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sweatierorc t1_jdlhgay wrote

Reply to comment by SmLnine in [R] Reflexion: an autonomous agent with dynamic memory and self-reflection - Noah Shinn et al 2023 Northeastern University Boston - Outperforms GPT-4 on HumanEval accuracy (0.67 --> 0.88)! by Singularian2501

IMHO, I think that cancer and aging are necessary for complex organism. It is more likely that we solve cloning or build the first in vitro womb, than we are at deafeating cancer or aging.

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MINECRAFT_BIOLOGIST t1_jdlmzvv wrote

Well cloning and artificial wombs are basically done or very close, we just haven't applied it to humans due to ethical reasons. Six years ago there was already a very premature lamb kept alive in an artificial womb for four weeks.

As for cancer and aging...it seems increasingly clear that part of the process is just that genes necessary for development get dysregulated later on in life. I think the fact that we can rejuvenate our own cells by making sperm and eggs points to the fact that the dysregulation should be fixable, and recent advances in aging research seem to show that this is true. The issue is, of course, pushing that process too far and ending up with cells dedifferentiating or becoming cancerous, but I think it's possible if we're careful.

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MarmonRzohr t1_jdlyfub wrote

>artificial wombs are basically done or very close

Bruh... put down the hopium pipe. There's a bit more work to be done there - especially if you think "artifical womb" as in from conception to term, not artifical womb as in device intended from prematurely born babies.

The second one was what was demonstrated with the lamb.

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nonotan t1_jdln1d9 wrote

We already know of complex organisms that essentially don't age, and also others that are cancer-free or close to it. In any case, "prevent any and all aging and cancer before it happens" is a stupid goalpost. "Be able to quickly and affordably detect, identify and treat arbitrary strains of cancer and/or symptoms of aging" is essentially "just as good", and frankly seems like it could well already be within the reach of current models if they had the adequate "bioengineering I/O" infrastructure, and fast & accurate bioengineering simulations to train on.

ML could plausibly help in getting those online sooner, but unless you take the philosophical stance that "if we just made AGI they'd be able to solve every problem we have, so everything is effectively an ML problem", it doesn't seem like it'd be fair to say the bottlenecks to solving either of those are even related to ML in the first place. It's essentially all a matter of bioengineering coming up with the tools required.

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SmLnine t1_jdlwhtu wrote

>but unless you take the philosophical stance that "if we just made AGI they'd be able to solve every problem we have, so everything is effectively an ML problem", it doesn't seem like it'd be fair to say the bottlenecks to solving either of those are even related to ML in the first place. It's essentially all a matter of bioengineering coming up with the tools required.

We're currently using our brains (a general problem solver) to build bioengineering tools that can cheaply and easily edit the DNA of a living organism. 30 years ago this would have sounded like magic. But there's no magic here. This potential tool has always existed, we just didn't understand it.

It's possible that there are other tools in the table that we simply don't understand yet. Maybe what we've been doing the last 60 years is the bioengineering equivalent of bashing rocks together. Or maybe it's close to optimal. We don't know, and we can't know until we aim an intellectual superpower at it.

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SmLnine t1_jdlxego wrote

There are complex mammals that effectively don't get cancer, and there are less complex animals and organisms that effectively don't age. So I'm curious what your opinion is based on.

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MarmonRzohr t1_jdmj8th wrote

>There are complex mammals that effectively don't get cancer

You got a source for that ?

That's not true at all according everything I know, but maybe what I know is outdated.

AFAIK there are only mammals that seem to develop cancer much less than they should - namely large mamals like whales. Other than that every animal above and including Cnidaria deveop tumors. E.g. even the famously immortal Hydras develop tumors over time.

That's what makes cancer so tricky. There is good chance that far, far back in evolution there was a selection between longevity and rate of change or something else. Therefore may be nothing we can do to prevent cancer and can only hope for suppression / cures when / if it happens.

Again, this may be outdated.

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sweatierorc t1_jdm83bv wrote

which one ? do they not get cancer or are they more resistant to it ?

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SmLnine t1_jdmftzs wrote

I said "effectively" because a blanked statement would be unwarranted. There has probably been at least one naked mole rate in the history of the universe that got cancer.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/secrets-of-naked-mole-rat-cancer-resistance-unearthed

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sweatierorc t1_jdmkacg wrote

Sure, humans under 40 are also very resistant to cancer. My point was that cancer comes with old age, and aging seems to be a way for us to die before cancer or dementia kill us. There are "weak" evidence that people who have dementia are less likely to get a cancer. I understand that some mammals like whales or elephant seems to be very resistant to cancer, but if we were to double or triple their average life expectancy, other disease may become more prevalent, maybe even cancer.

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