Imagine a ten story building. There are ten rooms on each floor, and one large basement room. In the basement there is a panel of one hundred standard light switches, not marked or labeled in any way. Also in the basement are one thousand light bulbs of varying shapes, sizes, and colors, all plugged into separate light fixtures.

One day a person in a white lab coat was tasked to figure out what each light switch did. They meticulously turned on and off each light switch and recorded the results over and over again to be sure the results were consistent. Some of the switches turned on one light bulb, some of the switches turned on multiple light bulbs, and some of the switches didn’t do anything at all. The person in the white lab coat was very efficient and completed the task by lunchtime.

After lunch the results were delivered to the executives of the company that owned the building and that afternoon they made elaborate construction plans based on the information. The executives, being very efficient as well, had even signed a number of contracts with construction companies late that afternoon.

The next morning, as everyone was focused on other concerns, a flood of complaints came in from the people who used the rooms in the building. All of the complaints were about how certain electrical outlets and lights in their rooms turned on and off seemingly randomly the previous day; upsetting their processes and ruining their work.

Each individual is extremely complex, and the relationship each individual has with their environment is extremely complex. The complexity of this relationship is compounded by all of the other individuals in the ecosystem; ranging from each individual bacteria to all the other human individuals. The assumption that the effects of our individual DNA is limited to our individual bodies is childishly naive.

Change one gene and that changes the individual, which changes their relationship with the environment, which changes the environment for themselves and all other individuals. There will never be a person smart enough, there will never be an AI smart enough to do this sustainably.