I think part of the explanation relates to what you point out at the end: “radical life extension is speculative”. You note that “so is preventing risks from AI”, but preventing such risks seems to be higher impact than extending life. In general, causes vary both in how “speculative” they are and in what their expected impact is, and EA may be seen as an attempt to have the most impact for varying levels of “speculativeness”. One could argue that, while the impact of life extension as a cause is relatively high, its “speculativeness-adjusted” impact is considerably lower — just like the risk-adjusted return of some financial instruments is low despite having comparatively high expected returns. This may in part explain why it is relatively neglected among EAs. (I do not think it fully explains it.)
(I have added the tag Aging research. There’s a list of relevant posts at the end which you may want to consult.)
This seems false. Dramatic increases in life extension technology have been happening ever since the invention of modern medicine, so its strange to say the field is speculative enough not to even consider.
To be clear, I was only trying to describe what I believe is going on here, without necessarily endorsing the relative neglect of this cause area. And it does seem many EA folk consider radical life extension a “speculative” way of improving global health, whether or not they are justified in this belief.
Welcome to the Forum!
I think part of the explanation relates to what you point out at the end: “radical life extension is speculative”. You note that “so is preventing risks from AI”, but preventing such risks seems to be higher impact than extending life. In general, causes vary both in how “speculative” they are and in what their expected impact is, and EA may be seen as an attempt to have the most impact for varying levels of “speculativeness”. One could argue that, while the impact of life extension as a cause is relatively high, its “speculativeness-adjusted” impact is considerably lower — just like the risk-adjusted return of some financial instruments is low despite having comparatively high expected returns. This may in part explain why it is relatively neglected among EAs. (I do not think it fully explains it.)
(I have added the tag Aging research. There’s a list of relevant posts at the end which you may want to consult.)
This seems false. Dramatic increases in life extension technology have been happening ever since the invention of modern medicine, so its strange to say the field is speculative enough not to even consider.
To be clear, I was only trying to describe what I believe is going on here, without necessarily endorsing the relative neglect of this cause area. And it does seem many EA folk consider radical life extension a “speculative” way of improving global health, whether or not they are justified in this belief.