Many people who think ASI will be developed soon seem to assume this means they should care less about their long-term health because in most worlds it won’t matter: they figure most likely by the time they get old they’ll either be dead or humanity will have cured aging and disease. I think it’s important to remember that the bigger update is probably on the size of the value at stake, not the probability of health interventions mattering.
Even if ASI seems like it will happen soon, I think there’s a real (if small) chance that humanity develops radical life-extension technology but not for another 50-100 years: maybe there’s an AI winter, maybe medical research ends up being inherently slow (either for legal reasons or because it requires trials in humans, and those require the humans to actually age over time), maybe humanity decides to pause and not build ASI, maybe humanity decides to have a long reflection before building any crazy technology that cures death, etc.
The upside of hanging on to life until radical life-extension technology is developed seems extremely high: there are ten trillion years or so before the stars start to burn out (and you could probably live after the stars burn out, plus, you could run a simulation of yourself that lets you live a subjectively longer time). Even if you think there are steep diminishing returns to how long you live, getting to live into the depths of the far future probably gives you more control over how the future looks. If resources are divided equally amongst currently-living humans, you should eventually expect to get your own galaxy or two, but you’d need to live long enough for that space exploration and apportionment to be sorted out.[1] Even if that assumption is too rosy, every galaxy has a trillion or so planets. Probably someone will throw you one out of charity, and those odds go up if you live a long time.
The upside is so large that even though you might think the probability of this outcome is slim compared to worlds where humanity either goes extinct or quickly cures aging and disease, it still seems overwhelmingly important to shoot for.[2]
If you buy this worldview, you probably want to focus on preserving your mind: avoiding risk factors for dementia/strokes, avoiding concussions/head trauma, avoiding literally dying.
Maybe you could try to wield similar influence through a will, but this means (1) you don’t get to experience the benefits firsthand, (2) the will might not specify what you want well enough, (3) you might not get as many resources; people don’t tend to pay as much heed to the wishes of dead people.
Almost all of the obvious interventions (excercise, at least basic medical and dental care, non-pathological eating, and reasonable limits on nootropic and recreational drugs or alcohol) have massive short- and medium-term benefits. One doesn’t need to do much long-term math or have anywhere near calibrated estimates to understand the EV of these things.
Fully optimizing toward longevity and away from enjoyment and ease in the short-term may be correct, for some estimates, but it’s not as clear. And irrelevant for the vast majority of daily behaviors.
I think that there are still very real trade-offs. Examples:
Should you wear sunscreen?
Should you smoke?
Should you decrease sodium intake so that you don’t develop hypertension?
And for many things wealth there is some short-term cost and some long-term longevity cost the long-term cost might be large enough to change the calculus.
Fully optimizing toward longevity and away from enjoyment and ease in the short-term may be correct, for some estimates, but it’s not as clear. And irrelevant for the vast majority of daily behaviors.
Running with this concept, this means postponing “living” (in the non-biological sense of having fulfilling experiences) now for the hope of being able to start “living” after life-extending technology and quality of geriatric life have increased to a point of effective immortality.
That could take decades or longer. Unsurprisingly, very, very few people—even us on LW—are likely to fully optimize if “living” is the cost today and not guaranteed later.
A significant part of why I continue to devote attention to my health is that it may be more important than usual over the next decade for my cognitive abilities to be near peak levels.
If you buy this worldview, you probably want to focus on preserving your mind: avoiding risk factors for dementia/strokes, avoiding concussions/head trauma, avoiding literally dying.
...and also sign up for cryonics (or arrange for some other form of brain preservation)?
Many people who think ASI will be developed soon seem to assume this means they should care less about their long-term health because in most worlds it won’t matter: they figure most likely by the time they get old they’ll either be dead or humanity will have cured aging and disease. I think it’s important to remember that the bigger update is probably on the size of the value at stake, not the probability of health interventions mattering.
Even if ASI seems like it will happen soon, I think there’s a real (if small) chance that humanity develops radical life-extension technology but not for another 50-100 years: maybe there’s an AI winter, maybe medical research ends up being inherently slow (either for legal reasons or because it requires trials in humans, and those require the humans to actually age over time), maybe humanity decides to pause and not build ASI, maybe humanity decides to have a long reflection before building any crazy technology that cures death, etc.
The upside of hanging on to life until radical life-extension technology is developed seems extremely high: there are ten trillion years or so before the stars start to burn out (and you could probably live after the stars burn out, plus, you could run a simulation of yourself that lets you live a subjectively longer time). Even if you think there are steep diminishing returns to how long you live, getting to live into the depths of the far future probably gives you more control over how the future looks. If resources are divided equally amongst currently-living humans, you should eventually expect to get your own galaxy or two, but you’d need to live long enough for that space exploration and apportionment to be sorted out.[1] Even if that assumption is too rosy, every galaxy has a trillion or so planets. Probably someone will throw you one out of charity, and those odds go up if you live a long time.
The upside is so large that even though you might think the probability of this outcome is slim compared to worlds where humanity either goes extinct or quickly cures aging and disease, it still seems overwhelmingly important to shoot for.[2]
If you buy this worldview, you probably want to focus on preserving your mind: avoiding risk factors for dementia/strokes, avoiding concussions/head trauma, avoiding literally dying.
Maybe you could try to wield similar influence through a will, but this means (1) you don’t get to experience the benefits firsthand, (2) the will might not specify what you want well enough, (3) you might not get as many resources; people don’t tend to pay as much heed to the wishes of dead people.
Unless it’s trading off with other goals on a similar scale, such as if you are an altruist trying to make the future better.
Almost all of the obvious interventions (excercise, at least basic medical and dental care, non-pathological eating, and reasonable limits on nootropic and recreational drugs or alcohol) have massive short- and medium-term benefits. One doesn’t need to do much long-term math or have anywhere near calibrated estimates to understand the EV of these things.
Fully optimizing toward longevity and away from enjoyment and ease in the short-term may be correct, for some estimates, but it’s not as clear. And irrelevant for the vast majority of daily behaviors.
I think that there are still very real trade-offs. Examples:
Should you wear sunscreen?
Should you smoke?
Should you decrease sodium intake so that you don’t develop hypertension?
And for many things wealth there is some short-term cost and some long-term longevity cost the long-term cost might be large enough to change the calculus.
Running with this concept, this means postponing “living” (in the non-biological sense of having fulfilling experiences) now for the hope of being able to start “living” after life-extending technology and quality of geriatric life have increased to a point of effective immortality.
That could take decades or longer. Unsurprisingly, very, very few people—even us on LW—are likely to fully optimize if “living” is the cost today and not guaranteed later.
A significant part of why I continue to devote attention to my health is that it may be more important than usual over the next decade for my cognitive abilities to be near peak levels.
...and also sign up for cryonics (or arrange for some other form of brain preservation)?
My take is that because intelligence no longer will be what defines us as humans, reconnecting with our bodies is a nice way to find purpose.