Alix’s conversation this week is with Jenny Reardon, who shares with us the history of genomics — and the absolutely mind-melting parallels it has with the trajectory of the AI industry.

Jenny describes genomics as the industrialisation of genetics; it’s not just about understanding the genetic properties of humans, but mapping out every last inch of their genetic information so that it’s machine readable and scalable and — does this remind you of anything yet?

There are a disturbing amount of correlations between AI and genomics: that they have roots in military applications; as fields they have been pumped up with money and compute; and that there are, of course, huge conceptual overlaps with race science.

Jenny Reardon is a Professor of Sociology and the Founding Director of the Science and Justice Research Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  Her research draws into focus questions about identity, justice and democracy that are often silently embedded in scientific ideas and practices.  She is the author of Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics (Princeton University Press) and, most recently, The Postgenomic Condition: Ethics, Justice, Knowledge After the Genome (University of Chicago Press)