I will try to read your points and references and give you my perspective on that.
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This is big:
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Styled after the success of DARPA - that e.g. was behind inventions such as the Internet and GPS… ARPA-H is a new bold, ultra ambitious federal funding agency with the goal of doing the same for human health!
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This is transplantation of whole human eyes, including the optical nerve - which is part of the brain. So in addition to its value in itself, this could be a very helpful catalyst to surgically reconnect nerves and CNS.
As ARPA-H says itself:
“The success of the program extends far beyond eye transplants and vision restoration. Techniques in microsurgery and gene or cell-based therapies for nerve regeneration may have the potential to be applied to other types of nervous system damage, including spinal cord injury. By starting with the eye’s nerves, the outputs of THEA could improve research into brain repair as well.”
And
“While it has been nearly 60 years since the first successful human heart transplant, we have not been able to use similar approaches to restore a person’s sight, and that’s what makes this an ARPA-hard problem to solve,” said ARPA-H Director Renee Wegrzyn, Ph.D. “Through THEA, we’re seeking to develop the next breakthroughs in transplantation, preservation, and neuroscience to address the challenge
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Surgeons in Boston have transplanted a kidney from a genetically engineered pig into an ailing 62-year-old man, the first procedure of its kind. If successful, the breakthrough offers hope to hundreds of thousands of Americans whose kidneys have failed.
So far, the signs are promising.
Kidneys remove waste products and excess fluid from the blood. The new kidney began producing urine shortly after the surgery last weekend
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As my sister-in-law is waiting for a kidney, this could be life-saving news. Now the question is how long until everyone is approved for one/can get one?
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For the first time, scientists are attempting to grow a new, miniature liver inside of a person. It sounds like science fiction; in fact, the idea was the plot of a Grey’s Anatomy episode that aired in 2018. Now, biotech company LyGenesis is trying to turn the concept into reality.
Today, LyGenesis announced that an initial volunteer has received an injection of donor cells to turn one of their lymph nodes into a second liver. The procedure was carried out in Houston on March 25 as part of a clinical trial that will test the experimental treatment in 12 adults with end-stage liver disease.
Full article: This Bag of Cells Could Grow New Livers Inside of People (Wired)
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Full body replacement is really a non starter. Cryo worries me in so many ways. I am unsure i would want the experience of being revived and living as a damaged entity although there have been people who have got very cold and revived.
OTOH i think i understand what to do to mitigate time linked deterioration.
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Isn’t that what we all (those above 15-25 or so) are compared to our younger selves?
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True. There are always questions of how damaged, however.
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What organs can be replaced by machines? Benefits, side effects, over organic transplant? BiVACOR artificial heart:
Professor Chris Hayward, from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, said the BiVACOR heart ushered in “a whole new ball game for heart transplants.”
“Within the next decade we will see the artificial heart becoming the alternative for patients who are unable to wait for a donor heart or when a donor heart is simply not available,” said Hayward, who is overseeing the Australian patient’s recovery and was involved in preparing the device for clinical trials.
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By the editor of the piece:
See more discussion here
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Disease Research Acceleration
Currently, drug development is extremely inefficient (poor predictive models, many failed drugs), costly (>$1B/successfully developed drug), time-consuming (15+ years from in silico to drug approval), and risk-averse (hard to get investments for new strategies or new indications that don’t yet have any approved treatments)
- With non-sentient human models, we could directly test interventions for nearly all non-neurological diseases, potentially accelerating cure development by decades
- This represents an enormous multiplier on existing medical research investments. Costs for drug development could drop 1, potentially 2 orders of magnitude. Time to approval could shorten to a year.
I think it remains to be seen if we are able to create a super intelligence. To me it seems very clear both based on trajectory and based on the theory that we can create an AI that’s at least as capable as the best human in all domains. Perhaps even one that’s 10, 20, 30 or maybe 100% more capable. The real question for me is if we can achieve super intelligence that’s orders of magnitudes more capable, 10x, 100x and beyond. Or is there a ceiling somewhere at or above the best human.
To be clear, creating something that is as good as the best human in all domains would be an amazing feat simply because it’s far more scalable. The amount of energy required to run AI is minuscule compared to the amount of energy required to produce the most capable human, even if we had a way to guarantee that every new human is the most capable (ie it didn’t require 1 million to find the 1 in a million person).
I don’t think the LLMs actually have a model of reality that enables discovering things that are completely new.
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