There is a much older incarnation of this idea: "The Conditioners" as invisioned by C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man (1943):  

The final stage will have come when “humanity” has obtained full control over itself. “Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man.” The ruling minority will have become a caste of Conditioners, people “who really can cut out posterity in what shape they please.” From this moment onward, the human conscience will work the way humans want it to work – that is, the way wanted by the Conditioners.