CEARCH did a shallow dive on ageing a few months ago (link), but our tentative conclusion is that life extension reasearch doesnât look too cost-effective (n.b. ideas tend to look good up front and worse as we understand the idea more and discount for more complications, so if anything we should expect the cause to even less cost-effective than current estimates suggest).
In any case, Nuno has a list of relevant research here if anyone wants to read more.
Itâs been some time, and Stan Pinsent was the primary on this project (I only provided some some input). Copying from what he wrote previously:
âHow much sooner life extension technology is expected to arrive with an additional USD 10 million in research, conditional on radical life extension being possible? In 2020 Aubrey de Grey predicted that a 10x increase in funding would accelerate SRFâs research by a factor of 2. It seems reasonable to assume that as a major proponent of life extension research (de Grey has donated his career and most of his personal wealth to it), this estimate is optimistic. De Grey, who was fired in 2021 and started his own research organization, later said that talent, not money, is the main barrier to progress. Since his 2020 prediction, SRF recieved a record USD 30 million annual income in 2021, which means that funding is probably now less effective than it once was. Given SNS expenditure of USD 3-5 million per year up to 2020, I interpret de Greyâs prediction as âwith $40m funding research would progress twice as far in a year as it would have with $4m fundingâ. However, we have added complication of SRFâs recent $30m windfall. I assume that in light of the improved funding situation, SRFâs annual expenditure will grow to $20m a year. Let a year of research at a funding level of $20m be our âunit yearâ. Then the number of unit-years of research performed in a year with $Xm extra funding can be modelled as R = ((X+20m)/â20m)^log10(2) (with R=unit years of research, F=funding). This fits the prediction well because (1) when X=0, one unit-year of research is completed and (2) when the total funding is multiplied by 10, the research output doubles. Given that we are considering the impact of an $Xm donation, the question can be framed as âhow many extra unit years of research could be achieved in a year with $(X+20)m funding?â. So I calculate number of unit-years of research that can be performed in a year with $(X+20)m funding, then subtract 1. Note that because the prediction only extended to total funding levels up to $40m, this formula is only valid for X<$20m.â
I am surprised that the CEARCH research reached the conclusion that aging research is not cost effective, when research published in nature reached the conclusion thatâ
How can research that made it into one of the most reputable scientific journals reach such divergent conclusions?
Of course the question of how much money is needed to invest in the fundamental research to reach those outcomes is another question, yet when you are talking about benefits in the region of tens of trillions of dollars for a 1 year increase in life expectancy, it seems extremely premature to me to conclude that this would not be a cost effective investment for EA.
Additionally âDe Grey, who was fired in 2021 and started his own research organization, later said that talent, not money, is the main barrier to progress.â seems very weak to base an argument from an anecdote. I am certain if you ask any of the professors working on aging research whether there is a lack of talent to expand their research capacity, this would not be the limiting factor
CEARCH did a shallow dive on ageing a few months ago (link), but our tentative conclusion is that life extension reasearch doesnât look too cost-effective (n.b. ideas tend to look good up front and worse as we understand the idea more and discount for more complications, so if anything we should expect the cause to even less cost-effective than current estimates suggest).
In any case, Nuno has a list of relevant research here if anyone wants to read more.
How can you estimate cost-effectiveness for scientific/âmedical research?
Itâs been some time, and Stan Pinsent was the primary on this project (I only provided some some input). Copying from what he wrote previously:
âHow much sooner life extension technology is expected to arrive with an additional USD 10 million in research, conditional on radical life extension being possible? In 2020 Aubrey de Grey predicted that a 10x increase in funding would accelerate SRFâs research by a factor of 2. It seems reasonable to assume that as a major proponent of life extension research (de Grey has donated his career and most of his personal wealth to it), this estimate is optimistic. De Grey, who was fired in 2021 and started his own research organization, later said that talent, not money, is the main barrier to progress. Since his 2020 prediction, SRF recieved a record USD 30 million annual income in 2021, which means that funding is probably now less effective than it once was. Given SNS expenditure of USD 3-5 million per year up to 2020, I interpret de Greyâs prediction as âwith $40m funding research would progress twice as far in a year as it would have with $4m fundingâ. However, we have added complication of SRFâs recent $30m windfall. I assume that in light of the improved funding situation, SRFâs annual expenditure will grow to $20m a year. Let a year of research at a funding level of $20m be our âunit yearâ. Then the number of unit-years of research performed in a year with $Xm extra funding can be modelled as R = ((X+20m)/â20m)^log10(2) (with R=unit years of research, F=funding). This fits the prediction well because (1) when X=0, one unit-year of research is completed and (2) when the total funding is multiplied by 10, the research output doubles. Given that we are considering the impact of an $Xm donation, the question can be framed as âhow many extra unit years of research could be achieved in a year with $(X+20)m funding?â. So I calculate number of unit-years of research that can be performed in a year with $(X+20)m funding, then subtract 1. Note that because the prediction only extended to total funding levels up to $40m, this formula is only valid for X<$20m.â
The $30M for SRF was a one-time windfall and its annual income and expenditures havenât increased nearly to $20M.
I am surprised that the CEARCH research reached the conclusion that aging research is not cost effective, when research published in nature reached the conclusion thatâ
âWe show that a slowdown in aging that increases life expectancy by 1 year is worth US$38 trillion, and by 10 years, US$367 trillion.â (refâhttps://ââwww.nature.com/ââarticles/ââs43587-021-00080-0#Sec2 )
How can research that made it into one of the most reputable scientific journals reach such divergent conclusions?
Of course the question of how much money is needed to invest in the fundamental research to reach those outcomes is another question, yet when you are talking about benefits in the region of tens of trillions of dollars for a 1 year increase in life expectancy, it seems extremely premature to me to conclude that this would not be a cost effective investment for EA.
Additionally âDe Grey, who was fired in 2021 and started his own research organization, later said that talent, not money, is the main barrier to progress.â seems very weak to base an argument from an anecdote. I am certain if you ask any of the professors working on aging research whether there is a lack of talent to expand their research capacity, this would not be the limiting factor