Sam Altman is throwing stacks at a wild new startup in San Francisco trying to make babies that don’t carry inherited diseases — and the whole thing’s got people talking, hard.
Altman and his husband, Oliver Mulherin, dropped cash into a company called Preventive, which locked in $30 million in funding to go after what it calls “devastating genetic conditions.”
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also tossed his money in the ring, according to The Times. Thing is, they’re stepping into a legal gray zone.
Editing embryos is still banned in the US, the UK and a bunch of other countries. But Preventive’s not slowing down — word is they’re looking to do their research in the United Arab Emirates, where the rules are way looser.
The company wants to use the UAE as a launchpad for testing the tech.
The plan? Reportedly, they’re working with a couple carrying a genetic disease who are willing to try having a baby using an edited embryo. That’s next-level stuff, and not everyone’s cool with it.
Armstrong defended the move, telling The Times, “More than 300 million people globally live with genetic disease. Foundational research should be done to determine if safe and effective therapies can be developed to cure these diseases at birth. It is far easier to correct a smaller number of cells before disease progression occurs, such as in an embryo.”
The gene-editing world already had a big moment earlier this year when a baby named KJ Muldoon from Pennsylvania got a custom-made treatment for CPS1 deficiency — a rare condition that builds up dangerous levels of ammonia in the blood.
Still, some tech companies are pushing things even further, looking into ways to predict traits like intelligence and height — and that’s where it all gets dicey.
GM Freeze, a watchdog group focused on gene modification, isn’t sold on how much we actually know. On their site, they say, “As genetic engineering technologies such as gene editing advance, so does the realization that our knowledge of gene functioning is still very incomplete.”
All this comes while Altman’s already catching flak for some of his recent AI takes — including warnings about future pandemics and job losses caused by artificial intelligence and how AI can be used in dangerous ways.
But while folks debate whether this is genius or playing God, Altman’s clearly not afraid to gamble on the future.