The Rise of the Futurists

In early 2022, Intelligence Squared US hosted a debate on whether gene editing should be used to improve our offspring. Among the chief concerns associated with this powerful new biotechnology is that it will lead to a future in which the “haves” will be able to improve their children’s genetic profiles in ways that are unaffordable to the “have nots.” But Amy Webb, the CEO of the Future Today Institute, argued that “there is no evidence to support the claim that gene editing will benefit the wealthy specifically” or “necessarily take a dystopian route.” When confronted with the fact that access to basic health care and reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization is already glaringly inequitable in the United States, Webb urged the audience “not to use the past to predetermine what the future might look like.” (Webb 2022).