Science and engineering require discipline. We can't jump ahead to solve problems before we understand them. People involved with religion and politics think that because problems are important and DEMAND SOLUTIONS RIGHT NOW that it's ethically necessary to throw the standard problem solving method out the door. On the contrary, it's because the results are so important that we have to stick with the discipline and advise the interlopers to fornicate with themselves until the scientists have figured out more details.
The work mentioned in the OP was ONE promising paper. There may be others to come. Surely this one should come in for some intense scrutiny - criticism, hard questions, attempts to replicate, elaborations, digressions, new avenues of exploration. Tehy're just plotting a few isolated points for now. The detailed maps will come later.
That said, it's desirable to consider the ethics of this kind of knowledge as well as social and ethical impacts of potential solutions in the near term as well as the far off future. Since it's largely new ground, we will probably have to approach it analogically.
