At the beginning of the third millennium, mankind for the first time is staring at its genome. Within the same generation, the human brain will also stare at machines that surpass its raw computing power and an interconnected world of information processing devices approaching science fiction. Rapid progress in biological and computer technologies raise profound questions about the nature and boundaries of life, intelligence, and who we really are.

It may be of comfort to some to realize that modern biotechnology is in many ways just a powerful extension of human agricultural and breeding practices. Such practices have been ongoing for thousands of years. Throughout our history, we have manipulated and selected the genomes of plants and animals, and even our own. For most of our past, such control could be exerted only at the macroscopic level of entire organisms. It was crude, slow, and cumbersome. Today we can manipulate genomes directly at the microscopic level, the level of single genes and their constituents. We begin to be able to edit genomes like we do computer programs with a scope, speed, and precision that far exceeds evolution, rendering sexuality cumbersome and obsolete.

This workshop has two distinct themes. One is "fiction science", extrapolating current trends and imagining some of the possible scenarios for the future, regardless of their desirability. The second is bioethics in the context of contemporary issues such as stem cell research, genetic therapies, genetically modified food, human cloning, and gene patents.

Although the issues to be addressed are non-technical, they are no less important or timely. In 1999, stem cells were voted, "breakthrough of the year" in Science. Today, the Human Genome Project is essentially completed and the race for patenting human genes, as well as engineered organisms, is on. Human cloning is within reach and the carbon-silicon boundary has begun to evaporate.

The workshop will provide a brief overview of these issues and a forum for free discussion and speculation. As scientists, we have a duty to explore these questions and share information with the community. If we don't, who will?