Silicon Insider: The Unreported Revolution

 

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By the same token, today we can confidently predict that the next great step — mapping the functions of all proteins created by human DNA — will be completed within a generation. But it is beyond our ken to imagine what the world will be like when we eradicate all 3,000 genetic diseases and, in the process, learn to control every aspect of what it means to be human.

All that we can say with any confidence is that now that it has jumped aboard Moore's Law, the biotech revolution will make the electronics revolution look like a footnote. And that should give us pause.

We are about to face the greatest challenge any human generation has ever known. Shouldn't we be preparing for it? Shouldn't the arbiters of information in our society be informing us, educating us, WARNING us?

Why have they let us down?

Michael S. Malone, once called “the Boswell of Silicon Valley,” most recently was editor-at-large of Forbes ASAP magazine. His work as the nation’s first daily high-tech reporter at the San Jose Mercury-News sparked the writing of his critically acclaimed The Big Score: The Billion Dollar Story of Silicon Valley, which went on to become a public TV series. He has written several other highly praised business books and a novel about Silicon Valley, where he was raised.