A baby boy born of three parents. That, not the Economist piece, is the story on genetic engineering that most gave us pause this week. Canada’s CBC reports that a baby boy has been born to Jordanian parents “using a ‘three parent’ technique that combines DNA from three individuals, researchers report.” Fine, it’s ‘just’ mitochondrial DNA (the DNA that runs the little powerhouses of each individual cell in the human body), but you want to talk slippery slope? It’s before us. And then we remembered the classic 2007 Stanford Review note on Michael Sandel’s book The Case for Perfection: “The critics are right that a world with genetic engineering will contain inequalities. On the other hand, it is arguable that a world without genetic engineering, like this one, is even more unequal.”

Two things keep us up at night when we consider the world that will be inherited by the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of anyone able to read Enterprise today: Genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. This New York Times review of Sandel’s book is also worth reading if you want to dip your toes into the debate for a couple of minutes without taking a full plunge.