Fighting Aging as an Effective Altruism Cause: A Model of the Impact of the Clinical Trials of Simple Interventions
Abstract: The effective altruism movement aims to save lives in the most cost-effective ways. In the future, technology will allow radical life extension, and anyone who survives until that time will gain potentially indefinite life extension. Fighting aging now increases the number of people who will survive until radical life extension becomes possible. We suggest a simple model, where radical life extension is achieved in 2100, the human population is 10 billion, and life expectancy is increased by simple geroprotectors like metformin by three more years on average, so an additional 250 million people survive until “immortality”. The cost of clinical trials to prove that metformin is a real geroprotector is $60 million. In this simplified case, the price of a life saved is around 24 cents, 10 000 times cheaper than saving a life from malaria by providing bed nets. However, fighting aging should not be done in place of fighting existential risks, as they are complementary causes.
Highlights:
● Aging and death are the main causes of human suffering now.
● Simple interventions could extend human lives until aging is defeated.
● These interventions need to be clinically tested before FDA approval.
● A trial of the life extension drug metformin is delayed by lack of funds.
● Starting trials now will save 250 million people from death, at a cost of $0.24 for each life saved.
Please comment on the preprint of the article here: https://goo.gl/WaEYt5
Thanks for the reply. Despite my very negative tone I do think this is an important work, and doing good cost benefit analysis like these is very difficult.
I don't share the intuition that human level AI will rapidly cause the creation of powerful life-extending technology. This seems to be relying on a rapid takeoff scenario, which while plausible I don't think can be taken as anything like certain. I think if this is the argument it should be spelled out clearly.
With regards to the effectiveness of metformin, my argument is that you should include a discount factor of a half or so to include the probably that it does not pass the human level trial.
My issue is that I don't see any arguments that the model is even likely to be accurate to within an order of magnitude.
I'm glad to here a more detailed model is in the works, as I said I think this is important work, but that makes getting it right all the more pivotal.
I think if the intention is just to link to other articles with detailed refutations you should just do that and not attempt to summerise (or make it clear this is at most a very rough outline). However for two of the examples I listed no other article is linked.
May I share with you the next version when all that changes will be done? I expect that the next revision will appear in 2 months.