Thanks for your reply. “70% confidence that… we have a shot” is slightly ambiguous—I’d say that most shots one has are missed, but I’m guessing that isn’t what you meant, and that you instead meant 70% chance of success.
70% feels way too high to me, but I do find it quite plausible that calling it a rounding error is wrong. However, with a 20 year timeline, a lot of people I care about will almost definitely still die, who could have not died if death were Solved, which group with very much not negligible probability includes myself. And as you note downthread, the brain is a really deep problem with prosaic life extension. Overall I don’t see how anything along these lines can be fast enough and certain enough to be a crux on AI for me, but I’m glad people are working on it more than is immediately apparent to the casual observer. (I’m a type 1 diabetic and would have died at 8 years old if I’d lived before insulin was discovered and made medically available, so the value of prosaic life extension is very much not lost on me.)
T1DM is a nasty disease, and much like you, I’m more than glad to live in the present day when we have tools to tackle it, even if other diseases still persist. There’s no other time I’d rather be alive, even if I die soon, it’s going to be interesting, and we’ll either solve ~all our problems or die trying.
However, with a 20 year timeline, a lot of people I care about will almost definitely still die, who could have not died if death were Solved, which group with very much not negligible probability includes myself
I understand. My mother has chronic liver disease, and my grandpa is 95 years old, even if he’s healthy for his age (a low bar!). In the former case, I think she has a decent chance of making it to 2043 in the absence of a Singularity, even if it’s not as high as I would like. As for my grandfather, at that age just living to see the next birthday quickly becomes something you can’t take for granted. I certainly cherish all the time I can spend him with him, and hope it all goes favorably for us all.
As for me, I went from envying the very young, because I thought they were shoe-ins for making it to biological immortality, to pitying them more these days, because they haven’t had at least the quarter decade of life I’ve had in the event AGI turns out malign.
Hey, at least I’m glad we’re not in the Worst Possible Timeline, given that awareness of AI x-risk has gone mainstream. That has to count for something.
Thanks for your reply. “70% confidence that… we have a shot” is slightly ambiguous—I’d say that most shots one has are missed, but I’m guessing that isn’t what you meant, and that you instead meant 70% chance of success.
70% feels way too high to me, but I do find it quite plausible that calling it a rounding error is wrong. However, with a 20 year timeline, a lot of people I care about will almost definitely still die, who could have not died if death were Solved, which group with very much not negligible probability includes myself. And as you note downthread, the brain is a really deep problem with prosaic life extension. Overall I don’t see how anything along these lines can be fast enough and certain enough to be a crux on AI for me, but I’m glad people are working on it more than is immediately apparent to the casual observer. (I’m a type 1 diabetic and would have died at 8 years old if I’d lived before insulin was discovered and made medically available, so the value of prosaic life extension is very much not lost on me.)
T1DM is a nasty disease, and much like you, I’m more than glad to live in the present day when we have tools to tackle it, even if other diseases still persist. There’s no other time I’d rather be alive, even if I die soon, it’s going to be interesting, and we’ll either solve ~all our problems or die trying.
I understand. My mother has chronic liver disease, and my grandpa is 95 years old, even if he’s healthy for his age (a low bar!). In the former case, I think she has a decent chance of making it to 2043 in the absence of a Singularity, even if it’s not as high as I would like. As for my grandfather, at that age just living to see the next birthday quickly becomes something you can’t take for granted. I certainly cherish all the time I can spend him with him, and hope it all goes favorably for us all.
As for me, I went from envying the very young, because I thought they were shoe-ins for making it to biological immortality, to pitying them more these days, because they haven’t had at least the quarter decade of life I’ve had in the event AGI turns out malign.
Hey, at least I’m glad we’re not in the Worst Possible Timeline, given that awareness of AI x-risk has gone mainstream. That has to count for something.