# Key Ideas from #hplusroadmap IRC Discussion

• The accessibility of gene editing technology is increasing, as evidenced by ODIN's release of a DIY bacterial CRISPR kit for home genetic engineering experiments, though significant challenges remain in gene therapy including viral delivery methods and immune system responses.

• The Human Genome Project-Write initiative aims to synthesize a complete human genome with an estimated timeline of 10 years and funding requirements of $100-250 million, representing a major milestone in synthetic biology.

• Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TDT) enzyme has significant limitations in DNA synthesis, falling off after adding only 25-50 nucleotides, which participants suggested could potentially be improved through selection experiments.

• Participants identified a substantial market opportunity for real-time audio transcription services, noting that businesses spending significant money on meetings could benefit from immediate rather than delayed transcription.

• Technical challenges in speech recognition were explored, including the need for diverse training data with various speakers and accents, with suggestions to use audiobooks as initial training data despite their limitations.

• Several open-source speech recognition engines (CMU Sphinx, Kaldi, Julius) were discussed as potential starting points, with research showing systems achieving Word Error Rates of 17-20% with modest training data.

• The conversation raised ethical concerns about speech recognition technology potentially enabling mass surveillance if subversively installed on phones or baseband processors.