Will AI kill us - or cure us?
I read an essay this week written by Dario Amodei - the CEO of Anthropic. It's a long-ish read, but if you're interested, you can find it here: https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace
In the essay, Dario discusses the potential of AI to positively transform society. He envisions AI revolutionising areas such as healthcare, economics and governance, while also addressing the ethical and safety concerns associated with advanced AI technologies.
I was particularly struck by the section on Biology and Health, where Dario predicts that "AI-enabled biology and medicine will allow us to compress the progress that human biologists would have achieved over the next 50-100 years into 5-10 years."
Dario goes on to list some of the advances which may be achievable in this scenario. They include:
I was stunned by these predictions. Dario acknowledges that they are based on no more than informed guesswork. But even if he's less than half right, then we are heading towards a future which is radically different to where we are right now.
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There's very little coverage of this in the mainstream media. All I see and read right now is about the US elections, conflict in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon - and a fuss about whether our Prime Minister was right to accept tickets for a Taylor Swift concert.
As a 63 year old, I'm heading to a life stage where my chances of facing cancer, heart disease or some other health crisis are increasing by the day. I've been working on the simple stuff like diet, exercise and mental health to maximise my chances of staying healthy.
As I reflected on Dario's predictions, I felt glad that my chances of coping with any serious disease may be significantly improved in the future.
Maybe AI will cure us and not kill us. I hope so.