One other reason that medicine may prove less tractable to AI than its most evangelical adherents believe, is that many diseases remain poorly understood. I accept that AI could design a superior antibody against amyloid but that improvement may correlate quite poorly with genuine clinical enhancement (to take one example). Likewise Parkinson’s Disease.
As you rightly suggest, clinical trials remain highly primitive and while AI will help with both the operational aspects and patient selection, there is a finite limit in the time improvement that such an optimized approach could yield. And that’s before we talk about reimbursement.
One final thought; having watched “the thinking game”, many of the most vociferous AI researchers are simultaneously exceptionally bright but very narrow in their knowledge and world view.
If I may indulge in a bit of speculative psychoanalysis: it seems natural to me that the folks in the AI sector think that superintelligence will have real-world superpowers, because it resonates unusually well with their own experience. Their own right-tail-for-humans intelligence has brought them wealth, power, and status well above that of almost everyone else. Of course they will intuitively assume that lots more intelligence will bring lots more wealth, power, and status, and of course they will overlook the boring non-intelligence-based bottlenecks which have always been especially boring and especially non-salient to them.
In the realms of science and engineering, a lack of data -- actual, real data from the world of atoms and organisms -- will be a major bottleneck for the foreseeable future. AGI that is 10,000 times smarter than a human (whatever that even means) will not change this fact. In fact, as AI eliminates bottlenecks in the realm of bits and cognition, those chokepoints in the realm of atoms will become even more acute, and hopefully more evident to the currently oblivious AI boomers.
The good news is that it is by recognizing and eliminating bottlenecks that savvy entrepreneurs build thriving companies and become rich. So new, or newly apparent, bottlenecks are a fertile field for builders. The bad news is that if the legal and regulatory environment does not permit freedom of action in a given domain, this won't happen. So the ultimate bottleneck in the realm of medicine is likely to be regulation, as you noted here.
Fantastic piece! I don't know how you managed to fit in the difficulty of clinical trials and the culture of San Francisco into one coherent argument, but I really enjoyed reading this.
One aspect I wonder about is whether the bottleneck is even broader than regulation or governance.
We tend to treat words, data, models and biomarkers as if they simply represent reality, when in practice they also shape what becomes visible, actionable and worthy of attention. In that sense, style, thinking, speech and action are not merely expressions of an ontology; they enact it—and in turn participate in its continual reconstitution.
The challenge is therefore not only improving our representations, but remaining alert to what they inevitably leave out. This is to 'hold' them lightly and tentatively. Otherwise there is a subtle drift whereby the map progressively becomes the territory, and our interventions become directed by the representation rather than the phenomenon itself.
Thank you for a nuanced contribution to an increasingly polarised discussion.
One aspect I wonder about is whether the bottleneck is even broader than regulation or governance.
We tend to treat words, data, models and biomarkers as if they simply represent reality, when in practice they also shape what becomes visible, actionable and worthy of attention. In that sense, style, thinking, speech and action are not merely expressions of an ontology; they enact it—and in turn participate in its continual reconstitution.
The challenge is therefore not only improving our representations, but remaining alert to what they inevitably leave out. This is to 'hold' them lightly and tentatively. Otherwise there is a subtle drift whereby the map progressively becomes the territory, and our interventions become directed by the representation rather than the phenomenon itself.
Thank you for a nuanced contribution to an increasingly polarised discussion.
“The distance between the smartest human and the dumbest is indeed great; but the distance between the smartest human and God is greater still”! What an understatement! Humility or insanity are the two ultimate choices that the Silicon Valley types must eventually choose, the sooner the better, for the good of themselves and the market and rest of humanity
Very useful piece. This is a point I've been trying to make for a long while: many problems are not solvable by intelligence!
thank you! I have a lot of data points from medicine
expertise in one subject does not confer expertise to others. once again, econ101 goes underrated
One other reason that medicine may prove less tractable to AI than its most evangelical adherents believe, is that many diseases remain poorly understood. I accept that AI could design a superior antibody against amyloid but that improvement may correlate quite poorly with genuine clinical enhancement (to take one example). Likewise Parkinson’s Disease.
As you rightly suggest, clinical trials remain highly primitive and while AI will help with both the operational aspects and patient selection, there is a finite limit in the time improvement that such an optimized approach could yield. And that’s before we talk about reimbursement.
One final thought; having watched “the thinking game”, many of the most vociferous AI researchers are simultaneously exceptionally bright but very narrow in their knowledge and world view.
If I may indulge in a bit of speculative psychoanalysis: it seems natural to me that the folks in the AI sector think that superintelligence will have real-world superpowers, because it resonates unusually well with their own experience. Their own right-tail-for-humans intelligence has brought them wealth, power, and status well above that of almost everyone else. Of course they will intuitively assume that lots more intelligence will bring lots more wealth, power, and status, and of course they will overlook the boring non-intelligence-based bottlenecks which have always been especially boring and especially non-salient to them.
Well, for a bit more pop psych: the weathy tech sector is rife with nerds whose idea of great literature is sci fi. So of course they are jazzed for
intelligent talking machines, a genre mainstay since its golden age.
Thank you for this. Excellent article.
In the realms of science and engineering, a lack of data -- actual, real data from the world of atoms and organisms -- will be a major bottleneck for the foreseeable future. AGI that is 10,000 times smarter than a human (whatever that even means) will not change this fact. In fact, as AI eliminates bottlenecks in the realm of bits and cognition, those chokepoints in the realm of atoms will become even more acute, and hopefully more evident to the currently oblivious AI boomers.
The good news is that it is by recognizing and eliminating bottlenecks that savvy entrepreneurs build thriving companies and become rich. So new, or newly apparent, bottlenecks are a fertile field for builders. The bad news is that if the legal and regulatory environment does not permit freedom of action in a given domain, this won't happen. So the ultimate bottleneck in the realm of medicine is likely to be regulation, as you noted here.
Fantastic piece! I don't know how you managed to fit in the difficulty of clinical trials and the culture of San Francisco into one coherent argument, but I really enjoyed reading this.
One aspect I wonder about is whether the bottleneck is even broader than regulation or governance.
We tend to treat words, data, models and biomarkers as if they simply represent reality, when in practice they also shape what becomes visible, actionable and worthy of attention. In that sense, style, thinking, speech and action are not merely expressions of an ontology; they enact it—and in turn participate in its continual reconstitution.
The challenge is therefore not only improving our representations, but remaining alert to what they inevitably leave out. This is to 'hold' them lightly and tentatively. Otherwise there is a subtle drift whereby the map progressively becomes the territory, and our interventions become directed by the representation rather than the phenomenon itself.
Thank you for a nuanced contribution to an increasingly polarised discussion.
One aspect I wonder about is whether the bottleneck is even broader than regulation or governance.
We tend to treat words, data, models and biomarkers as if they simply represent reality, when in practice they also shape what becomes visible, actionable and worthy of attention. In that sense, style, thinking, speech and action are not merely expressions of an ontology; they enact it—and in turn participate in its continual reconstitution.
The challenge is therefore not only improving our representations, but remaining alert to what they inevitably leave out. This is to 'hold' them lightly and tentatively. Otherwise there is a subtle drift whereby the map progressively becomes the territory, and our interventions become directed by the representation rather than the phenomenon itself.
Thank you for a nuanced contribution to an increasingly polarised discussion.
Great piece! I would have loved to see some more references to the sources of your various statistics etc.
Which ones specifically?
For example, are entry level jobs really increasing (or even stable)? My feeling says otherwise but happy to be proven wrong
“The distance between the smartest human and the dumbest is indeed great; but the distance between the smartest human and God is greater still”! What an understatement! Humility or insanity are the two ultimate choices that the Silicon Valley types must eventually choose, the sooner the better, for the good of themselves and the market and rest of humanity