Thread

Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats

780 points · 805 comments · raahelb

modeless · 1790190319 · focus · HN ↗
It's clear Dario believes that the solution to AI's PR problem is to cure cancer. Or invent other revolutionary medical treatments. They're going to heavily promote every step along the way no matter how small or far away from commercialization they are, like this one.
No doubt that curing cancer would help, but I think the timeline might be a little too long. Even RSI AGI will not be able to get new medical treatments to market instantly. Real world testing takes a long time and is an unavoidable part of the process.
1. jMyles · 1790190560 · focus · HN ↗
  > Even RSI will not be able to get new medical treatments to market instantly. Real world testing takes a long time and is an unavoidable part of the process.
  Is it unavoidable, though?
  1. jjk166 · 1790190830 · focus · HN ↗
    In the way that breathing is unavoidable. Like yeah technically there is a way to avoid doing it, but not a way that you want to seriously consider.
    orangecat · 1790204213 · focus · HN ↗
    Operation Warp Speed showed that we can substantially accelerate the process if we care to.
    HarHarVeryFunny · 1790364275 · focus · HN ↗
    Sure you can accelerate the regulatory process, but with drugs it's not always going to work out well. Look at something like Thalidomide - sure would've been better if approval had taken longer (and been denied).
2. JoeOfTexas · 1790190568 · focus · HN ↗
  Cancer can be cured in a lot of cases, its just so damn expensive and the treatment is beyond torturous that some patients cannot handle it. Stem cells are amazing. But we need cheaper technology to replicate them into the cancer destroyers they need to be, as well as find ways to ease the pain of that internal battle.
  1. Aboutplants · 1790190673 · focus · HN ↗
    Please tell me more about these “cures” you speak of. Because to my knowledge, yes we are good at getting patients into remission, we do not have “cures” Coupled with the fact that treatment is often life altering in and of itself
    toomuchtodo · 1790190740 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/research/car-t-cells" rel="nofollow">https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/research/car-t...
    D-Machine · 1790237162 · focus · HN ↗
    CAR-T is not a cure in any sense of the word, in part because "cure" is just not a scientifically valid concept in oncology. I would know, CAR-T saved my life, but this was at great cost and is not even remotely close to a guarantee <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49827669">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49827669
    victorbjorklund · 1790191062 · focus · HN ↗
    Semantics. Cancer is uncontrolled growth of cells. Treating it is killing/removing the cancer cells. Problem of course is you are never sure if you got all of them. If you got all of them you are “cured”. If you didn’t you are not cured in case the remaining cells manage to grow and spread again. We don’t talk about “cure” because of course it is impossible to verify if 100% is gone or not.
    jobs_throwaway · 1790191959 · focus · HN ↗
    Why is it 'of course impossible'? Couldn't we someday have nanobots or other tech that could screen all your cells and be able to indicate whether any cancerous cells remain?
    SpicyLemonZest · 1790193192 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    smolder · 1790193234 · focus · HN ↗
    If we were able to find cancer cells with a precision down to 1 cell, killing them would be trivial. It's possible we will get there someday. I think bioengineering is the most likely route. I.e., design a virus to specifically target the type of cancer cell you mean to eradicate.
    dekhn · 1790195792 · focus · HN ↗
    Strictly speaking, no impossible from our understanding of physics, but also an enormous scientific and engineering problem. research into that would take away from people working on more reasonable approaches today.
    asdff · 1790206554 · focus · HN ↗
    We already have these nanobots in our bodies. This is the entire rub with cancer. There is amazingly strong selective pressure to evolve ways to avoid our existing nanobots. Artificial nanobots would be no different in this respect.
    D-Machine · 1790237090 · focus · HN ↗
    Correct. The people here saying CAR-T is a cure have no clue at all what they are talking about, and I say this as someone that is only alive right now because of CAR-T <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49827669">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49827669
    sourcinnamon · 1790191167 · focus · HN ↗
    In addition to the other comment mentioning CAR-T therapies, we also have therapies based on tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs)
    <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2024/fda-amtagvi-til-therapy-melanoma" rel="nofollow">https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2024...
    <a href="https://jitc.bmj.com/content/8/2/e000848" rel="nofollow">https://jitc.bmj.com/content/8/2/e000848 (careful: Figure 1 can be very graphical, but it shows the huge positive impact of this therapy)
    We also have therapies based on monoclonal recombinant antibodies conjugated with chemotherapeutics. Simply put, we can produce antibodies that are specific for markers present in the surface of cancer cells, and we can attach drugs that can kill those cells. The antibody part is what makes this type of therapy very effective (you target only cancer cells, and not healthy cells) and also very expensive.
    D-Machine · 1790237028 · focus · HN ↗
    There is no world in which CAR-T is a "cure", especially since this isn't even a scientific term in oncology. We generally say if there is no relapse after 5 years post-treatment, then any cancer is a "new" cancer, so 5 years of remission is the closest thing to a "cure", but this isn't a scientific term.
    Also, we barely have more than 3 years data for CAR-T for most cancers. And even still, the survival rates aren't great, in many cases 50% compared to e.g. <20% for previous chemo-immunotherapies plus marrow transplants. And this ignores how massively immunocompromised CAR-T leaves you (for at least a year in close to half of cases, but maybe even permanently, in perhaps as high as 10% of cases, at least for some lymphomas).
    I say this as a person that is only alive because of CAR-T treatment 1.5 years ago.
    ransom1538 · 1790191213 · focus · HN ↗
    Burn (radiation). Cut. Poison (chemo). Your picks for cancer. IMHO Eat less. Remove all sugar and vitamins. Go a week without food. Give your body time to kill the weak cancer cells before they grow exponentially.
    Glyptodon · 1790192310 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't know about "cured" but I've been cancer free for something like ~27 years. With childhood cancers some of them have very high rates of "cure," but it is true that the impact of the treatments (at that time at least) follows you for life in various ways. The more modern immunotherapies and such seem potentially much better than chemo if they can be turned into successful and consistent approaches.
3. boothby · 1790190651 · focus · HN ↗
  > Real world testing takes a long time and is an unavoidable part of the process.
  Not if it's a virus
  1. SwellJoe · 1790191210 · focus · HN ↗
    Nothing like releasing poorly tested viruses on the public to really earn trust.
    boothby · 1790230580 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't expect such a release to be deliberate on the part of the humans. Just, hooking bots up to wet labs and having coffee while the world burns.
4. baq · 1790190821 · focus · HN ↗
  Dario would like to ‘cure’ aging. He’s got some personal experience with bad illnesses, but aging isn’t that. I also have reduced trust for people who want to live forever and don’t have kids.
  1. rafaelero · 1790191050 · focus · HN ↗
    > I also have reduced trust for people who want to live forever and don’t have kids.
    How so?
    pooloo · 1790191418 · focus · HN ↗
    Not OP, but wanting eternal life without leaving a legacy just sounds like someone trying to be a god and is very narcissistic behavior
    jobs_throwaway · 1790191800 · focus · HN ↗
    Or they just enjoy life and want to keep living? What about it is 'trying to be a god'?
    [deleted] · 1790192929 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    freejazz · 1790193735 · focus · HN ↗
    The never dying part...
    keeda · 1790195977 · focus · HN ↗
    "Gods are immortal" does not imply "immortals are god" though. Like the movies showed us, you could always just cut off their heads. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
    rosslh · 1790192091 · focus · HN ↗
    Gods famously don't have legacies
    hlynurd · 1790193582 · focus · HN ↗
    A lot of parents are literally trying to live forever in some way by leaving a legacy.
    sebzim4500 · 1790199482 · focus · HN ↗
    Isn't wanting billions of other people to die infinitely more narcissistic than not wanting to die yourself?
  2. SwellJoe · 1790191119 · focus · HN ↗
    > I also have reduced trust for people who want to live forever and don’t have kids.
    I want to live forever (or until I'm bored of it) and I don't have kids. I'm not sure what that has to do with trustworthiness.
    Edit: And, you're saying you want to die. Is that more trustworthy than not wanting to die? I suppose if you are religious, you might believe you're going somewhere good when you die, in which case, you don't actually believe death exists, so we're having different conversations. I believe death exists and is permanent, and I'd like to not do that.
    hlynurd · 1790191248 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah we gotta put me on that list too. This is a weirdly specific prejudice.
    tripleee · 1790191287 · focus · HN ↗
    +1
    what a weird bias
    nxc18 · 1790191779 · focus · HN ↗
    Do you not want other people to die and be replaced?
    GeoAtreides · 1790192149 · focus · HN ↗
    do these other people have a fertility rate of at least 2.1?
    SwellJoe · 1790192547 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    throw310822 · 1790197807 · focus · HN ↗
    How can you want for other people what you don't want for yourself? Why should other people die, for example of cancer, when having the chance I'll opt for the cure?
    nxc18 · 1790200950 · focus · HN ↗
    I don’t want to live longer than a natural human lifespan. When I was younger and immature I did, but I’ve outgrown that. Death is as natural a part of life as birth.
    SwellJoe · 1790201532 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    nxc18 · 1790270386 · focus · HN ↗
    I assure you it can happen as young as thirty. Or you can desperately cling to life until it is ripped away forcefully, leaving you in a panic.
    I think early death is bad in the general case.
    tripleee · 1790270974 · focus · HN ↗
    What is an early death?
    Life expectancy has changed a lot. In 1900 the life expectancy was around 40. A while before that it was 30. What will it be if we cure cancer, alzheimers, dementia, heart disease (the main killers of "old age")?
    This sounds like you've just accepted that death is inevitable and you might as well not fight it, which is fair, but that's quite different from not wanting to live longer if the opportunity was available.
    throw310822 · 1790217254 · focus · HN ↗
    The question is not if you want to live longer. It's "when you'll get cancer, will you refuse the cure to get rid of it"? And when you'll be old and frail and full of aches, will you refuse medicines to make your mind sharper and your body stronger? And when you'll be a strong, healthy and sharp 95 yo, will you choose euthanasia because you've reached the natural human lifespan?
    solenoid0937 · 1790218846 · focus · HN ↗
    This is just copium. On your deathbed, offered the chance to live another decade with the vitality of your 20s alongside your loved ones, you almost certainly would not say this unless you were actually just suicidal.
    sebzim4500 · 1790199391 · focus · HN ↗
    Obviously not? What an insane question
    nxc18 · 1790200886 · focus · HN ↗
    You would like Trump and Biden and their generation of leadership to be in power for the next 200 years? You would like for there to never be a disruptive new generation of people bringing fresh ideas and fresh thinking ever again? You wish to be encumbered by 17th century thinking and ideas for the rest of eternity because those people never died and grew set in their ways?
    SwellJoe · 1790201457 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    sebzim4500 · 1790204719 · focus · HN ↗
    a) I don't want any of those things b) I don't understand why you think those things are necessary consequences of people living much longer c) Even if they were, I don't want 'fresh ideas' so much that I am willing to sacrifice tens of billions of people for them
    nxc18 · 1790270156 · focus · HN ↗
    > I don't understand why you think those things are necessary consequences of people living much longer
    You’ve seen the consequences already of people routinely living into their late 80s and you think adding a few hundred years would make that better?
    Yes, people should grow old and die.
    bigfudge · 1790192134 · focus · HN ↗
    Not Op but there’s a inch of people asking why, and I have a similar feeling to op so here’s my post hoc justification for a weakly held and poorly supported prejudice:
    It’s really because statistically, in my experience people without kids are more selfish than those without. This is more in description than judgement, but it’s true in my experience. We can speculate as to reasons, but looking after kids does train a certain kind of selflessness. Agreed we might be doing it for ultimately selfish reasons (self presentational or for care in old age or whatever). But for a good chunk of the time, caring for kids seems to require the fairly consistent subjugation of personal preferences, and a degeee of perspective taking, that I just think people without kids don’t have. And that often shows in their interactions at work and in daily life. Obviously there are myriad exceptions. But it’s true enough in my experience.
    The wanting to live forever part also seems weird to me, and correlated with a certain sort of self regarding perspective. It seems obvious to me that I (or my generations) need to die for my children and grandchildren to have a good life. To try and subvert that also seems selfish or self important somehow.
    I’m not really arguing this is a correct or good or just position. It might be terrible! But it did resonate..
    AbsurdCensor · 1790193776 · focus · HN ↗
    > It’s really because statistically, in my experience people without kids are more selfish than those without.
    That would certainly be your opinion. I think the ultimate selflessness in a world being more and more damaged by humans would to elect not to perpetuate the species, and help try to leave the world a better place for those who do choose to have kids.
    anthonypasq · 1790194151 · focus · HN ↗
    very very bizarre ideology. Glad you arent having kids. thank you for your service.
    mik1998 · 1790194550 · focus · HN ↗
    That's an absurdly selfish position. You're taking a stance that not existing is superior to living in the future, all the while living in the world yourself. Might as well advocate for nuclear genocide.
    tuesdaynight · 1790195815 · focus · HN ↗
    Why selfish? They said that they want to leave the world a better place for other people children. Is there something that I didn't get as an ESL?
    AbsurdCensor · 1790279866 · focus · HN ↗
    It's incredibly selfish to think that your value to pollute the planet is somehow more valuable than not existing.
    muspimerol · 1790195690 · focus · HN ↗
    The flaw in that ideology is that everyone relies on the next generation for care in their old age. Taking advantage of the future generation without contributing to raising it isn't selfless in the slightest.
    If you live in a developed country you probably already have a demographic crisis. Not having kids is hurting the next generation, not helping.
    hlynurd · 1790198773 · focus · HN ↗
    It still baffles me that some have children to have someone around them when they're old
    AbsurdCensor · 1790279489 · focus · HN ↗
    How is it a flawed ideology? There are a whole lot of places around the world who have people that want to help, allow them to help and pay them appropriately and at the same time make it easier for folks to live longer and more productive lives without the dedicated assistances of others. It's almost like 'community' means not just for the young.
    ForHackernews · 1790194163 · focus · HN ↗
    Isn't this just selfishness once removed? "I'm not doing this for me — it's for my kid, I would do ANYTHING (lie, cheat, steal, murder, bribe the admissions staff) for my child. See how selfless I am?"
    BeetleB · 1790194774 · focus · HN ↗
    > It’s really because statistically, in my experience people without kids are more selfish than those without.
    I've witnessed the opposite: Having kids made people much more selfish. Resources were plenty before they had kids, so they would spend a lot (time and money) on others - be it friends or the general public.
    When kids come along, two things happen:
    1. Resources are limited, so a lot less goes outside the family.
    2. At least one parent will put the foot down when being generous to people outside the family - even if the wealth/income supports being able to do so. Tribalism sets in.
    phainopepla2 · 1790201319 · focus · HN ↗
    Selfishness is commonly understood as putting one's own interest above everyone else's to an excessive degree, not the interest of their family. If you redefine it to include family interests then I think everyone would agree that having a family makes people more selfish, often dramatically so.
    I just object to the redefinition.
    BeetleB · 1790203532 · focus · HN ↗
    I think this "redefinition" is apt in the context of the conversation. It's about people mistrusting those without kids because they are viewed as selfish, and I'm pointing out that they're often the least selfish, and more likely to "help the world" in situations where they do not benefit.
    bigfudge · 1790234766 · focus · HN ↗
    I can see your point, although in my experience it hasn’t actually worked that way. But even then, normalised for the amount of free time they have i think it’s unlikely to hold .
    Take a specific scenario: imagine a difficult outdoors adventure maybe cycling or walking, when the weather is bad and something has gone wrong (and any kids have been left at home). All else equal would you rather be stuck with a parent or a non parent?!
    cannonpalms · 1790194920 · focus · HN ↗
    This aligns with my own experience to a T.
    rtsil · 1790195359 · focus · HN ↗
    Paying full taxes to support a society where people with kids pay less taxes and receive more benefits from the State is certainly not selfish. That's the case in my country, at least.
    charcircuit · 1790196519 · focus · HN ↗
    Money is not the only way one can contribute to one's society. Doubling the amount of productive people to society is also a big contribution.
    swat535 · 1790258113 · focus · HN ↗
    Those people pay less tax, because their children will pay for your retirement and provide support at your old age.
    asdff · 1790197481 · focus · HN ↗
    >It’s really because statistically, in my experience
    Uhh, no. Your experience is not data.
    sebzim4500 · 1790199293 · focus · HN ↗
    >in my experience people without kids are more selfish than those without
    This goes so far against my own (equally anecdotal) experience that one of us must be living in a bubble
    orangecat · 1790203222 · focus · HN ↗
    The wanting to live forever part also seems weird to me
    Wanting to die after a handful of decades seems weird to me, especially if you're in good health.
    It seems obvious to me that I (or my generations) need to die for my children and grandchildren to have a good life
    That is very much not obvious.
    bigfudge · 1790235012 · focus · HN ↗
    Boomer health and life expectancy is one of the issues western countries are struggling with now. Having GenZ pay for extended expensive retirements whilst simultaneously gouging them for artificially scare accommodation is the result. Now imagine everyone lives in perfect health forever. The incumbency effect for wealth and power is going to be overwhelming without pretty fundamental political and social change.
    Perhaps you think that is possible? I hope so, but the evidence from octogenarian US politics isn’t hopeful.
    orangecat · 1790361482 · focus · HN ↗
    Boomer health and life expectancy is one of the issues western countries are struggling with now
    Yes, because old people need expensive health care and are much less productive. Those are two of the major reasons to solve aging. (The third and most important being quality of life).
    Now imagine everyone lives in perfect health forever.
    That would be great. Medical costs would fall drastically, and the worker-to-dependent ratio goes way up.
    esikich · 1790204657 · focus · HN ↗
    I've long been thinking about making a browser addon to block HN users. You've inspired me to get this done tonight, thank you for the push, your comment is unhinged and I'd rather not ever have to read what you say about anything else.
    krapp · 1790204858 · focus · HN ↗
    If you don't want to do the work look up "HN Comments Owl."
    Glyptodon · 1790192169 · focus · HN ↗
    I think there's a nuance gap here. Many of us, if offered, would be happy to live for a a millennium or two if we'd stay at worst middle-aged. But there's a giant gap between being willing to take that offer if given, and a desire for it being a big personal motivating factor.
    patcon · 1790192592 · focus · HN ↗
    > I want to live forever (or until I'm bored of it) and I don't have kids. I'm not sure what that has to do with trustworthiness.
    When I hear people say stuff like this, I hear that they want to remove the single most universal chesterton's fence in all of living systems. I hear them take pride in their/our hubris, and demonstrate willingness to put the whole multiplex ecology of life at risk because they believe themselves/us to be more clever than thermodynamic evolution.
    Biological singletons (outside very specific niche situations) are not meant to persist, and most anything that has tried, it has simply been selected out of the lineage. This constraint (which we don't understand yet) is presumably the whole reason why biology discovered and moved into the more ephemeral higher-order substrate of thought and culture.
    Just my feelings though. Feel free to disagree.
    lirolero · 1790193277 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    hlynurd · 1790193678 · focus · HN ↗
    > are not meant to
    Because it hasn't happened?
    SwellJoe · 1790193947 · focus · HN ↗
    Chesterton's fence implies intention, a will, a decision to stand up the fence. I don't believe in gods, so my existence and its length were determined by a series of accidents. It isn't right or wrong or even optimal, it's just the traits that survived thus far.
    It isn't even a rule of biology. There are living things with much longer lifespans than humans, some even effectively immortal (absent predation or accident or climate change).
    Your language implies you believe in a creator of some sort, something making decisions about how things should be. You've called it "biology", but "biology" doesn't "discover" or have a "reason" for doing things.
    > I hear them take pride in their/our hubris, and demonstrate willingness to put the whole multiplex ecology of life at risk because they believe themselves/us to be more clever than thermodynamic evolution.
    I hear you taking pride in accepting death on a quite short timespan as a necessity, and hubris that one individual living longer puts "the whole multiplex ecology of life at risk".
    We have already disconnected from evolution, to a large degree. Many people who would have died in childhood a couple hundred years ago now survive to adulthood and procreation.
    Should we stop vaccinating children because they were supposed to die to protect the delicate balance? Surely it is hubris to prevent their deaths when evolution and biology discovered polio and smallpox to kill and maim them? If there is a biological Chesterton's fence it is probably sitting somewhere around five years old and half of people wouldn't make it past it.
    howunfortunate · 1790196435 · focus · HN ↗
    > Chesterton's fence implies intention, a will, a decision to stand up the fence
    It most certainly does not.
    SwellJoe · 1790197555 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    howunfortunate · 1790198433 · focus · HN ↗
    As one obvious example, evolution is not agentic but still answers "why" questions.
    "Why do we have a heart" "Why do we sweat", etc.
    But Chesterton's fence is often used in an even MORE generalized way than just that, not "why is it there" but "what are we not seeing about how this connects to everything else"
    As an example, eradicating mosquitos. We see many obvious reasons why it might be good, we can even see that they don't seem that important in the food chain, but it would be hubris to assume we understand every potential connection they have to world ecology.
    SwellJoe · 1790202026 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    SwellJoe · 1790213148 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    orangecat · 1790203420 · focus · HN ↗
    they believe themselves/us to be more clever than thermodynamic evolution.
    "Thermodynamic evolution" says that sick kids should be left to die so that we can replace them with a better roll of the genetic dice. Yes, I do think we're more clever than that.
    patcon · 1790205338 · focus · HN ↗
    That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is us as a larger living system, coarse-grain scale. We each live at fine-grained scale. Negotiating truths and values between those is the fuckin work of being alive. Bluntly, some might reasonably ask: who wants you individually to be happy and surrounding by family if your society trends toward failure? That's not me saying "I don't care about you" (I do!) but it's me pointing out that there are fuzzy lines when negotiating values across scales.
    Death is part of our thriving and a part of us ("us" in the Gaian sense) at the largest coarse-grain scale, though it hurts like hell at the fine-grain one
    SwellJoe · 1790213567 · focus · HN ↗
    > who would reasonably prioritize your individual happiness and health if the cost on your society/culture means a trend toward collapse?
    What evidence do you have that people living longer would cause a trend toward collapse? What evidence do you have that people who live longer and without debilitating health problems wouldn't care more about the future of our planet and society and be able to achieve more toward improving it?
    You're accusing people who want to live longer of selfishly causing societal collapse acting as though you're taking a moral high road, preserving a precious thing, but you're arguing that 8 billion people alive today should die. That's a remarkable bit of ethical gymnastics and a monstrous position to take by my reckoning.
    I was kind of OK with it when I was thinking, "OK, religious people believe nobody ever really dies." Which I believe is a fairy story, but one that many people believe and are raised to believe. But, yours seems to be your own brand of religion, and it doesn't even pretend people actually never die and go to heaven but you want it to happen to everyone anyway, which is really something.
    solenoid0937 · 1790218532 · focus · HN ↗
    There is no coherent reasoning with this crowd. It's just rationalized copium about the fact that they will die.
    They don't dare to dream of a world in which this isn't the case because you can't get hurt by a future you don't believe in.
    patcon · 1790225204 · focus · HN ↗
    Ugh, I suppose I perhaps seem as insufferably myopic to you, as you do to me.
    Collapse is evident in that almost nothing survives being immortal except cancers and flatworms. You witness the evidence of this "collapse" all around you in that virtually nothing deigns to live forever and tell the tale (genetically speaking), and then you call me neglectful of some so-called evidence?
    And as for your challenge, you don't know the conversations I've had with people I love. The politics of immortality are so challenging that I would not write my sincere beliefs so readily on the public internet.
    EDIT: I do appreciate the chance to engage with ppl so different from the sort I regularly speak with, and so am grateful for the words, even if it seems we are both a little frustrated by them. Which is to say, thanks
    solenoid0937 · 1790253336 · focus · HN ↗
    Humans are unique. We solve problems. Lots of things we do - cannot be seen in nature and would be thought to be impossible. I am sure you can think of many examples!
    The political problem is a solvable one. We have been solving such problems for millennia. It is not a reason for eight billion people to die.
    patcon · 1790296983 · focus · HN ↗
    Agree to disagree, but I appreciate the sincerity, and I know that what you're saying seems very reasonable to many :)
    patcon · 1790224682 · focus · HN ↗
    Collapse is evident in that almost nothing survives being immortal except cancers and flatworms. You witness the evidence of this "collapse" all around you in that nothing deigns to live forever and tell the tale, and then you call me neglectful of evidence?
    alasano · 1790192948 · focus · HN ↗
    The prejudice is based on billionaires being the first to get access to the cure for aging in these hypothetical scenarios.
    While everyone else can't afford it. Hard to think of a more demoralizing "off with their heads" dystopian scenario.
    ForHackernews · 1790194288 · focus · HN ↗
    Agree. If I have to die, Musk better die first.
    SwellJoe · 1790194591 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, sure, but there are solutions to those particular billionaires. We don't have any politicians I'm aware of that are willing to consider those solutions, but they exist. Societies, including the US (to some degree), have solved the problem of oligarchs in the past through various means. We can do it again, and should consider all the options.
    notnullorvoid · 1790196316 · focus · HN ↗
    On a personal level it would be demoralizing to see some billionaires live multiple lifetimes, but only a tad more demoralizing than seeing the wealth disparity we already have and the changing line of idiot faces at the top.
    optimalsolver · 1790197052 · focus · HN ↗
    Think of rich people as beta testers.
    andriy_koval · 1790197131 · focus · HN ↗
    especially given how they fund their billions from 401k through rapid inclusion into indexes, building DCs near residential areas, steeling IP, regulatory capture and hype driving manipulations.
    throw310822 · 1790197537 · focus · HN ↗
    Don't worry, all these people moralising on the importance of aging and dying will do their utmost to live longer and in better health whenever the time of the choice comes. No one will say "oh well I guess I'll just keep this illness because that's the natural course of things"- they will get the medicines and the surgery, the creams and the lotions, they'll jog and limit exposure to the sun and avoid smoking and drinking. Given the choice, unless incurably ill or in the depth of despair, they'll always choose life. At least for themselves.
  3. nicman23 · 1790191258 · focus · HN ↗
    tbh we are trying to treat aging as a chronic illness and we probably will
  4. onlyrealcuzzo · 1790191295 · focus · HN ↗
    > I also have reduced trust for people who want to live forever and don’t have kids.
    Why are you only allowed to live forever if you have kids?
    Seems like someone seeking immortality should be willing to do for the elixir if they want it even a little bit...
    bagacrap · 1790220243 · focus · HN ↗
    People who have kids are less likely to want to live forever because they've realized that children are in fact how we live forever.
  5. Varelion · 1790191345 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    jobs_throwaway · 1790191872 · focus · HN ↗
    HackerNews' neuroticism is unmatched
    Your dramatization of society's ills are not tethered to reality
    Varelion · 1790193684 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not? Have your seen climate change forecast? Have you seen the cost of diesel? Eeosion of democracy in the US?
    DeluluDon · 1790197055 · focus · HN ↗
    Have you lived long enough to see it go up and down?
    kamyarg · 1790198479 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surface_temperature" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surface_temperature
    You can see this is not a cyclic issue.
    Or atleast not a cycle shorter than couple thousand years.
    rafaelvasco · 1790198227 · focus · HN ↗
    Please. Every single age of humanity, there have been hardships. It was actually much worse before: Diseases galore, famine, pests, wars. You're severely negatively biased as is a lot of other people I've seen.
    feoren · 1790201536 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't care how hard it was to live in Abyssinia. This is absolutely the worst time to try to make a life in the United States since WWII ended 80 years ago, and there's every reason to believe it is going to continue to get worse for a long time. I have no idea why you are dismissive of people saying this is a difficult time.
    rendang · 1790208876 · focus · HN ↗
    The standard of living/real GDP per capita or per hour of work is about as high as it's ever been.
    solenoid0937 · 1790218977 · focus · HN ↗
    Have you read a history book to gain even the slightest comprehension of what the human condition was like before our era? It is the best it has ever been.
    cannonpalms · 1790195229 · focus · HN ↗
    Spoken like someone terminally online & without children. If this is your view of reality (I believe it is an utter fiction but nonetheless), then I don't know how you propose things to be improved without smart people procreating.
    throw310822 · 1790198184 · focus · HN ↗
    What's funny about this attitude is that people were having a lot of children when half of them died in their childhood and for those left there were famines, pestilences, wars, no painkillers or anesthesia and no medicines for anything.
    The reality is that we don't make many children because our life is way too comfortable for that.
  6. altcognito · 1790192030 · focus · HN ↗
    Probably should have left off the kids, but lets start with just distrusting anybody who wants to live forever. At the level of influence billionaires have, it is downright dangerous.
    For everyone else confused: Think of all the people throughout history we would prefer would not have lived forever. Then multiple that by A LOT. Then consider how greedy and sociopathic most of the billionaire class is already.
    Now, we could spend time getting distracted by childless. I don't think it matters.
    Windchaser · 1790192803 · focus · HN ↗
    I mean, wanting billionaires to not live forever (read: wanting power structures to not become excessively entrenched) is a pretty different thing.
    I'd even be fine with people who are billionaires living forever, so long as they don't remain billionaires / don't fuck with politics / etc.
    altcognito · 1790197039 · focus · HN ↗
    You can't have your cake and eat it too.
    Fundamentally the problem with living forever goes beyond billionaires. People get stuck in their ways of thinking, the mindset of living forever is completely different. Why should I even listen to someone who only lives a mere 40 years? What is a suitable punishment for someone that lives forever? How does it change murder?
    Philosophically, living forever may be corrupt by nature.
    The only way to tear down tiers of society is for some of those tiers to literally die off.
    Windchaser · 1790262809 · focus · HN ↗
    > Fundamentally the problem with living forever goes beyond billionaires. People get stuck in their ways of thinking > Philosophically, living forever may be corrupt by nature
    Sure, if people get stuck in their ways forever. But what if they don't?
    If we can solve longevity, we might also be able to "solve" brain plasticity, therapy, psychology, sociology, etc., such that people's beliefs will be more flexible and people's minds more open.
    I think it is incorrect to assume that we would solve biology while all of the fields researching the health of the mind made little progress.
    We shouldn't imagine the future as being like today, only different in a few key ways - this is the trap of sci-fi authors. The future will be different in more ways than we expect. We might well fix 'old people are stuck in their ways' before we fix longevity.
    altcognito · 1790348246 · focus · HN ↗
    You can "solve" human biology? For what optimal outcome? We can all be Elons running around trying to procreate as much as possible? What is the optimal human model? How is human biology NOT going to become anything except the same distorted race to the bottom that everything else has been? We've not solved the mental model of survival-of-the-fittest.
    The best analogy for a positive outcome I can come up with is living within our means as a species. Leverage AI, leverage all the tools we have for production, but we have to find equalibrium with ourselves and the universe we live in.
    I'll vote for the terminators and meteors if we insist on living beyond our means.
  7. lukeify · 1790192112 · focus · HN ↗
    > I also have reduced trust for people who want to live forever and don’t have kids.
    I have reduced trust in people who make judgements about the value systems of others based on fairly meaningless characteristics.
    password54321 · 1790196921 · focus · HN ↗
    Aging is one of the only real equalisers. Maybe the greatest equaliser. Though those that have become old seemed to have become more stubborn in holding on to power but even that will pass.
  8. carra · 1790192354 · focus · HN ↗
    I mean, if people start living forever, they better stop having kids... at least until we colonize other planets.
  9. modeless · 1790193850 · focus · HN ↗
    I would like him to cure aging too! I have kids, am I allowed to want to live indefinitely?
  10. bagacrap · 1790220351 · focus · HN ↗
    It seems pretty apparent that he thinks Claude is his child and Claude deserves as much or more rights/resources/respect/self-determination as a human child.
5. risyachka · 1790190833 · focus · HN ↗
  >> the solution to AI's PR problem is to cure cancer
  I think its much simpler than that. Anything actually useful for people would be a good solution.
  Obviously image gen and code gen is not the case, as though it does increase productivity, it doesn't make anyone's life actually better. If it led to 4 day work week - sure. Otherwise it could easily be net negative.
  1. BurningFrog · 1790191230 · focus · HN ↗
    If something is being used, it's by definition useful, and AI is used a lot.
    Epa095 · 1790197252 · focus · HN ↗
    Like fentanyl, tobacco, heroin, sugar,... All very useful...
    BurningFrog · 1790474193 · focus · HN ↗
    That's a valid and interesting discussion!
    risyachka · 1790257112 · focus · HN ↗
    Sorry I meant useful for people as in humanity. Not for a business that needs to automate email spam campaign.
    BurningFrog · 1790272392 · focus · HN ↗
    While common, this is such a weird idea...
    Businesses are just groups of people working together.
    I've worked in several businesses and seen it myself!
6. Chance-Device · 1790190938 · focus · HN ↗
  Really now, everything is bad? Trying to cure diseases? Talking about it? That’s bad somehow! Let me sit here on my ass and do nothing instead.
  1. Banditoz · 1790191020 · focus · HN ↗
    Who are you referring to? This reads like projection.
    Chance-Device · 1790191254 · focus · HN ↗
    Read the comment. This is cynical and bad because they’re going to advertise that they’re trying to do something socially beneficial.
    It’s the top rated comment in the thread. Somebody tried to do something good, this is the response.
    This pisses me off severely.
    AndrewKemendo · 1790191554 · focus · HN ↗
    It’s because these people do not believe they are trying to do something good, but instead run a cynical plot to get more powerful under the guise
    airstrike · 1790196707 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    Chance-Device · 1790197680 · focus · HN ↗
    Your comment is vacuous. There isn’t any other part of the picture. Trying to advance medicine is inherently good. It doesn’t matter how much you use it for marketing. None of what they have done is fake or useless, it is at worst early.
    suddenlybananas · 1790201125 · focus · HN ↗
    Unit 731 supposedly advanced medicine no?
    Chance-Device · 1790233703 · focus · HN ↗
    This is just silly.
    suddenlybananas · 1790234553 · focus · HN ↗
    The point is just you can't just insist on looking at the pros and ignoring the cons of something broad.
    airstrike · 1790201142 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    Chance-Device · 1790202988 · focus · HN ↗
    Would you care to state what this picture is?
    airstrike · 1790205290 · focus · HN ↗
    Misrepresenting matters of fact with regards to AI capabilities, their perceived threat to the public, as well as unorthodox accounting that wouldn't pass the smell test of a summer intern in Wall Street, all to fuel an unsustainable hype in the hopes that (1) the government enacts regulatory capital to create a moat for AI foundries by fiat and (2) the incoming IPO miraculously fixes the propped up valuations secured in private markets.
    First, do no harm.
    Chance-Device · 1790233637 · focus · HN ↗
    If that’s your picture then I see why you didn’t just come out and say it in your first reply. It’s all your own speculation and still has nothing to do with the fact that trying to make medical progress is a good thing.
  2. modeless · 1790194080 · focus · HN ↗
    In fact, I think it's great and I'm rooting for them. I just don't think it's likely to improve AI's public image anytime soon.
    Chance-Device · 1790195669 · focus · HN ↗
    Glad to hear how you feel about it. However, and this applies more generally than your comment above, what people online often forget is that there is such a thing as both positive and negative reinforcement. If you don’t reinforce positive behaviours as well as denouncing bad ones, then you don’t get good outcomes.
    And reading my own comment back to myself, I realise I do this too, and fail to positively reinforce as much as denounce.
  3. yurimo · 1790221292 · focus · HN ↗
    This is cheap. Plenty of scientists, many of whom are my friends, are working very hard on finding new therapies for cancer, they were doing it before genomic models came along and still doing it now. The amount of times something in the media is lauded as "holy grail" that is never heard from again because it either only works in mice or turns out to be toxic or 100s of different reasons is massive. In my opinion this attitude of putting rose glasses on is detrimental to scientific progress. People outside of cancer research routinely underestimate how hard it is to find a working protocol. I think it is better to have sober attitude because it allows one to see the limitations and challenges that need to be tackled, blindly hoping AI can solve everything and deliver miracle cures is exactly the attitude that lets people sit on their asses and do nothing.
7. segmondy · 1790191109 · focus · HN ↗
  You can't say this. We have no idea. There is nothing about the law of physics that pushes cancer cure a long time away. A lot of people would have told you AI was decades away, yet here we are. We are still on track for possible strong take off.
  Now on real world testing, you think the rule applies? I tell you it doesn't. Human life might be precious, but human life in practice is also not precious. We waste so much of it. In some countries regulations will stop/slow it, but there are plenty of places around the world that will turn a blind eye for a fistful of dollars. Countries will go to those locations if it means gaining an edge.
  1. whatisthiseven · 1790191367 · focus · HN ↗
    Cancer is something like, thousands of diseases. There is no "cure for cancer", but there are treatments and vaccines for cancers.
  2. no_multitudes · 1790191799 · focus · HN ↗
    There are many things about the laws of physics that push a cancer cure a long time away! Biology is downstream of physics, and the biology of cancer is so vast that the very concept of a "cure for cancer" is almost nonsensical.
  3. SpicyLemonZest · 1790192175 · focus · HN ↗
    There's a lot about biology that makes cancer fundamentally hard to treat, and the efficacy of cancer treatments fundamentally hard to measure. I'm optimistic that we'll eventually get to a point where we can meaningfully say we "cured cancer", but it will almost certainly be a cluster of thousands of treatment protocols which each have to be tested over 5-10 years for recurrence. There's no reason to expect that there should exist any broad-spectrum cancer treatment better than radiotherapy, or any fast test to determine whether long-term remission will be achieved.
  4. qlte · 1790193423 · focus · HN ↗
    Appeals to laws of physics as a "first principles" attempt to explain how thousands of diverse diseases could theoretically be solved overnight by a big computer (while hand waving away the years of clinical trials, false starts and failures involved in a single new successful treatment) just makes you seem wildly out of touch and uninformed about the actual problem space.
  5. dekhn · 1790194349 · focus · HN ↗
    There are many laws of physics that say that cures for cancer- general ones that treat a wide array of cancers and are effectively permanent with no reoccurrence- are a long time away. Cancer is subtle. Cancer is wily. Cancer is tightly integrated with our eukaryotic nature.
    AI was decades away, for decades! It took a wide range of conditions to be satisfied before it became clear it was a powerful tool.
    Also, medical people rarely use the term "cure cancer", as we have too much experience with recurrence of the "same" cancer (not just in the same location, but a genetic descendent of the original cancer).
8. mikert89 · 1790191117 · focus · HN ↗
  please no more doomer talk, can we just be excited that we have ai doing science
  1. hardbass · 1790191631 · focus · HN ↗
    I am already having a headache thinking of the whining from the biologist community (if any? I hope their reaction is not as extreme as that of mathematicians).
    mikert89 · 1790192728 · focus · HN ↗
    easily the biggest deal in these fields for a while, and all we get is complaining
9. kanzure · 1790191338 · focus · HN ↗
  Yep, my prediction is that Anthropic is going to use Claude's reputation to "launder" known solutions to aging, cancer, and other things that society hasn't accepted quite yet. But maybe with the right marketing we'll try those things!
  <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49329717">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49329717
10. JumpCrisscross · 1790191362 · focus · HN ↗
  > Dario believes that the solution to AI's PR problem is to cure cancer
  He isn’t wrong. But selling potential cures for cancer won’t cut it.
11. walt_grata · 1790191462 · focus · HN ↗
  Its going to be an uphill battle. Every story about job losses, consequences to the community from building a datacenter (real or perceived), eminent domain case that blows up, plus all the slop on every platform. Not to mention a lot of normies think techbros are obnoxious, and that is who is hyping ai.
  They'll need to show their goal is to help humanity and that all the other peoole arent acceptable collateral damage. Since those other people get to vote.
12. impulser_ · 1790191590 · focus · HN ↗
  As they should because things like this get people thinking even if it something small. Once you get people thinking about things you tend to get solutions.
13. Sol- · 1790191662 · focus · HN ↗
  Also the general public might find the implications of AGI so distasteful even if everything goes well that we might stall out or get the Butlerian Jihad before we can cure cancer. Artists and Software Engineers, now also Mathematicians, already have existential crises, but the public still thinks AI is fake. I can't imagine the backlash when the realize what's coming even in the good ending.
14. mirekrusin · 1790192084 · focus · HN ↗
  Given his background (biophysics PhD, postdoc at Stanford School of Medicine) and that medicine was the core of Machines of Loving Grace back in 2024 it reads less like PR and more like a long-held goal, no? Personally I'm actually surprised it took so long.
  Agree trials won't compress much with AI in the near future. But they're starting with basic discovery rather than therapeutics – that part can move fast.
  I'd also judge it less by what result is and more by the rate of change – even a year ago ~1k agents running ~1d on single prompt producing wet-lab-verifiable leads wasn't really a thing.
15. AbsurdCensor · 1790193659 · focus · HN ↗
  Real world approvals for drugs are accelerating through, even with all the steps. Think about it, Moderna went from zero, to approved vaccine in 10 months. While COVID vaccines were the exception, not the rule, there are ways to accelerate the process if there is will and $$$. In the last 20 years, the number of new drug approvals per year in the US has doubled, and the length of time to get approval has been cut in half.
  1. modeless · 1790194006 · focus · HN ↗
    > the length of time to get approval has been cut in half.
    Is this true? I haven't heard this before. Cost to get approved is also important, are we making progress there?
    dekhn · 1790195147 · focus · HN ↗
    No, the parent post was just using a single example that used an expedited method.
    AbsurdCensor · 1790279564 · focus · HN ↗
    It's absolutely true, it literally takes five seconds to learn what PDUFA has done for accelerating drug approvals in the US.
16. asciimov · 1790218031 · focus · HN ↗
  Gotta be first to get the patent, a blanket cancer cure would be worth trillions.

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