This is one of the most absurd things I've read. I didn't think people could even had such a mindset! How can you seriously be against saving people's lives?!
I've worked in medical AI for the past 8 years. Medical AI is one of the few applications even many AI haters I've talked to are excited by. They would definitely welcome a cure to cancer invented by AI. Seeing people want to slow this down is a first for me.
Let me actually talk about the article itself. The thing is the author actually doesn't believe AI can cure cancer. So the logic of this whole article is kinda nonsensical. On top of that, the argument for why the author doesn't believe AI can cure cancer is also poorly constructed. Basically the author's argument is the data does not exist yet for AI to cure cancer. I wish the author would consider that there could potentially be novel creative ways to collect relevant data to feed to AI.
The author says "There are, in short, many barriers to curing cancer beyond a lack of intelligence." I would respond: there are, in short, many solutions to these barriers, if only we refuse to be limited by a lack of imagination.
The author then points to the chaotic release of Fable 5 as a reason for why AI needs to be slowed down which is so odd to me, I don't even know how to respond.
Fundamentally this feels like a very zero-sum view of AI progress. Just because there are important questions and challenges that need to be addressed by society as a whole doesn't mean using AI to cure cancer should be slowed down!
The article also says a variety of other odd things. For example the author says "I would neither spend months struggling with a research problem I knew AI could solve instantly, nor find as much pleasure in the answers it provided."
So if AI found the cure to cancer, the author wouldn't find pleasure in it?! Idk I have a fundamentally different viewpoint about research. I want to know the truth no matter what tool finds it.
The author then ends about how writing is a process of self-discovery and human connection and how her wife consoled her as she reflected on these things, but like all of that can happen with AI too. You don't need to use AI to write if you don't want to! You don't need to replace your wife with an AI therapist! Once again, a very zero-sum view of technology.
I find this whole article just absolutely revolting. We should not be denigrating the use of AI to cure diseases and save lives, which I personally believe is one of the most important missions on this planet.
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As a side note, I will clarify I don't actually think AI is going to find a singular magic drug to fully cure cancer in everyone with a single prompt to GPT-7 or whatever. I expect a cure to cancer looks more like preventative health, early diagnostics, and personalized medicine all powered primarily with advances and analyses by frontier AI systems.