It seems to me that the EV of financing cellular reprogramming research and aging clocks dropped significantly. There are many other very neglected and promising areas.
That said, the case that “billionaires are going to finance all this anyway” did seem to get stronger regardless, because now there’s a higher chance that other neglected areas will be included in such funding.
How much higher though? This is not the first billionaire-led longevity initiative. What makes me more hopeful compared to other past initiatives is that this new company might be more focused on getting translational research done given the choice of topics and people involved. And also I wonder if the time is riper than in 2013 for other billionaires to start imitating these efforts, although it seems to be more of a PR risk for billionaires to take than in the past.
PR risk is just perceived though, I wonder how real of a problem it is for billionaires in this case. It seems to me that billionaires are hated regardless, and longevity research is an excuse to be more vocal about it. I wonder if they are realizing this. The PR damage might be to research rather than to billionaires. See AppliedDivinityStudies’ comment.
I’m agnostic (EDIT) I personally do not think funding certain types of research within anti-ageing research could still have similar EV to EA priorities despite the EV being lower than it was before, but I think this is plausible.
I’m also hopeful that Altos Labs is more open and collaborative than Calico Labs.
While I’m seeing some criticism of the idea that billionaires want to live longer, I think it’s unlikely to be widespread enough or draw enough attention to noticeably damage Altos Labs, or cause much further damage to anti-ageing research in general.
It seems to me that the EV of financing cellular reprogramming research and aging clocks dropped significantly. There are many other very neglected and promising areas.
That said, the case that “billionaires are going to finance all this anyway” did seem to get stronger regardless, because now there’s a higher chance that other neglected areas will be included in such funding.
How much higher though? This is not the first billionaire-led longevity initiative. What makes me more hopeful compared to other past initiatives is that this new company might be more focused on getting translational research done given the choice of topics and people involved. And also I wonder if the time is riper than in 2013 for other billionaires to start imitating these efforts, although it seems to be more of a PR risk for billionaires to take than in the past.
PR risk is just perceived though, I wonder how real of a problem it is for billionaires in this case. It seems to me that billionaires are hated regardless, and longevity research is an excuse to be more vocal about it. I wonder if they are realizing this. The PR damage might be to research rather than to billionaires. See AppliedDivinityStudies’ comment.
Thanks for your comment.
I’m agnostic(EDIT) I personally do not think funding certain types of research within anti-ageing research could still have similar EV to EA priorities despite the EV being lower than it was before, but I think this is plausible.I’m also hopeful that Altos Labs is more open and collaborative than Calico Labs.
While I’m seeing some criticism of the idea that billionaires want to live longer, I think it’s unlikely to be widespread enough or draw enough attention to noticeably damage Altos Labs, or cause much further damage to anti-ageing research in general.