For a brief moment I thought this would be about something like robotic polo ponies, and considered the idea that four-legged high agility, high endurance robots had advanced significantly without me noticing.

The thing is, what if there's an even better horse out there? Once you get on the cloning bandwagon, don't you also lock yourself out of looking/evolving an even better horse?

>“It was the same,” he recalls. “Same movements, same head.... I couldn’t believe it.”

My grandpa said the same thing, first time he saw me.

This reminds me of a poem in Analog Yearbook 2 (1978) by Jeff Rovin, with the title "The Horse That Jack Built".

Science fiction becomes science fact every day.

Perhaps Polo will end up like competitive sailing with one-design classes based on the clone of horse. "Measurement" would be a blood test for drugs and dna.

Humans can likely be cloned too.

Imagine 10,000 Albert Einsteins and John von Neumanns working together with modern AI on medical, scientific, and societal issues.

Though there could be an Evil Einstein due to upbringing or something.

Surprised that the legal drama part of this wasn't discussed, it's how I first heard about this

https://youtu.be/VARJnzhVryc

Another Argentina/cloning-connected story is that President Javier Milei cloned his dog Conan at least four times: https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-04-26/the-myst...

The stories make me wonder if Argentina is a cloning hotspot, though I may be reading too much into two stories.

> At the slightest touch of the reins, he felt a familiarity that shook him...

Ah... Some good, old, pre-AI journalism slop.

Oh the countless times a universities press release has been turned into four pages describing the smell of coffee some scientist inhales on their way through campus...

Given the way the world is now, I will not be surprised if full human cloning and replica people is a thing at some point in my lifetime, just like horses.

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