> Will the output of your product prevent the cells from procreating/multiplying?
Why would this matter? We have immortal cell lines like hela cells that have been alive for decades.
> Will the output of your product prevent pathogen creation?
No, but no one is going to "accidentally" create a new pathogen (you'd need this as well as some expensive labware and a lot of expertise), and the people with the incentive can already do so in labs.
> Will the output of your product require a specific, unnatural energy source that can only be man made?
What lol
It's super hard, but until novel bioweapons are discovered, it is at least a tractable problem.
Absolutely not.
> Will the output of your product prevent the cells from procreating/multiplying?
Absolutely not.
> Will the output of your product prevent pathogen creation?
Strictly defined as the output being a chip, absolutely does not.
> Will the output of your product require a specific, unnatural energy source that can only be man made?
Absolutely not.
> Professionals take great care in thinking about those problems
I am a professional in this field, and have been thinking about these problems quite deeply (if you check on my website, my first time writing about my concern for these problems was back in 2014). I have developed opinions on this over the years, but roughly they come down to the fact that many folks have a gross misunderstanding of the field in general, but quite like to think that they understand what is going on.
For example, I mentioned I wanted to do oligo pool synthesis - how the hell would the output of an oligo pool synth run add a suicide timer? Or prevent replication? Or require a certain kind of energy source? In the context of the stated goal, these objections really don't make any sense. It is roughly equivalent to someone wanting to run a mining company and getting countered by "will the output of your product stop school shootings?". Perhaps better questions are along the lines of - how are oligos matching biohazard sequences prevented from being synthesized? Well, this is a question of both governmental policy (what IS a biohazardous sequence?) and of the integrated device (does it phone home for each synthesized sequence? What about hardware hacking?).
Perhaps part of the disconnect here is not realising how vast the applications are for synthesizing DNA oligos are. It's a very basic thing, and anybody can already basically order them online for a very affordable amount. It's like being worried about someone open sourcing a way to make printer ink.
It’s interesting how people revise their arguments, or omit words from it, to make their interlocutor’s response appear more absurd.
Err, wait, ummm, it looks like we first need a R.E.C.U.R.S.I.O.N. to establish the R.E.C.U.R.S.I.O.N.
How would unicellular organisms procreate exactly?!
I am not being pedantic here but procreation usually entails sexual reproduction and I don't see how this is possible for these organisms.
1) Multiplying: Asexual reproduction only.
2) Reproduction: Sexual and asexual reproduction.
3) Procreation: Sexual reproduction only.
BTW: I don't see how 'multiplying' could refer to just asexual reproduction. People often use it in sentences like 'the deer population near here multiplied the last couple years'.
As you can see, getting terminology right is challenging and not always straightforward.
Will the output of your product add a suicide timer to a cell?
Will the output of your product prevent the cells from procreating/multiplying?
Will the output of your product prevent pathogen creation?
Will the output of your product require a specific, unnatural energy source that can only be man made?
Professionals take great care in thinking about those problems, and sometimes still fail. (IIRC, a synthesized breed of mosquitos that were released in Brazil failed to die off and are now a part of the biosystem).
[0] https://www.dw.com/en/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-breed-...