Overall, the strategy and organization are good. Where it goes terribly wrong is the completely unfounded optimism that SENS will start to pan out in 15 years and that nanobots will arrive in 25 years. For short-term technology, consensus from the experts is usually very accurate. The experts are nearly unanimous that both of those technologies are theoretically possible, but are so far in the future as to be irrelevant. Aubrey de Grey is irrational on this issue. I don’t want to be too hard on him, as he is one of the very few in the world to accept cryonics, but there is simply no basis for the false optimism.
Timeline is rather arbitrary and yes it is optimistic. It may shift right depending of the pace of technological progress.
I also agree with you view on Aubrey.
In my opinion nanobots may appear much quicker if they will be built by augmentation of biological cells. If one combine E.coli and already exiting DNA origami tech, he could get universal mechanism able to self-replication.
I’d like to retract my comments to some degree. I think the problem is definitions.
“SENS: Regular correction of accumulated damage.” You can’t just put that on a timeline without qualifications. There are 7 complex problems to be solved in SENS. If each one of them takes 10 years to solve, you’re talking about SENS breakthroughs spanning 70 years. The only claim you can make for 15 years out is maybe one small breakthrough that partially addresses one of the seven problems. It would be nothing close to your characterization and wouldn’t help us very much.
“Non self-replicating nanobots” I want to make it clear that you’re talking about crude first generation nanobots, while I was talking about fully mature nanobots capable of cryonics repair. The two technologies are lightyears apart in complexity, capability, and timeframe. There could easily be 100 or more years of development separating the two. But your wording still seems to indicate intelligent swimmers with manipulators, which is more of an intermediate technology rather than first generation.
Overall, the strategy and organization are good. Where it goes terribly wrong is the completely unfounded optimism that SENS will start to pan out in 15 years and that nanobots will arrive in 25 years. For short-term technology, consensus from the experts is usually very accurate. The experts are nearly unanimous that both of those technologies are theoretically possible, but are so far in the future as to be irrelevant. Aubrey de Grey is irrational on this issue. I don’t want to be too hard on him, as he is one of the very few in the world to accept cryonics, but there is simply no basis for the false optimism.
I explain it better here: http://www.oregoncryo.com/revivalTechnology.html I put nanobots at 180 years out to emphasize how much harder that technology is compared to other forms of nanotechnology.
Timeline is rather arbitrary and yes it is optimistic. It may shift right depending of the pace of technological progress. I also agree with you view on Aubrey. In my opinion nanobots may appear much quicker if they will be built by augmentation of biological cells. If one combine E.coli and already exiting DNA origami tech, he could get universal mechanism able to self-replication.
I’d like to retract my comments to some degree. I think the problem is definitions.
“SENS: Regular correction of accumulated damage.” You can’t just put that on a timeline without qualifications. There are 7 complex problems to be solved in SENS. If each one of them takes 10 years to solve, you’re talking about SENS breakthroughs spanning 70 years. The only claim you can make for 15 years out is maybe one small breakthrough that partially addresses one of the seven problems. It would be nothing close to your characterization and wouldn’t help us very much.
“Non self-replicating nanobots” I want to make it clear that you’re talking about crude first generation nanobots, while I was talking about fully mature nanobots capable of cryonics repair. The two technologies are lightyears apart in complexity, capability, and timeframe. There could easily be 100 or more years of development separating the two. But your wording still seems to indicate intelligent swimmers with manipulators, which is more of an intermediate technology rather than first generation.