I used to think that germ-line genetics was going to be an important playground during the decades running up to the "singularity" (what I would now call the digital consciousness era). In fact I used to recommend that if you wanted to have babies, you should either do it as quickly as possible, to avoid the era of enhancements, or delay as long as possible, to get your child the best possible enhancement.

i.e. I believed that the immediate 30 year period during which my peers have to make decisions about what children to have when would be marked by rapid progress in genetic engineering of germ-line cells, so that parents would have ever increasing possibilities at conception as time went on. In a nutshell: A world like "Gattica" was likely.

But recent science and some books I have read (notably "Future Now" by Bruce Sterling) convinced me that my understanding was deeply flawed. Any technology we create which we could apply to germ-line cells we are also likely to be able to apply to somatic ("body") cells, plus there will be lots of non-biological augmentations that have nothing to do with genetic engineering.

In fact, given the dangers inherent in genetic engineering of germ-line cells, I believe it's a path that likely won't go much farther than it already has: testing in the womb which gives parents information about potential problems with their child. Many already decide to abort, given sufficiently bad news.

But for augmentation, there are much safer and easier techniques than editing genes and using in-vitro technology to implant "insanely great" children. Scientists have already worked out a variety of methods to change our DNA "on the fly", as it were. I have seen a proposal to create extra chromosomes in which to place all of the new stuff that we want: making it easier to insert, test, remove or upgrade. Our genetic upgrades won't be static anymore than our computers are: locking yourself into any one of them would be foolish.

And, of course, nanotechnology, especially it's medical applications, offer an opportunity to augment yourself with machines that can potentially vastly outperform their biological counterparts. For instance, there are already conceptual designs for respricytes, artificial red blood cells that would e.g. allow you to sprint for 10 minutes without taking a single breath :-). ("In the absence of respiration or atmospheric oxygen, a fully-O2-charged augmentation dosage consisting of 9.54 x 10^14 respirocytes could provide tissue oxygen delivery and carbon dioxide removal for 12 minutes at peak exertion and 3.8 hours at rest even during cardiostasis" see Section 4.2) Similar performance improvements are likely in numerous other areas, like muscles, neurons, bones, nerves, etc.

And that's not even mentioning systems level engineering. For instance, I have seen a proposal to create self-propelled respirocytes, making the centralized pumping system ("heart") obsolete. The consequent lowering of blood pressure and other cardio-vascular benefits (heart disease is the number one killer) are very large. Not to mention how odd it would be not to have a heart beat!!

And, I think that designer drugs will turn out to be pretty effective. With the unlocking of the human genome, the new understanding of biochemistry, and the great modelling stuff that is coming of age, we are entering a period where drugs will be able to "fake", temporarily, any effect which could be engineered by us or the body. Since peak performance is often much greater than average performance, I believe that there is substantial room for drugs to improve our abilities - but getting those improvement may mean certain sacrifices (think side-effects), at least in the near term.

In conclusion, it's a brave new eugenic world. We're going to be making better people, just like the old dream, but the new technologies may bear no relation to the old "selective breeding" programs... those programs are MUCH too slow and won't yield any particularly great results.