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Yeah, I've seen more and more articles about the "singularity" in the regular media lately. I don't pay much attention to them because I don't buy into the singularity and I don't you do either. I think the main effect of advancing computer and semiconductor technology is that it makes it easier for people to do engineering work. There is software that allows you to design all kinds of stuff that you needed an engineering team to do back in the 70's or 80's. My friend in Japan designs all of his process equipment himself on his laptop, then has this small engineering company in Korea manufacture his designs. This was not possible 20 years ago. Likewise, such acceleration is occurring in biotech as well.
This is the real performance increase that is ongoing. I agree with Aubrey that bio-information is not that central to life extension. What has to be done is lots of experiments in developing the SENS concepts. I think a lot of the work, especially in stem cell regeneration medicine, will be done for us. We have to do the parts that no one else is doing such as the mitochondrial stuff, the lysosomal aggregate removal, and other such stuff. This can only be done by experiments. I think what will bring down the cost of experiments and accelerate things is producing tissue on demand from renewable stem cells (iPS). You can crank out all of the human tissues that you need to run your experiments. Better yet, you can have something like those 96 well micro plates where you can do 96 runs at a time with 96 different compounds or tissue types. Real progress will come with accelerated, reduced cost experimentation.
I don't buy into the AI hype at all. Progress is limited because of the rate and cost of experimentation, not because of limits on our IQs.
[Posted by: kurt9 at September 29, 2009 10:18 AM]
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