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Mr_Hu-Man t1_irm1810 wrote

Reply to comment by TemetN in Thoughts on Ray Kurzweil's LEV prediction? by TheHamsterSandwich

I always feel that De Grey’s predictions are a little optimistic due to his desire to be here for LEV…

But fuck, I hope he’s right! Bring on LEV for everyone!

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ChoosenUserName4 t1_irm3kze wrote

And his desire to get funding as well. As someone with an academic background in molecular biology, human genetics, and scientific computing, I can say that not a lot of my fellow colleagues take his roadmap seriously (neither do I).

There's a lot of complexity in organisms that we haven't got a clue about. A lot of our molecular biology tools are still rough (even though they're getting much better, there's still a lot of hype). Even if there were an AI to help speed up biology, we still need experiments to confirm existing and to form new hypotheses. Even though lots of automation and high-throughput experiments are being done, there are physical and financial limits that do not confirm to exponential growth.

On top of that, we can't even be sure it's possible at all to live forever. I like to think it is (most likely is my guess), but we may run into a roadblock that can't be overcome.

We fully sequenced the human genome around 2000, and we still don't really understand what all of the genes do, and how they interact. Yes, we know a lot more, but we're only starting to understand all the complexity that comes with epigenetics (turning regions of the genome on/off) and higher-level genome organization. There are going to be more discoveries.

I remember that when the genome came out, the end of all diseases was predicted. It took over 20 years before I got the feeling that we may be on the path to curing some of the first diseases using genome information. Note that sequencing the genome was the low hanging fruit.

I want to be optimistic, but I see the pharmaceutical industry working on the same cash-cow diseases they were 20 years ago (to combat the symptoms, not to cure the disease itself, where's the money in that?). Most of them focus on extending the lifespan of their patents instead of extending our lifespan (so they can keep making money from it).

I have the feeling I was born 100 years too early.

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Mr_Hu-Man t1_irm4s4w wrote

This was a brilliant read, I appreciate you putting the time into the response.

I agree for the most part, but I also cling onto the idea that we literally can’t predict how AI and automation is going to impact things. It’s like an unaccounted for variable that can’t be added to our models of prediction (I think there’s a term for that, like an ‘unpredictable externality’ or something, but I can’t remember what the term is!).

So whilst I agree, let’s just see what happens as AI develops and is integrated into molecular sciences more and more!

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rationalkat t1_irmbve6 wrote

Here is what John Carmack says, on why even experts underestimate the progress in their own field of expertise.

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ChoosenUserName4 t1_irmzug3 wrote

He's a programmer, he manipulates bits, things that are subject to the kind of improvements in the digital realm (Moores law, rapid experimentation and prototyping, easy and fast to build upon work done by others, relatively cheap and accessible).

Biology is a whole other animal, because of the experimental part, and the enormous complexity of life. A limitless number of things interacting with lots of other things, with backups and alternative routes, optimizations we don't understand, etc. Just look at how a relatively simple virus like HIV has been studied, how many ways it has to evade the immune system. I think it has been more than 40 years, and we barely made AIDS into a chronic disease that can be managed. That is a virus, something billions times less complex than a mammal.

When I compare the progress made in computing versus biology over the last 20 years, it's not even close. Everyone outside of my field of expertise seem to think biology is something that can be hacked like computers can be. It would require an accurate simulation of an entire human at the molecular level to go as fast as computer science does.

I am not even talking about the costs of doing molecular biology at scale, or putting things on the market. That is prohibitive, holding things back right now. Very few serious players want to cure aging. They're all working on things like Alzheimers, depression, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Don't want to be a party pooper, and I hope to have to eat my words, but I am not holding my breath.

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rationalkat t1_irne362 wrote

You're right, progress in biology and medicine is much slower and much more expensive, but those fields are turning slowly into information technologies. Narrow AI systems like Alphafold2 are just the beginning and Alphafold came as a big surprise for most structural biologists. So there is hope.

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DukkyDrake t1_irnxulu wrote

His predictions were always based on massive public funding based on some early progress sparking public outcry.

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TheHamsterSandwich OP t1_irtmjsn wrote

What does that mean?

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DukkyDrake t1_iru042h wrote

Some early progress showing extending life is possible would fuel public demand for funding. Without large scale funding, his estimated time horizon will not happen.

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