Upper Arlington Public Library

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AI Series: The Future Will Be Biotechnology

with David Staley, Ph.D.

Gene editing. Disease-resistant crops. Engineered tissues. Learn how biotechnology is creating new possibilities in medicine, agriculture, and beyond, while raising key questions about our future.

In ten years, whenever anyone says “technology” they will not mean something digital on our phones. They will mean something organic and alive but no less engineered or designed by humans. Biotechnology represents the next stage in humanity’s long history of designing life. For thousands of years, humans have practiced biotechnology through the domestication of plants and animals, selectively shaping living organisms to meet human needs. Today, advances in gene editing, synthetic biology, cellular agriculture, and bioengineering have dramatically accelerating this process. This public lecture explores how biotechnology is transforming plants, animals...and even humans, blurring the distinction between the natural and the designed. Along the way, we will examine current applications--from disease-resistant crops to gene therapies and engineered tissues—and consider how these innovations will reshape industries, healthcare, agriculture, and the environment. Looking beyond today’s breakthroughs, the presentation will explore the broader economic, social, and ethical implications of a future in which living systems become one of humanity’s most important technological platforms.

Speaker Bio

David J. Staley, Ph.D., is a writer, designer, futurist, historiographer, presenter, educator, advisor, and public intellectual, and was recently described as an "eclectic academic." He is an Associate Professor in the departments of History and Design at The Ohio State University, and is the author of several books, including The AI Symposium; Anticipatory Biographies: Personal Histories of the Future; Alternative Universities: Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education; Knowledge Towns: Colleges and Universities as Talent Magnets; and Visionary Histories, a collection of his essays about the future. He is the host of the "Voices of Excellence" podcast, and president of Columbus Futurists, a local think tank. In 2022, he was awarded "Best Freelance Writer" by the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists for his "Next" futures column with Columbus Underground.

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