(ORDO NEWS) — Most of the time, a person is protected from various viruses and other harmful substances thanks to his immune system. But is it possible to create something similar for the whole planet? After all, such technology could save people from a new pandemic.
Global technology expert Dr. David Bray believes we must create an “immune system for the planet.” According to the specialist, a system should be developed that will quickly determine that something dangerous is happening somewhere on Earth and respond to it.
In response to this, Professor Sarah Cleveland, an epidemiologist at the University of Glasgow (UK), says that in fact it will hardly be possible to create such a technology to prevent a pandemic in the future. And even if the technology is developed, it is still impossible to say for sure right now whether a certain genome or virus will become a problem for people.
What is David Bray’s idea? In 2021, he described his concept of a new technology for the planet. It is similar to the functioning of the human immune system. Our immune system can detect disease carriers using receptors on living cells.
These receptors are found in all organs and tissues. The protection system for the planet will look exactly the same: it will be a global detection network containing sensors (they will be in the air, water, soil) and artificial intelligence (AI) programs. The latter will have to find various oddities in human behavior and changes in the economy that may indicate an infection.
Once a threat is detected, the system will sequence it, describe how it interacts with human cells, and how it can be stopped. Ideally, this should require minimal human involvement and only three to four weeks.
One of the places where humanity has to look for pests is the sewers. So, in 2013, it was because of sewage in Israel that an epidemic of poliovirus arose. AI can also detect the virus in wastewater and predict its spread.
Another important component of Bray’s system is the biosensor network. He suggests placing small sensors in plants and animals. Further, such biosensors will transmit information to a supercomputer network. True, at the same time, the expert is not sure that such biosensors will really help people find diseases.
The fact is that the human immune system protects against any foreign substance. It is difficult to create such artificial detection sensors that will protect against substances that people do not yet know anything about.
A biochemist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Dr. Kevin Esvelt, is sure that people should protect themselves from new diseases by fighting a “deliberate variety” of a pandemic.
In an article that was published in August 2021, the specialist notes that it is necessary to create a global observatory of nucleic acids, which will determine the sequences of all genomes in the world. The fact is that one of the hallmarks of substances that can cause a pandemic is their rampant growth, which is an “explosion in the levels of their genomic sequences.”
But when creating such an observatory, people would face difficulties. For example, it would take entire armies of sample collectors. These assemblers would send the found samples to the laboratory every few days. All this is quite labor intensive.
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