Genetics, Design and Marketing with Adam Peacock

It's interesting to have these conversations now, particularly because the price and the sort of the cost of sequencing the human genome is rapidly decreasing year by year, and so it becomes really a possibility to actually start to prepare technologies and kind of consumer-facing technologies to actually accommodate some of this now. And yeah, so it becomes quite terrifying.

Yeah, it is quite daunting. And I guess we're going to come on to how this all affects consumer behavior.

And yeah, maybe I'll just say before, before that. Yeah. What's interesting within this topic, we talk about, you know, your, your, your phrase, which was wonderful about the difference between gene editing and gene mutation. Is what we might consider to be a preferable or a non-preferable human characteristic. So of course we don't want any humans to suffer. You wouldn't conscientiously choose to have a child that you know is going to suffer. But what is the difference between suffering and having a good quality of life is almost like a tacit cultural moment that differs between nations. And a really good example of this is until 1978, the British Psychological Association considered homosexuality to be a mental illness. And so hypothetically, with this type of technology, you might be able to design in or out homosexuality, considering, you know, that's, that's a disability or a non-preferable human characteristic. There's a lot of deaf parents, for example, that really want their children to be deaf because that's their culture and that's the way that they live and they kind of want to see that being carried on through their family. And you know, what designates the difference between something being preferable and non-preferable? Yeah, absolutely. Which is really important because this is the basis of all of human interaction in terms of, you know, if we move now into talking about marketing and products and objects, when you look at something and you find it attractive or not, or, you know, preferable or not preferable, your brain is making these subconscious decisions, similarly to our brain making subconscious decisions on things like Down syndrome or homosexuality being preferable or not preferable.

Yeah. This is really interesting because, again, it's— there's self-identity, sort of how you view yourself, and there's how the group views you as well. And it'd be quite interesting to know whether you should hide. Should someone be, let's say, edited to not have Down syndrome? Should they be made aware of this? You know, is it their legal right to be made aware of this? Should other people be made aware of this? Does the knock-on effect mean that they perhaps have an extra strength in sporting activities, do they then get classed into a separate group? And does that then actually just affect their life in a similar way to being Down syndrome, cast out of society for something that they had no control over in the first place?

Are you suggesting that society might separate those who have been edited from those who haven't been?

I would, I would propose that that would Definitely happen. Absolutely. I think that's something that is very prevalent in society. We like to group people. And if that is something that happens in society, then you know that other people are going to want to know.

That's a really good insight. You might suggest that with gene-edited people, you would start to have these types of class systems. However, we talk about the uncanny valley in digital technology. So the uncanny— do you know the uncanny valley? The uncanny valley is the moment between when the human brain understands an image of a person to be real and an image of a person to be computer-made.

Okay.

And so there's a moment in between there where the human brain can't quite comprehend whether it is a real human or it's an avatar, and that's the uncanny valley. Okay. And I think that there's a very similar area when we talk about plastic surgery or, you know, testosterone use and so on, where you start to— where you, you kind of understand and register that this is a sort of a biological human, but there's something about them that has been altered. I think with gene editing, it will be very hard to actually understand that because it's, it's their genes that have been edited. It's, it's not something that will sort of stick out as an unusual characteristic unless there's someone with incredibly piercing blue eyes and incredibly platinum blonde hair that's very unusual. But then equally we could say that genetically that is possible naturally. Yeah. We can also get into the conversation about what we consider to be a strong gene because, you know, blonde, blue-eyed female being the kind of paradigm of beauty in popular culture, I would say was sort of the late '90s, mid-2000s. I think it's shifting massively. I think that was very much a kind of Western Caucasian perspective of beauty.

Very much so.

And I think that actually in 20, 30 years, we'll want to look more Asian.

I mean, this is the interesting thing with sort of genes, gene editing, and then product marketing. How do these two worlds collide in the future.

Yeah, so as we were discussing, that the sort of foundation of every single cognitive decision of whether that is a strong choice or a less strong choice in terms of, you know, what we consider to be a disability or a preferable human characteristic, or even within that kind of moment where we look at someone and decide whether they're sexy or not sexy, that the way that your brain works on deciding that, that, that kind of split-second decision is exactly the same mechanism as, as we, as we have kind of emotional relationship with objects and brands and communication and so on. And so as, as we're talking about marketing and branding and then kind of the design of objects, particularly around identity, so in the world of fashion, that the foundation of all of this really is genes and the way that kind of genetic technology will influence and interact with artificial intelligence. If we can get to the bottom of that, then we are essentially redesigning marketing systems and redesigning the sort of desire mechanisms that underpin why we want certain objects and how they've been constructed and the subliminal meaning that designers use to sort of craft and sculpt objects in certain ways. Yeah. And so it's, it's really this conversation about actually starting to build ontologies or maps around these, the different relationships and connections that form this, this kind of large world that then we can sort of design from and build from. And, and back to your question, you know, we actually don't know the genes yet to do with height, or, you know, there They're so complex systems. It's exactly the same with this in relation to marketing. It's very complex, but that's not to say that we won't be there very soon.

Yeah.

And so it's really interesting to start to have these kind of speculative conversations about what is going to happen when this technology does get to that place.

How do you see that? I mean, let's have that conversation now. How do you see that funneling down eventually if it gets more prevalent?

In China, this sort of culture around gene editing and genetic technology is very much derived from whatever the government says is right or wrong. And it will happen in China. It is happening. And it will continue to happen at pace. And it will be for kind of a select, you know, 1% of China, so very affluent people that will be able to afford to gene-edit their children and so on. What's interesting is when these children are, you know, 12 and starting to become young adults, the rest of the world won't want to have their kids sort of be outpaced and not be as good as these super high IQ, very talented, very beautiful Chinese children. And so that will just have this kind of knock-on effect that will, that will, you know, slowly trickle into the rest of society. And it will essentially create a new class system because, of course, the beginning of this type of applied technology will be extremely expensive. And so it will be the affluent people that, that are able to sort of fine-tune their genome. There will be some really interesting scenarios that come around this, like the idea that if a parent has edited their child and then the child sues them because they don't like how they've been edited, that could be a possibility.

Oh, that'll happen. You know that's gonna happen. Maybe in America.

Definitely in America.

They love a good law.

Yeah, and all of this technology is sort of based upon CRISPR. So, you know, the sort of design of DNA before it sort of turns into a fetus in the womb. But I was really interested in a type of technology, genetic technology called epigenetics, which was really, it was a hot technology in 2014 when the project started. I think that the sort of energy behind it has sort of lost quite a lot now. It's now back onto CRISPR. But epigenetics is the ability to turn existing genes on or off for favorable characteristics.

Okay.

And so say, uh, you and me are both born with, with a certain amount of genes, and some of these genes are turned on and some of them are turned off. So it's sort of a binary process. And through certain environmental factors such as ultraviolet rays or being exposed to smoking or carcinogens, these are understood to turn, to change the expression of certain genes on or off. And so apparently we're all born with cancer genes.

Okay.

But the cancer genes are hopefully turned off. And so they've understood that through smoking or, you know, these, these different triggers it can turn on the expression of these genes. And so in 2014, there was a lot of energy and research around, uh, developing epigenetic technology to be an alternative to chemotherapy and cancer treatments, and to send bespoke proteins to the cancer genes to reverse their expression.

Flip them off.

Exactly.

Interesting.

And so that would— that was the original point that I started to get excited about what would happen if with such a tangible commodity, you know, if we could create an alternative to chemotherapy and cancer treatment, what would be the difference between, you know, L'Oréal, Procter Gamble getting hold of this technology and putting it into a shampoo to change the color or the waviness of your hair or, you know, your sexuality or your IQ, you know? Yeah, yeah. And so on. Of course, at the moment, I still believe that epigenetic technology, it's, it's incredibly dangerous. I don't think there's been any scenarios of it actually working, uh, because it affects all the other genes. Yeah, in, in its area and causes more damage than good.

Yeah, so it's kind of like chemotherapy in that regard, as I understand. Um, it sort of attacks the bad thing, but you're going to have to control it.

All it attacks everything else around it as well. Yeah, but it's a really interesting concept, particularly in considering that you know, with such a technology for life extension, that there is huge amounts of global funding available to sort of evolve this. And we are very much at a point in, so if we zoom out in humanity, in kind of this idea of what do we actually want to spend our energy on? What do we want to design? What do we want for the future of humanity and for the future of technology? Or even what do we want for the future of our evolution?

What do we want to, you know, if we get to a point where you could put socks that make your feet stronger and, you know, more coordination at football or something, you know, would we— is that something that we as society will want to enable?

I feel like Adidas is probably doing this. So the Olympics, Stella McCartney and Adidas made a swimming costume with a certain textile that was very buoyant, sort of extra buoyant. And so the athletes wouldn't have to spend as much energy sort of keeping themselves up. They could spend more energy going forwards. Yes. And so it was very beneficial to swimmers. Yes. And the Olympic body ruled that this textile was actually— Yes. It was not possible. It was illegal. It was kind of pushing against the merit of the human body.

You're right, you know, so we are trying to design products that do give us this incredible edge, and I think in athletics or, you know, in sportswear, this is where these things have the most application.

Well, see, this is interesting because even we're talking about that in terms of very tangible function, like getting from A to B in the quickest amount of time, but we can also talk about the function around beauty, the function around, you know, certain poise and posture, or the function around IQ, or the function around happiness or mental health. And all of this is possible to design. It's also interesting to think that we are not an evolved human. We're just in the middle of a very long evolution process. In the same way that with science and technology, there is there's so much more to find out that just hasn't been uncovered yet about how the world works. And so it's really interesting having these conversations at such a critical moment in sort of technology evolution, human evolution, about actually where we want this to go and what we hope for in terms of what is going to be beneficial to human life and humankind. And will it make us happier? Will it make us more discontent or need more and want more. And that pulls us into a really interesting conversation about kind of a sort of a philosophical philanthropic perspective on technology and evolution and how brands and marketing and products sort of play a role within that. Because you could argue that a lot of technology is being harnessed by big companies to make us want more and need more, but isn't necessarily bringing us to a happier place. And so I think it's a really interesting moment for these companies to really sort of take a step back and think about their ideologies in terms of actually what they hope for, what types of lives do they want consumers to be able to obtain through the development of, you know, through utilizing, buying, and sort of entering into their world. Through their products, because I think that all objects are interacting with technology in some way, you know, if not now, they will be soon. Or they, they sort of have, even if they're analog, they have some sort of relationship within a wider technological sphere. And I think that designers and companies not only need to think about the sort of manufacture of these objects, but think around the cultures surrounding them, but particularly in terms of the philosophy and the ideology that underpins everything about that object. And so it's all derived from kind of all of this research the whole way back into genetics and the way that humans sort of perceive positive and negative.

Yeah, genetic strength.

Genetic strength.

But we still have the same understanding an appreciation of genetic strength as we did, you know, when— I don't know how long we've been around for, you know.

So supposedly we've been evolving for 44,000 years.

44.

44,000 years.

So—

It's not bad. Hopefully we've got another 44 ahead of us.

I hope so. Not us. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand it either.

Let's see when we get to the first 1,000 and then— No, but it's interesting because we, you know, in terms of male attractiveness, in terms of popular culture, physically, it, our brain, a kind of heterosexual woman or a homosexual guy would consider an attractive man to be someone who would be able to hunt, gather, provide, protect.

Yeah.

And so that's kind of, you know, someone with well-defined arms and has got access to lean protein to build that muscle. But you could argue that in a democratized society with social welfare, that sort of muscle mass is totally wasteful to society because all you need to do as a man today is kind of sit at a computer desk for 8 hours a day clicking and then go and pick a can off a supermarket shelf or like click for your delivery service to bring you food.

But what we posit as, you know, potential genetic strength and what we should consider, that doesn't affect really how our genes are made up. And that's something that's been born out of 44,000 years, and it's gonna take longer than us having desk jobs for the last 100 years.

It's interesting because of course our brains have been evolving in that way for such a long time. And then in the past 200 years within sort of post-industrial society, particularly the past 30, 40 with, you know, the internet and kind of mechanized processes in the way that we see them now, our brain hasn't had time to actually update or evolve to the way that we now live. And so the way that we compute genetic strength is still derived of our cavemen ancestors as opposed to actually the reality of what way we live now. So It's interesting when we consider what, what would be our perception of genetic strength to actually suit the way that we're living today. I don't think the human brain will actually update to this because all of popular culture is based upon these kind of basic principles of hunting, gathering, providing, protecting in terms of masculinity, and maybe childbearing, and in terms of femininity in terms of testosterone expression and estrogen expression. Yeah, um, just have a look at Love Island if you want to see some, some pretty clear examples of this.

Yeah, the chest might be waxed, but it's still the basics of the same.

And it's, it's fascinating because of course now, you know, we've got the technology in place and the protein, the like, you know, protein powder and and men are going and sitting in gyms at 11 o'clock in little space underground to sort of achieve this aesthetic. Yeah, that is essentially signaling information based on activities that they, they never need to do. Yeah, and actually totally outpaced. And so yeah, it's, it's a really interesting situation because it's just a clear example of the fact that human evolution and technology evolution are totally out of sync.

Yeah, completely. Completely. Like, people really aren't— they haven't got up to speed with how technology has affected the social side of the real world. People feel that, you know, social media and all these things are in their own little closets, but they're not, you know. If you put something on social media, I say that it's like getting on a podium with all the cameras of the world and all the microphones. And any post you put on social media is you, you know, averring this to the world, you know, at that time. And people haven't really caught up with it. And so if you relate that back to how we have evolved genetically over 44,000 years, and as you say, the last 30 years where we're now at a point where we're kind of getting saturated with technology. You know, there are things that— there are products and services out there now that are trying to move you away, that are giving you chances to, you know, places where there's no Wi-Fi, things like this, you know. And these are now products and services. And so when we talk about designing ideologies for companies, it is now getting to a point where companies are realizing that if they want to buck the trend, they can be seen as a leader by taking people away from technology?

It's about, I would say it's very much about having a clearly defined stance that you can, that your consumer can either, you know, associate with or not associate with. And that's very much up to you in terms of what that means. I think a lot of companies would be very tempted to sort of homogenize into whatever popular culture says you should be doing at any particular a particular moment in time. But if companies really want to be leading, it's about taking a very definitive stance. And I was going to discuss this a little bit about obesity and refined sugar.

Okay.

And the idea that refined sugar, um, again, a technological innovation essentially, um, when it first arrived, I'm sure it was kind of like, uh, you know, cocaine. Everyone wanted as much of it as you could get, but then pretty quickly you understood that it had a sort of a consequence that might be considered to be negative. And I think it's exactly the same in terms of the way that we're exposing our brains to refined imagery, to pornography, to, you know, our brains were designed to see a cavewoman across the savannah and think she's not half bad, you Yeah, and now we're being exposed to edited, manipulated imagery at such a large extent and watching these kind of 3-minute videos on repeat that we're training our brains in certain ways that could be considered sort of the same as refined sugar and obesity. But of course, there are all of these cultures that exist around obesity and around training your body and around how you should be feeding your body with certain foods. It's exactly the same, I think, with this type of technology. It's not to say that this technology, image-based communication, is going to end. It's just to say that there will be— we're still very much in the honeymoon, in the beginning period of this, but there will be new subcultures and etiquettes such as kind of snobberies and perceived perceptions of what's appropriate and not appropriate in terms of using this technology.

Government regulation helped stunt the refined sugar and this kind of thing, and so do you think that's then required with image-based communications, and do you think that we need to be regulated?

I really believe that we need to have more space and time for research and development of technology. It's a fine line between developing technology and putting it out into society because you want to be the first one, and technology is always evolving very quickly. And also understanding the consequences of applied technology. And of course we talk about Facebook being a sort of prime example of this, for sort of not really fully understanding the negative effects of its infrastructure, just putting it out and seeing what happens. And of course that has sort of potentially swayed and manipulated political trends, and you know, it's not just a lovely way of communicating with your family and friends, it's affecting larger society on an incredible scale. And now we're having conversations about whether Facebook should be privatized or whether it should be sort of run by the government.

I mean, we're talking about social media here, you know, Facebook. Does that then extend into, into brands marketing their products?

Absolutely, absolutely. Brands and marketing are essentially reflections of people, you know, that they're creating infrastructure through objects and through socially understood iconography and language for people to express their identities with.

You know, you're a designer at your very core, you know, that's the world that you've come from. And as a designer, Do you feel government regulation would hinder you in that regard?

It's interesting because I'm just thinking a lot about China, government regulation in China.

Yeah.

Because I teach and I have Chinese students and I'm always pushing them to do political projects and there's always this tension and they're fearful of doing anything that's slightly out of line or not what they're meant to be doing.

Interesting.

And I had this one Chinese student who came up with this fantastic project about, in China they know they're not free, but it's nice to know where they're at. In the UK we think we're free, but we're not. And that was a really interesting perspective on this topic. You know, do we, do we want to be in a position where the government is, is saying what we should and shouldn't do and what that what the paradigms are around this, or do we want to be in a situation where we do just freely put out services? No one has to use Facebook if they don't want to use it. No one has to buy an iPhone if they don't want to buy it. So we're conscientiously choosing to opt in. The government isn't telling us what we should and shouldn't be using. And so there's definitely perspectives around this, but I think we're just very much at the beginning of this, such a huge kind of paradigm shift happening in the way that we communicate and illustrate ourselves through objects, products, images, genes. And I think there needs to be a vast amount of research into this so that we can be far more in control of it, because at the moment it's kind of like It's chaotic. Okay, I will say this. So I'm intrinsically a designer, but I understand that design today is not just about creating objects. It's also understanding the way that that object is communicated. It exists within a larger cultural sphere, but also how technology affects that object. And so being a designer today, I think you not only need to be kind of a craftsman and understand the processes behind designing it, but you also need to understand marketing. Consumer psychology, and sort of have a sort of an overview of different technologies and how they might affect your design.

This is great news for designers, fashion designers, you know, whether you're making shoes, clothes, whatever. This is really good news because actually it really broadens the horizons of being a designer. Whereas, you know, 50 years ago, you know, really you were, you're an artist, you're drawing things on paper and someone else would take that, I guess, and go and make it. Whereas now you have to understand maybe a lot more than you used to. Would that be a fair assumption?

Yeah, it's a continually learning process and a little like— so my background is architecture, yeah, and architects are very much sort of a jack of all trades, master of none. You know, you work with lots of different specialists who all understand sort of how the building actually stands up and how the cladding actually works and you you know, how the electrics actually plug in, but you sort of drive this large ship essentially, and you understand all the different ingredients and put them together to create one elegant solution. And I think that's very much the same with design today, except all the components are a multitude of many different facets.

Yeah, yeah. And you have to embody that ideology that we were talking about earlier on, companies need to lead the way in what is our stance. And so to be a designer within that company, you really need to get that brief and you need to understand it wholeheartedly. Otherwise, you're really not creating products that that company is trying to push out.

Exactly. I think it's interesting to also talk about sustainability on this, because I think at the moment sustainability is understood within a commercial paradigm as a as a format of ideology that is understood and that consumers want. It sort of has a market value attached to that term. But I would argue that the word sustainable and sustainability is a kind of off-the-peg ideology that is sort of pre-designed and that actually there are many different variations under the branch of sustainability but I think it's more and more important for brands and companies not to be homogenized in terms of their outlook and their perspective, but actually really stand for something. I think consumers are becoming more and more informed every day.

Yeah.

And particularly as we see this, this sort of shift in economy, perhaps sort of downturn of capitalism, it's giving rise to far more ideologically based design and communication. It's becoming of paramount importance.

Yeah. Well, I think, you know, the more people talk about it, well, hopefully the more clear one's mind becomes on these matters. Although, like a lot of knowledge, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. And so the more, certainly today, the more we've talked about genetics and design, You realize there are so many elements to this discussion that really the human brain, unless we genetically mutate it, is incapable of truly understanding.

I think this is also the beauty. As, as you said, designers used to be maybe someone sat sitting down with a pen and pencil and drawing something. And now a designer today, and arguably the best design of today, is the design that allows conversations with multitudes multitude of different perspectives and minds on a large complex topic. And for me, that is really one of the most valuable roles of a designer today. It's almost as a communicator. And in terms of having conversations about actually how we want to be developing and moving forwards through objects and products.

Amazing. Yeah. Design is the new communication. Yeah. Awesome. Adam, cheers.

Nice one. Everybody get up.