep inside they already know there is no soul!). If machines can outdo humans so easily without a soul, then perhaps the soul is holding humans back from

<sup>7</sup> The term *Homo sapiens* was coined by Carl Linnaeus in 1758.

<sup>8</sup> A quote from Frans de Waal, a primate scientist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, as it appeared in [68].

reaching their potential. Perhaps it is time, AI machines became our role models and our mentors [14].

Modern computers have made increasingly powerful and compute intensive mathematical algorithms accessible to even those not trained in science and mathematics for solving complex problems. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing show an inevitable trend that a vast array of human activities that till now required intelligent *Homo sapiens* to perform and earn a livelihood will soon be performed by AI-enabled computers, including the design of cellular life forms. When this happens, can human-designed speciation of life forms, its DNA coded for superintelligence, and other designed characteristics be prevented by the *Homo sapiens*' instinct for survival? One day, nanotechnology will enable biocompatible, implantable, programmable quantum computers to be embedded into our organs or even introduce specialized new miniature organs, and we will be on our way to creating humanoids. We do not know how this will affect the speciation of the *Homo sapiens*. But before insight-driven complex experimentation aided by deep computing can happen; AI, new quantum algorithms, and embeddable quantum computers will have to evolve. Some early successes, for example, creation of artificial nucleotides, designed cells, attempts at resurrecting extinct species, etc. in molecular biology, indicate that once we master the biochemistry of very-very large molecules, for example, the DNA, RNA, proteins, by understanding their structure and their chemical-structural dynamics through quantum mechanical models, interactions between living and nonliving matter will undergo a sea change.

We therefore anticipate a forced speciation of the *Homo sapiens*. It will drastically reduce the emergence time for a new species to a few years compared to Nature's hundreds of millennia. Accelerated speciation by *Homo sapiens* via domestication, gene splicing, and gene drive mechanisms is now scientifically well understood. Synthetic biology can advance speciation far more rapidly using a combination of CRISPR technology, advanced computing technologies, and knowledge creation using AI. There is no reason why *Homo sapiens* themselves will not initiate their own speciation once synthetic biology advances to a level where it can safely modify the brain to temper emotion and enhance rational thinking as a means of competing against AI-embedded machines guided by quantum algorithms.

Rapidly advancing research in the life sciences, while promising tools to meet global challenges in health, agriculture, the environment, and economic development, some of which are already on the horizon, also raises the specter of new social, ethical, legal, and security challenges. These include the development of ethical principles for human genome editing, establishment of regulatory systems for the safe conduct of field trials of gene drive-modified organisms, and many others. Additional concerns arise since the knowledge, tools, and techniques resulting from such research could easily lead to the development of bioweapons, facilitate bioterrorism, and the extinction of the *Homo sapiens* themselves. All these concerns are global not merely national [69]. The subject of this chapter goes beyond such concerns because here the concern is the possibility of self-initiated speciation of the *Homo sapiens*. The ramification of such a self-referential (iterative) process akin to that of the logistic map and the Mandelbrot set involving, in addition, phase transitions seen in graph theory is unknown. The perspective presented in this chapter is vastly different from that of Erwin Schrödinger (among the pioneers of quantum mechanics) expressed in 1944 [70]. Much water has flown under the bridge since then. A decade later, in 1953, when the structure of the DNA and its role in replicating life was discovered by Watson and Crick [43, 44], molecular biology was born. That led to genetic engineering [45] and synthetic biology [47]. As we write, CRISPR-Cas9 has been used to alter the embryonic genes of twin girls born in December 2018 in China [60, 61], which has elicited deep concern in the

**33**

**Author details**

Rajendra K. Bera

provided the original work is properly cited.

*Synthetic Biology, Artificial Intelligence, and Quantum Computing*

scientific community and an immediate response from the WHO: "Gene editing may have unintended consequences, this is uncharted water and it has to be taken seriously … WHO is putting together experts. We will work with member states to do everything we can to make sure of all issues—be it ethical, social, safety—before any manipulation is done" [71]. On the heels of this report comes the news that the world's first baby born via womb transplant from a dead donor has been successfully achieved in Brazil [72]. With CRISPR, AI, and QC, the *Homo sapiens* are now on the threshold of creating new life forms and initiating even their own speciation.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83434*

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

Acadinnet Education Services India Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, India

\*Address all correspondence to: rajendrabera@yahoo.com

*Synthetic Biology, Artificial Intelligence, and Quantum Computing DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83434*

*Synthetic Biology - New Interdisciplinary Science*

and our mentors [14].

reaching their potential. Perhaps it is time, AI machines became our role models

Modern computers have made increasingly powerful and compute intensive mathematical algorithms accessible to even those not trained in science and mathematics for solving complex problems. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing show an inevitable trend that a vast array of human activities that till now required intelligent *Homo sapiens* to perform and earn a livelihood will soon be performed by AI-enabled computers, including the design of cellular life forms. When this happens, can human-designed speciation of life forms, its DNA coded for superintelligence, and other designed characteristics be prevented by the *Homo sapiens*' instinct for survival? One day, nanotechnology will enable biocompatible, implantable, programmable quantum computers to be embedded into our organs or even introduce specialized new miniature organs, and we will be on our way to creating humanoids. We do not know how this will affect the speciation of the *Homo sapiens*. But before insight-driven complex experimentation aided by deep computing can happen; AI, new quantum algorithms, and embeddable quantum computers will have to evolve. Some early successes, for example, creation of artificial nucleotides, designed cells, attempts at resurrecting extinct species, etc. in molecular biology, indicate that once we master the biochemistry of very-very large molecules, for example, the DNA, RNA, proteins, by understanding their structure and their chemical-structural dynamics through quantum mechanical models, interactions between living and nonliving matter will undergo a sea change.

We therefore anticipate a forced speciation of the *Homo sapiens*. It will drastically

reduce the emergence time for a new species to a few years compared to Nature's hundreds of millennia. Accelerated speciation by *Homo sapiens* via domestication, gene splicing, and gene drive mechanisms is now scientifically well understood. Synthetic biology can advance speciation far more rapidly using a combination of CRISPR technology, advanced computing technologies, and knowledge creation using AI. There is no reason why *Homo sapiens* themselves will not initiate their own speciation once synthetic biology advances to a level where it can safely modify the brain to temper emotion and enhance rational thinking as a means of competing

Rapidly advancing research in the life sciences, while promising tools to meet global challenges in health, agriculture, the environment, and economic development, some of which are already on the horizon, also raises the specter of new social, ethical, legal, and security challenges. These include the development of ethical principles for human genome editing, establishment of regulatory systems for the safe conduct of field trials of gene drive-modified organisms, and many others. Additional concerns arise since the knowledge, tools, and techniques resulting from such research could easily lead to the development of bioweapons, facilitate bioterrorism, and the extinction of the *Homo sapiens* themselves. All these concerns are global not merely national [69]. The subject of this chapter goes beyond such concerns because here the concern is the possibility of self-initiated speciation of the *Homo sapiens*. The ramification of such a self-referential (iterative) process akin to that of the logistic map and the Mandelbrot set involving, in addition, phase transitions seen in graph theory is unknown. The perspective presented in this chapter is vastly different from that of Erwin Schrödinger (among the pioneers of quantum mechanics) expressed in 1944 [70]. Much water has flown under the bridge since then. A decade later, in 1953, when the structure of the DNA and its role in replicating life was discovered by Watson and Crick [43, 44], molecular biology was born. That led to genetic engineering [45] and synthetic biology [47]. As we write, CRISPR-Cas9 has been used to alter the embryonic genes of twin girls born in December 2018 in China [60, 61], which has elicited deep concern in the

against AI-embedded machines guided by quantum algorithms.

**32**

scientific community and an immediate response from the WHO: "Gene editing may have unintended consequences, this is uncharted water and it has to be taken seriously … WHO is putting together experts. We will work with member states to do everything we can to make sure of all issues—be it ethical, social, safety—before any manipulation is done" [71]. On the heels of this report comes the news that the world's first baby born via womb transplant from a dead donor has been successfully achieved in Brazil [72]. With CRISPR, AI, and QC, the *Homo sapiens* are now on the threshold of creating new life forms and initiating even their own speciation.
