Looking at AI as a model, I don’t see a giant shift on longevity coming soon. The prospect of AGI/ASI has been a sci-fi mainstay for decades, and, as recently as ~2015, redditors were loudly proclaiming that AI would bring them total automation and a UBI check to anyone that would listen, but the general population wasn’t very receptive. Now that LLMs are a part of daily life, a lot more people are interested in them, but the sentiment I’ve seen boils down to either “I could make a lot of money by getting into this before other people do” or “I hope my pointy-haired boss doesn’t get talked into believing that ChatGPT can replace the janitor”.
Angry sentiments about data centers come partially from sometimes-overblown fears of electricity bills and water shortages, and partially from a general dislike and distrust of the ultra-rich. I haven’t really seen anyone in the general public, outside of our sphere, who sincerely expects Sam Altman and Dario Amodei to successfully “build God”. Even the religious-types seem to consider it too implausible to get mad about. Joe the Plumber has heard the hype, but has concluded[1] that it’s a bubble, even as awareness of the idea of AGI approaches saturation.
You’ve probably seen the extensive media coverage of Bryan Johnson. It’s hard to say how much he’s directly responsible for opening the Overton window on aging and life extension, but he’s clearly received as more legitimate than early fringe-coded RLE efforts, even if half of his audience is morbidly fascinated by the prospect of his ironic early death.
I’ve seen less gravedancing than I’d been worried about seeing, which assuages my faith in humanity, but I do think that the overwhelming majority of people see him as either “quirky tech guy with some wacko theories” or “well-intentioned mad scientist using himself as a guinea pig for our edification/entertainment”. Even before recent events, I think only a vanishingly small share of his audience expected him to make it to three digits of age, let alone immortality.
I think his impact on longevity is something akin to classic-era Stephen Colbert’s impact on conservatism. Maybe a few people became a bit more aware of it, but the image presented was as something silly and ineffectual, and it didn’t win the movement a lot of converts.
Looking at AI as a model, I don’t see a giant shift on longevity coming soon. The prospect of AGI/ASI has been a sci-fi mainstay for decades, and, as recently as ~2015, redditors were loudly proclaiming that AI would bring them total automation and a UBI check to anyone that would listen, but the general population wasn’t very receptive. Now that LLMs are a part of daily life, a lot more people are interested in them, but the sentiment I’ve seen boils down to either “I could make a lot of money by getting into this before other people do” or “I hope my pointy-haired boss doesn’t get talked into believing that ChatGPT can replace the janitor”.
Angry sentiments about data centers come partially from sometimes-overblown fears of electricity bills and water shortages, and partially from a general dislike and distrust of the ultra-rich. I haven’t really seen anyone in the general public, outside of our sphere, who sincerely expects Sam Altman and Dario Amodei to successfully “build God”. Even the religious-types seem to consider it too implausible to get mad about. Joe the Plumber has heard the hype, but has concluded[1] that it’s a bubble, even as awareness of the idea of AGI approaches saturation.
I’ve seen less gravedancing than I’d been worried about seeing, which assuages my faith in humanity, but I do think that the overwhelming majority of people see him as either “quirky tech guy with some wacko theories” or “well-intentioned mad scientist using himself as a guinea pig for our edification/entertainment”. Even before recent events, I think only a vanishingly small share of his audience expected him to make it to three digits of age, let alone immortality.
I think his impact on longevity is something akin to classic-era Stephen Colbert’s impact on conservatism. Maybe a few people became a bit more aware of it, but the image presented was as something silly and ineffectual, and it didn’t win the movement a lot of converts.
Rightly or wrongly