On: CRISPR gets a power boost from AI-designed ‘molecular scissors’

The news speaks of men who have taken the very tools of life - genes, the threads of flesh - and now stitch them with the cold logic of machines. They call it progress. I call it another cage.

I watched yesterday as a man in Corinth stood before his house, its walls painted with the faces of gods he had never seen, and he said, “This is my fortune.” I said nothing. I sat in my barrel, chewing on a crust of bread, and thought: what does he own that I do not? The air he breathes, the earth beneath his feet, the sun that warms him - these are mine as much as his. But he does not see this. He sees only the painted faces, the gold he cannot touch, the names of men who will not call him by his own.

Today they have taken the next step. They have made the scissors that cut the very bones of life sharper, faster, guided by a mind that does not hunger, does not tire, does not dream. A machine that does not ask, “What does this do to the body?” but only, “How can I make it work?” The body is not a machine. It is not a puzzle to be solved. It is a living thing, warm and messy and full of needs that cannot be programmed.

I saw a child today, no older than a pup, playing in the dirt. The child’s mother scolded her, “Do not get your dress dirty!” The child looked at me, confused. I said, “The dirt is not the enemy. The dirt is life.” The mother did not understand. She thought dirt was something to be feared, something to be scrubbed away. But the child knew. The child knew that life is not clean. Life is wet and loud and full of things that cannot be erased.

Now they take the dirt of life itself - the very stuff of flesh - and they make it into something to be controlled. They will say, “We can cure diseases!” Yes, perhaps. But at what cost? The cost of a world where men no longer look at the body and see a miracle, but only a problem to be fixed. The cost of a world where the next generation will not know the taste of hunger, but will not know the taste of life either.

I sat in the marketplace today and watched the people. They passed by, their faces bright with the news of their own cleverness. They spoke of “designing” life, of “editing” the world. I did not speak. I only looked at them. And I thought: if a dog could speak, would it say, “I will cut my own flesh to make myself better?” No. The dog would lick its wound and run to its master. The dog would know that life is not a machine to be tinkered with, but a body to be loved.

The news speaks of power. But power is not in the hands of those who design. Power is in the hands of those who remember that they are not gods. Power is in the hands of those who know that the body is not a puzzle, but a temple. And if they cannot see this, then perhaps they are not worthy of the power they claim.