I gave a more thorough analysis of why OpenPhil missed the mark somewhat in their ‘medium-depth’ inquiry of anti-aging research in response to your comment lower in this thread, which is relevant to this point.
I’ll add a couple of points:
I completely agree with you that technology from other areas (AI, platform technologies etc.) will benefit aging research. But that’s not the point − 100,000 people per day are dying of aging and we have the tools to test a bunch of drugs, and a huge laundry list of possible drugs to test (AKG, Gemfibrozil, rapamycin, spermidine, etc.) but we don’t have the funding to do it. So, donating to SENS is important to pick the lowest hanging fruit i.e. testing drugs we are already pretty sure do slow aging. To give an analogy—you could say that given advances in materials engineering would help us get to Mars, but you also need Elon Musk (or equivalent) to put the pieces together and do the thing. Anti-aging is the same—although today’s platform technologies are not perfect (just like today’s material science is not perfect) there are so many experiments we can perform now that would save potentially millions of lives, and should be prioritized. Remember that anti-aging almost certainly will happen eventually if society doesn’t collapse, and what the field is fighting for is for this to happen sooner rather than later, so that many more people alive today will benefit.
The above is actually an additional criticism I had of the OpenPhil. It’s not that Aubrey de Grey and and others in the field don’t think advances in other areas will help (AI, etc.), it’s that there are so many feasible projects that should be funded that could potentially have a huge impact on populations today, that are not being funded. The neglectedness of the field is the primary reason SENS needs more funding, - think of SENS as funding a locus of research that has among the highest probability of progressing the field in the near future, given this research is working directly on the problem.
So yes, I agree that increasing SENS’ budget by 10-20X would probably be sufficient and that once this point has been reached, the marginal ROI would fall. However, it’s also worth considering that the type of research funded by SENS could also drastically change as the field grows, which may still make SENS donations above the 20X point remain cost-effective. Either way, SENS needs more money today.
I gave a more thorough analysis of why OpenPhil missed the mark somewhat in their ‘medium-depth’ inquiry of anti-aging research in response to your comment lower in this thread, which is relevant to this point.
I think it’s worth putting such a critique into it’s own top-level post sooner or later. It more likely engage OpenPhil.
we have the tools to test a bunch of drugs, and a huge laundry list of possible drugs to test [...] testing drugs we are already pretty sure do slow aging
And we have a very profit oriented industry that makes money with making good calls on judging which possible drugs as worth testing.
It’s relatively easy to make an argument that certain basic research that’s valuable but not directly profitable are underfunded.
The term valley of death is about drugs where we are not pretty sure that they have a clinically useful effect.
To give an analogy—you could say that given advances in materials engineering would help us get to Mars, but you also need Elon Musk (or equivalent) to put the pieces together and do the thing. Anti-aging is the same—although today’s platform technologies are not perfect (just like today’s material science is not perfect) there are so many experiments we can perform now that would save potentially millions of lives, and should be prioritized.
There’s no reason to believe that material science progresses in a way that makes building starship 10X cheaper within a decade unless people are working on the technology.
On the hand there are plenty of experiments that are run in antiaging that plausibly could get 10X cheaper through tooling improvements.
I think it’s worth putting such a critique into it’s own top-level post sooner or later. It more likely engage OpenPhil.
Will do.
It’s relatively easy to make an argument that certain basic research that’s valuable but not directly profitable are underfunded.
If it works (slows aging) then it will be profitable.
On the hand there are plenty of experiments that are run in antiaging that plausibly could get 10X cheaper through tooling improvements.
If by ‘tooling improvements’ you mean, biomarkers of aging then I completely agree with you. This is also research within the aging field that requires more funding. Besides that, I’m not sure what kind of tools you think we need. The bottom line is that we have a bunch of drugs, and we need a measuring stick (accurate biological age test) to tell us whether the drugs slow aging or not. What other platform technologies would be needed to expedite this process?
I gave a more thorough analysis of why OpenPhil missed the mark somewhat in their ‘medium-depth’ inquiry of anti-aging research in response to your comment lower in this thread, which is relevant to this point.
I’ll add a couple of points:
I completely agree with you that technology from other areas (AI, platform technologies etc.) will benefit aging research. But that’s not the point − 100,000 people per day are dying of aging and we have the tools to test a bunch of drugs, and a huge laundry list of possible drugs to test (AKG, Gemfibrozil, rapamycin, spermidine, etc.) but we don’t have the funding to do it. So, donating to SENS is important to pick the lowest hanging fruit i.e. testing drugs we are already pretty sure do slow aging. To give an analogy—you could say that given advances in materials engineering would help us get to Mars, but you also need Elon Musk (or equivalent) to put the pieces together and do the thing. Anti-aging is the same—although today’s platform technologies are not perfect (just like today’s material science is not perfect) there are so many experiments we can perform now that would save potentially millions of lives, and should be prioritized. Remember that anti-aging almost certainly will happen eventually if society doesn’t collapse, and what the field is fighting for is for this to happen sooner rather than later, so that many more people alive today will benefit.
The above is actually an additional criticism I had of the OpenPhil. It’s not that Aubrey de Grey and and others in the field don’t think advances in other areas will help (AI, etc.), it’s that there are so many feasible projects that should be funded that could potentially have a huge impact on populations today, that are not being funded. The neglectedness of the field is the primary reason SENS needs more funding, - think of SENS as funding a locus of research that has among the highest probability of progressing the field in the near future, given this research is working directly on the problem.
So yes, I agree that increasing SENS’ budget by 10-20X would probably be sufficient and that once this point has been reached, the marginal ROI would fall. However, it’s also worth considering that the type of research funded by SENS could also drastically change as the field grows, which may still make SENS donations above the 20X point remain cost-effective. Either way, SENS needs more money today.
I think it’s worth putting such a critique into it’s own top-level post sooner or later. It more likely engage OpenPhil.
And we have a very profit oriented industry that makes money with making good calls on judging which possible drugs as worth testing.
It’s relatively easy to make an argument that certain basic research that’s valuable but not directly profitable are underfunded.
The term valley of death is about drugs where we are not pretty sure that they have a clinically useful effect.
There’s no reason to believe that material science progresses in a way that makes building starship 10X cheaper within a decade unless people are working on the technology.
On the hand there are plenty of experiments that are run in antiaging that plausibly could get 10X cheaper through tooling improvements.
Will do.
If it works (slows aging) then it will be profitable.
If by ‘tooling improvements’ you mean, biomarkers of aging then I completely agree with you. This is also research within the aging field that requires more funding. Besides that, I’m not sure what kind of tools you think we need. The bottom line is that we have a bunch of drugs, and we need a measuring stick (accurate biological age test) to tell us whether the drugs slow aging or not. What other platform technologies would be needed to expedite this process?