Thanks for this. Your estimate is around three orders of magnitude more optimistic than mine, but not fundamentally different in kind. I tried to correct figures for something like an outside view, so that I was worried about being too pessimistic as well as worried about being too optimistic. I agree that the area is plausibly very high value and probably doesn’t receive enough attention from society. However it is speculative, and there may be even better opportunities if you are open to speculative areas.
Specific notes:
I read the $100 million per year figure as the funding required to give SENS a decent shot at it. We shouldn’t assume that this translates to success. In the interview where he provides that figure, de Grey talks about a 50% chance of success given this level of support. So I think you should at least reduce your estimate by a factor of 2.
While de Grey is one of the people most informed about this question, there is an effect where the people who are most optimistic about this line of research are the ones most likely to go into it. So I guess his estimate is more likely to err on the side of optimism than pessimism (this issue comes up with catastrophic risks, too …)
I was almost an order of magnitude more pessimistic than you on the benefits of success.
The biggest driver of difference between our estimates is the amount of relevant funding I guessed there already was in the area. This really was a guess on my part and I am not confident about it. Still, I am wary of assuming all the relevant work is coming through SENS.
I agree with everything in your two replies to my post.
You know, I’m probably more susceptible to being dazzled by de Grey than most—he’s a techno-optimist, he’s an eloquent speaker, he’s involved in Alcor, and I personally have a stake in life-extension tech being developed. I’m not sure how much these factors have influenced me in subtle ways while I was writing up my thoughts on SENS.
Anyhow, doing cost-effectiveness estimates is one of my favorite ways of thinking about and better understanding problems, even when I end up throwing out the cost-effectiveness estimates at the end of the day.
Thanks for this. Your estimate is around three orders of magnitude more optimistic than mine, but not fundamentally different in kind. I tried to correct figures for something like an outside view, so that I was worried about being too pessimistic as well as worried about being too optimistic. I agree that the area is plausibly very high value and probably doesn’t receive enough attention from society. However it is speculative, and there may be even better opportunities if you are open to speculative areas.
Specific notes:
I read the $100 million per year figure as the funding required to give SENS a decent shot at it. We shouldn’t assume that this translates to success. In the interview where he provides that figure, de Grey talks about a 50% chance of success given this level of support. So I think you should at least reduce your estimate by a factor of 2.
While de Grey is one of the people most informed about this question, there is an effect where the people who are most optimistic about this line of research are the ones most likely to go into it. So I guess his estimate is more likely to err on the side of optimism than pessimism (this issue comes up with catastrophic risks, too …)
I was almost an order of magnitude more pessimistic than you on the benefits of success.
The biggest driver of difference between our estimates is the amount of relevant funding I guessed there already was in the area. This really was a guess on my part and I am not confident about it. Still, I am wary of assuming all the relevant work is coming through SENS.
I agree with everything in your two replies to my post.
You know, I’m probably more susceptible to being dazzled by de Grey than most—he’s a techno-optimist, he’s an eloquent speaker, he’s involved in Alcor, and I personally have a stake in life-extension tech being developed. I’m not sure how much these factors have influenced me in subtle ways while I was writing up my thoughts on SENS.
Anyhow, doing cost-effectiveness estimates is one of my favorite ways of thinking about and better understanding problems, even when I end up throwing out the cost-effectiveness estimates at the end of the day.