This article is so strange. It is written by the company, but written in a way that an outsider would write.
> Colossal has not released its hatch rate for the 26 chickens, which limits direct comparison to prior shell-free systems. The announcement was also made without an accompanying peer-reviewed paper or publicly released dataset, meaning independent scientists have not yet been able to evaluate the underlying methodology.
I've just started listening to the book "Brave new world" (no spoilers please!) and this is literally how the book begins (but with humans) - what could possibly go wrong!
No spoilers, but I used to think, along the lines of Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, that Brave New World wound up being the more accurate picture of future society than 1984, despite being less well-known and referenced in cultural consciousness.
Unfortunately, it seems like the former may be enabling the latter, so we may end up with a “porque no los dos” situation.
I haven't read Brave New World but "We" by Evgeny Zamyatin left a similar impression on me, it's more subtle than 1984. It came out earlier than both books by the Western authors - even though Zamyatin was inspired while working in England in early 20th century.
Actually.. not much. Education is taken care of.
Gestation is taken care of.
You grow up your young with a company instead of a family, if you want to be involved at all. All things that could go wrong, already sort of have over the last ten years and have been accordingly ironed out of humanity.
Sexuality as couples is already gone for large parts of the yoynger population.
Culturally the family is as good as gone. Woman have kicked themselves enthusiastically out of all roles the species had to offer, except for that of work drone and that is going obsolete right now. They and their allies (almost all of those allies cheer on the ideas of incubators) wildly detest the idea of going back to traditional roles. Society has to come from somewhere and this is somewhere.. nothing of value was lost..
Am I the only one wondering if it's 26 chickens at once from a single artificial egg or they just succeeded 26 times with different eggs? Rationally it probably has to be the latter, but the title confuses me.
Yes, first they'll focus on normal dodos. Then, they'll try very large Dodos. After that, very, very ancient dodos. Followed by island dodos. Then they might set up a whole island that people can visit, full of all kinds of dodos. They'll do tours with self driving cars so people can see all the dodos from a safe distance.
It's been a while since high school biology class, and I can't ask my sister right now, but I don't think humans are born in eggs. What does an artificial egg hatching chickens have to do with cloning humans?
Technically speaking, we could engineer it in a way where humans are born from eggs. It would just have to be a very big egg and would also have to continue growing in an incubator after hatching much like chickens rather than the standard womb senario.
That's very likely to be the future of the human race where governments produce, train and push out artificial humans like a factory. Well if we don't solve aging and robotics by then, then we'll probably just stop having babies altogether or at least not in a quantity that matters.
If they are made, we can re-label them as machines and give them lesser rights. And make ourselves feel better about treating them as lower class by some 'justification', like they don't have souls.
Perhaps some gene editing to give them 'blue' skin, some non-historically-biased-color to identify them.
Really. There are ton of books with these themes already. I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said, and now a company is doing it, so why am I getting downvoted.
Yeah but there's also the book where we make people in a lab and they're great and everyone lives happily ever after forever. Don't cherry-pick your data.
So I'm not providing a good literary survey of books with similar tropes and providing some of the positive ones? There are literally half dozen very famous negative examples, but I didn't do good enough search to find a positive one?
That would be like every comment on AI should include some example from The Culture Series as an example that all this AI stuff could great.
No man, it's just that saying "this scenario is popular because it makes for a good story therefore it'll happen in reality" is an absurd point to make.
What is "it", exactly? I have probably read some of the same dystopian science fiction novels as you have. But this is Jurassic Park, not A Brave New World.
scientists inspect eggs newly laid by real hens within 24 to 48 hours. They select the most promising ones, crack them open, and delicately pour the contents—everything but the shell—into the artificial egg structure. But everything that happened before then, from fertilization to egg laying, required a real chicken.
This article is so strange. It is written by the company, but written in a way that an outsider would write.
> Colossal has not released its hatch rate for the 26 chickens, which limits direct comparison to prior shell-free systems. The announcement was also made without an accompanying peer-reviewed paper or publicly released dataset, meaning independent scientists have not yet been able to evaluate the underlying methodology.
It says at the bottom:
> This story is based on original reporting by Christina Larson for National Geographic. Read the full feature on National Geographic
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/artificia...
Press releases are often written for lazy publications to copy and paste.
Also, that is the kind of corporate PR articles that are made to be quasi copy/pasted by journalists.
I've just started listening to the book "Brave new world" (no spoilers please!) and this is literally how the book begins (but with humans) - what could possibly go wrong!
No spoilers, but I used to think, along the lines of Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, that Brave New World wound up being the more accurate picture of future society than 1984, despite being less well-known and referenced in cultural consciousness.
Unfortunately, it seems like the former may be enabling the latter, so we may end up with a “porque no los dos” situation.
I haven't read Brave New World but "We" by Evgeny Zamyatin left a similar impression on me, it's more subtle than 1984. It came out earlier than both books by the Western authors - even though Zamyatin was inspired while working in England in early 20th century.
Actually.. not much. Education is taken care of. Gestation is taken care of. You grow up your young with a company instead of a family, if you want to be involved at all. All things that could go wrong, already sort of have over the last ten years and have been accordingly ironed out of humanity.
Sexuality as couples is already gone for large parts of the yoynger population. Culturally the family is as good as gone. Woman have kicked themselves enthusiastically out of all roles the species had to offer, except for that of work drone and that is going obsolete right now. They and their allies (almost all of those allies cheer on the ideas of incubators) wildly detest the idea of going back to traditional roles. Society has to come from somewhere and this is somewhere.. nothing of value was lost..
For a sec there I thought the National Enquirer had gotten a new lease on life.
Am I the only one wondering if it's 26 chickens at once from a single artificial egg or they just succeeded 26 times with different eggs? Rationally it probably has to be the latter, but the title confuses me.
The future is getting creepier by the day. You know this'll be used in food farming.
Why? The current method is cheap.
C'mon.
They want to do a Jurassic Park.
Is this a company and not a research lab doing this? What's the economic imperative for funding this?
They're a foundation working on "de extinction". They want to hatch dodos.
I'm holding out hope we can get the moa birds back in my lifetime.
Yes, yes. Dodos.
The endgame of this is Dodos.
Yes, first they'll focus on normal dodos. Then, they'll try very large Dodos. After that, very, very ancient dodos. Followed by island dodos. Then they might set up a whole island that people can visit, full of all kinds of dodos. They'll do tours with self driving cars so people can see all the dodos from a safe distance.
One thing is for sure: they'll still be using a UNIX system
Scientific consensus is that dodos cannot open doors so it’ll be very safe as long as visitors stay in their cars.
They shall spare no expense.
A velociraptor skeleton is worth around $10 million. Hatch a few dozen per year and you’re making great money.
[Colossal Biosciences] has raised over $600 million and carries a valuation exceeding $10 billion.
You're not making a return on that from selling velocirator skeletons. Nor is that sort of money in dodos and maos.
Human cloning on the other hand...
It's been a while since high school biology class, and I can't ask my sister right now, but I don't think humans are born in eggs. What does an artificial egg hatching chickens have to do with cloning humans?
Technically speaking, we could engineer it in a way where humans are born from eggs. It would just have to be a very big egg and would also have to continue growing in an incubator after hatching much like chickens rather than the standard womb senario.
... probably just easier to grow babies in a tube
I mean, if you can make a velociraptor, the skeleton isn't the bit you'll make money on.
Maybe short term, pumping out chickens. For food.
Long term, maybe chickens are just the test case and they will pump out human slaves. Replicants.
No. This is a very stupid and uneducated thing to suggest. Do better.
To be fair, artificial womb technology would really mess with society.
That's very likely to be the future of the human race where governments produce, train and push out artificial humans like a factory. Well if we don't solve aging and robotics by then, then we'll probably just stop having babies altogether or at least not in a quantity that matters.
"very stupid and uneducated thing to suggest"
1. Take a common trope in fiction and research for a hundred years. With long known commonly linked ramifications.
2. A company actually starts doing it.
3. Suggest a link
4. -> Call it Stupid.
Yeah. Don't worry about it at all. Nothing to see here.
If we wanted to pump out human slaves now, I don't think the main obstacle is that we can't find enough women to bear them.
If they are born of woman, they would be human.
If they are made, we can re-label them as machines and give them lesser rights. And make ourselves feel better about treating them as lower class by some 'justification', like they don't have souls.
Perhaps some gene editing to give them 'blue' skin, some non-historically-biased-color to identify them.
Really. There are ton of books with these themes already. I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said, and now a company is doing it, so why am I getting downvoted.
Gene editing is a whole different topic. And only the very first one would need to be "born of woman".
Artificial eggs are basically irrelevant to the dystopia you're describing.
Yeah but there's also the book where we make people in a lab and they're great and everyone lives happily ever after forever. Don't cherry-pick your data.
So I'm not providing a good literary survey of books with similar tropes and providing some of the positive ones? There are literally half dozen very famous negative examples, but I didn't do good enough search to find a positive one?
That would be like every comment on AI should include some example from The Culture Series as an example that all this AI stuff could great.
No man, it's just that saying "this scenario is popular because it makes for a good story therefore it'll happen in reality" is an absurd point to make.
What is "it", exactly? I have probably read some of the same dystopian science fiction novels as you have. But this is Jurassic Park, not A Brave New World.
So, this means the egg came first, right?
Eggs are IaC.
life finds a way
I always knew that egg came first.
Huh… from the original Nat Geo article:
Have we already forgotten about chaos theory?
For a book/movie with a decent (if optimistic) grasp of genetics, its grasp of chaos theory was utterly ignorant.