What will define human identity in the next 50 years?
Humanity’s future identity will, to a large extent, depend on the evolution of the state of positive and radical actions that we take now toward biodiversity conservation and in the fight against climate change. These phenomena will greatly affect our culture and its potential development. At the current rate of negative impacts, the prosperity of future generations is far from assured.
New identities aligned with the metaverse and other virtual realities will thrive, though lacking real physical stimuli like the feeling of a cooling glass of water on a parched throat. The absence of privacy, the inability to manage complex systems or the likelihood of falling victim to reputation-ruining identity theft are obstacles that make this a vulnerable trend.
How can we respond to the new identity challenges and opportunities posed by technology?
In a world that will exceed 10 billion people, technology will undoubtedly help in a significant and democratic way to improve efficiency in production and consumption processes. It will also improve planetary health and likely extend human lifespans.
But it's critical to understand that many of the ecosystem “services” that nature provides are still a long way from being replaced by technology on a planetary scale. Clean air (in cities, we still wait for wind or rain to deal with this problem), clean water, for example.
Biomimicry, or nature-based disruptive inspiration, should impose itself as the main model, thanks to the colossal potential access to information from nature. It’s an infinite database of mechanisms, processes and strategies, tested for more than 3.8 billion years. In 50 years, technological culture will already have a pathway to implement and achieve regenerative society and cultures—the next step in sustainability.
What ethical dilemmas will arise from genomics and biotechnology?
The technology itself will be neither good nor bad; this will depend on the use that’s made of it. When genetic data is public, it will be difficult to keep it from a large number of actors who will not always behave with honesty and positive ends. Discrimination based on health or access to work, among many others, could influence decision-making that diminishes individual freedoms.
It's very likely that a lack of genomic education, and an avalanche of genetic information, will make access to other people's genetic information too easy, and lead to erroneous beliefs about what can be deduced from the data. We shed countless skin scales and hair follicles every day. Through methods such as PCR amplification, even small samples of these will be sufficient to be replicated without authorization or personal knowledge. Safeguarding genetic privacy will be a colossal task.
Finally, from an environmental point of view, GMOs, for example, will influence food security because of the race to genetically control crops, although it’s difficult to foresee their evolution and context 50 years from now. Today, the negative effects they have on living ecosystems are already well known, such as the risk of outcrossing, where genes from transgenic foods pass into wild plants and other crops, with a negative impact on insects and other species. This leads to a reduction in other plants’ variability, leading to a loss of biodiversity and a subsequent decrease in resilience.