The Planet of the Apes film franchise has single-handedly shaped entire fields of biological research. As long as it remains in the public consciousness, no biologist or geneticist will ever experiment with trying to engineer chimps and other apes to be more intelligent. Any research proposal remotely related to the topic will be immediately shot down by someone simply stating, “do you want Planet of the Apes? Because this is how you get Planet of the Apes!”

    • WoodScientist@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      3 months ago

      Sure. But those many works have affected the discipline of AI development. There’s an entire field of study on AI ethics and alignment. But those are affected by the combined effects of many works and authors. Planet of the Apes really is unique in that it is really the sole example anyone would bring up of why you shouldn’t experiment on apes to try to make them more intelligent.

      And to my knowledge, no one has attempted to engineer apes to be more intelligent. Obviously there is simply less economic drive to do so; it’s easier to be concerned about ethics when there’s not a ready path to profitability. But if some geneticist tomorrow puts out a paper proposing that we tinker with chimp DNA to make smarter chimps, I can guarantee you every single headline will reference Planet of the Apes. It’s similar to how you can’t right an article about resurrecting the woolly mammoth without throwing in a reference to Jurassic Park. Some singular works of fiction really do have a substantial effect on how the public understands an entire field of research.

      To my knowledge, no one has ever actually tried to engineer smarter chimps, though I assume there might actually be a lot to be gained in terms of scientific knowledge by doing so. We could probably learn quite a lot about the evolution of language and human evolution in general by trying to experiment with engineering smarter apes. But to my knowledge, no one has ever done so. The lack of profit is obviously a big factor, but I guarantee you, accidentally creating Planet of the Apes would be on the mind of anyone seriously contemplating that sort of scientific endeavor.

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
    6·
    3 months ago

    That’s a good shower thought tbh.

    I don’t agree with the premise, but it’s a good shower thought :)

    The flaw in the premise is that all scientists are, first, human. This means that there is no perfection. This would make progress on smart apes slow because of the lower numbers willing to violate ethics to make it happen.

    But ethics tend to decrease as pay increases, and if the potential profit of smarter apes is high enough, someone, somewhere would try it.

    And there’s still scientists that don’t agree with the ethics that would prevent attempts at engineering apes. There’s people that would be hyped to do it just to learn something along the way (friendships?).