A future of robots perhaps?
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Manic Maniac: Mania news with a cynical twist

Three important separate, but related bits of news have surfaced in the last few weeks.

1) Cornell scientists published a study revealing that they had successfully genetically modified a human embryo, the first such report. While the embryo was abnormal to begin with--meaning it could have never developed--the implications are vast, suggesting the potential for "designer babies" equipped with intellect, athletic prowess and extreme confidence in locker room showers.

2) Researchers were able to engineer a set of E. coli bacteria to function as computers, emitting red or green light in order to communicate with each other and, subsequently, the scientists. This "synthetic biology" has potential for bioterrorism detection and is the 21st century's answer to sea monkeys.

3) Futurist Dr. Ray Kurzweil said at the World Science Festival last week that, before the year 2050, we, as a species, will welcome Singularity, the point at which software--yes, software--will enable us to attain immortality, something only currently available to Dick Clark and Scientologists.

Though these three items are significant in their own right, together, they mean something far more important than mechanically engineered biology: The potential for shitty big-budget science-fiction movies for years to come.

Or, more accurately, the absence of these concepts from said movies will reveal the traditionally myopic, populist and simply unrealistic ideas that Hollywood Sci-Fi tends to embrace. Indeed, unrealistic is the most important little snag there. Because Sci-Fi is at its best when it follows the path of Sci-Fact.

Terminator 4 will be released next summer, and while Christian Bale as John Connor lends some credibility to the project, I'm prepared for a laughable experience, not only because filmmaking originality flew the coop years ago to make way for serial production and infinite sequels, but because mechanical robotics is, well, "duh." In 1984, it was cool in its foreshadowing, but still pedestrian from a prophetic standpoint, particularly if you consider the Phillip K. Dick-inspired biorobotic replicants from Bladerunner were unleashed two years before that red-eyed erector set (and hypothesized further back, in 1966). So, in 2009, are we to believe that the T4 robotic weaponry and evolutionary machinery of 2018 are the real dystopia? How realistic is that? I'm sorry, but that cyborg has sailed. Because when the sub-molecular plasmid hits the fan, we're in for a storm far more immediate, frightening and inevitable than Skynet.

Let's take the genetic engineering and computerized E. Coli--two present-day, actually-happening events--and sandwich them together. If the ability to engineer a living organism as you would a MacBook hard-drive is extrapolated across all living cells, then that potentially means human and animal blood cells and skin cells communicating with each other, interacting with brain cells, on a conscious and controlled level. Forget the involuntary practice of breathing and heartbeat. We're talking about trillions of little thinkers, consciousnesses, inside our bodies, manipulating the body's tendencies, its possibilities, creating the ability to, for instance, control cell division. If we can do that, then couldn't we replicate ourselves? If so, then at the very least, we'd be able to preserve homeostasis indefinitely, thus making Dr. Kurzweil's Singularity a reality. Only, by the time that happens, the first batch of designer babies would enter adulthood, so we'd all be 8-foot tall immortal geniuses, potentially creating armies of one through self-cloning. The permutations of evolutionary possibilities are endless, but the absolute is that the real enemy wouldn't be anything we could manufacture externally (i.e. the T 800). The real enemy would be ourselves. Not only is that true then, but if we're currently developing these things, then that's true now. Sort of a predestination paradox. How's that for a dystopia.

But that scenario is tough for summer moviegoers to swallow. Hell, it's tough for me to digest. So, sci-fi flicks will be reduced to--or maintained at--robots, a few, tired aliens with oblong heads and post-nuclear societies that probably involve a lot of desert travel. All short-sighted. All populist. All unreality.

The only bastion of hope, as of late, has been the comic-book fad because comic books-cum-film has become the science fiction fill in. But even there, they're pulling the adamantium over our eyes. Because those are old story lines that we all know. We're watching those more to see how they turn those comic heroes into real life. It's worlds of fun, but it's gimmicky. It isn't sci-fi despite its riffing.

In all likelihood, a few films over the next years will pass muster. Certainly, there might be a Matrix (first only, of course) or a Minority Report (also a P.K. Dick gem). But by the time anyone in Hollywood catches up to the two-headed beast reality of the genetically engineered computer bioscience, there will be a plausible and scientifically backed dissertation published on our evolutionary path to becoming ethereal dust by 2100. By then, I'll see a preview for the 2014 blockbuster Singularity, starring Shia LeBeouf, and think ho-hum.