What happens when humans try to play God in the creation of life? Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson could soon find out, as he is currently claiming that he has successfully cloned himself “as a newborn” and that “baby-bryan lives in a petri dish for now”.
Johnson has framed this development as a boon for mankind, arguing that it could help reverse ageing in the long term and cure diseases such as Parkinson’s or blindness.
In a post on X/Twitter, Johnson explained that he hoped he could use his clone to “become my own blood boy, test therapies on the clone, grow organs for transplantation, develop new treatments, inject young cells”. This would allow him, in his words, to “rebuild my body > organ by organ… this technology gives us a path to reverse aging”.
Many conservatives and Christians have denounced Johnson’s post as disordered and immoral. More secular voices have defended Johnson’s search for health cures and longevity as a gift that will benefit everyone.
To be fair, Johnson’s search for cures for terminal diseases and ageing seems like a net positive for society. If he used ethical means, curing Parkinson’s and blindness would be a huge blessing for many people. Unfortunately, however, not only does Johnson appear intent on using unethical means to achieve his goals, but his motivations themselves are inherently selfish.
More importantly, they are a great example of the dangers of unchecked ambition. Johnson’s “clone” appears to be part of his elaborate scheme to achieve “immortality”. Johnson allegedly arranged a “plasma exchange” with his 17-year-old son and 70-year-old father that was “discontinued” after failing to provide noticeable health benefits. He has also demonstrated a neurotic obsession with anti-ageing efforts. According to Fortune magazine, Johnson reportedly spends about $2 million annually on tests and supplements to have the “skin of a 28-year-old and the lung capacity of an 18-year-old”. He also sticks to an extremely strict diet, with incredibly specific times for when he eats.
Johnson’s endeavours all share a common thread – they are the behaviour of a man obsessed with achieving his ambitions, no matter the cost. Prioritising health sounds good in theory. But Johnson behaves like a man possessed exclusively by the desire to avoid ageing. His lifestyle is not conducive to flexibility or change, making one wonder whether or how he spends time with family or friends. And by making health and immortality his inflexible goal, Johnson appears to justify any means of obtaining it.
His “clone” is a perfect example. To clarify, “clone” is a misnomer for “baby Bryan”. Johnson did not create a fertilised embryo that could develop into another human being. Based on what we know, he allegedly created an induced pluripotent stem cell (or iPSC), which would involve reprogramming his blood cells to make stem cells containing his full DNA. To effectively “clone” these stem cells, Johnson would have to undergo what science terms “reproductive cloning”, which involves replacing the nucleus of an egg and stimulating the egg to begin dividing. If this process were successful, the resulting embryo would have nuclear DNA that was nearly identical to Johnson’s. Scientists have used this method to produce mouse offspring but have not done so with humans to date.
Johnson appears deliberately to misname the process – either to provoke his opponents or because his ultimate goal is successfully to create an embryonic clone of himself that could mature into adulthood. Either way, “baby Bryan” presents a dangerous slippery slope.
Johnson has been clear that “baby Bryan” exists so that he can harvest organs for transplantation and inject young cells into himself, among other things. At present, he is allegedly testing such opportunities on the iPSC he created. What happens if he decides to try creating an embryo with the iPSC? Will he continue treating the embryo created as “himself” and using it for his own health benefits?
This troubling situation reminds me of Christopher Nolan’s film The Prestige, which shows how blind ambition destroys two magicians. The magician Robert Angier’s desperation to discover his competitor’s secret magic trick leads him to discover a machine that can clone anything. Angier uses this machine to clone himself each night as part of an elaborate “magic trick”. This brings Angier explosive fame and success. At the end of the film, however, viewers learn that Angier kills his clone every night to avoid exposing his secret. By prioritising his ambition above all else, Angier justified the unthinkable.
After learning the truth of Angier’s secret, viewers recognise that his “trick” was immoral because he was destroying human life. Angier may have justified his actions by saying that he was only harming a version of himself. Yet if cloning humans were truly possible, the clones might possess the same DNA and genetic makeup, but they would still have distinct souls. Killing one’s own clone would therefore mean killing an entirely separate human being.
Applying this same logic to “baby Bryan” makes Johnson’s goals for his “clone” uncomfortable. Johnson’s claims to have cloned himself for organ harvesting are eerily reminiscent of the tragedy depicted in The Prestige. And if he truly succeeds in making a human embryonic clone of himself from his iPSC, then Johnson cannot ethically harvest organs or use that embryo to further his goals of longevity and health. He would be exploiting and dehumanising a separate human life – behaviour that is wrong even if Johnson shares the exact genetic makeup of the victim.
It is interesting that Johnson calls his iPSC a “clone”, but then refers to it as “baby bryan” – the lack of capitalisation implying that it is not a proper noun and, therefore, not human.
If he does successfully create a cloned embryo of himself, however, then “baby Bryan” will be proof that blind ambition and obsession with health can lead humans to justify even the most dangerous violations of human dignity.
