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Some thoughts: - custom cancer vaccines - the idea being that the vaccine, which triggers a person’s immune system to identify a tumor by its unique mutations,

by tomp 8y ago

Some thoughts: - custom cancer vaccines - the idea being that the vaccine, which triggers a person’s immune system to identify a tumor by its unique mutations, could effectively shut down many types of cancers, but this could also easily be retargeted and used to shut down the whole body (or just a vitally important part). It's still a question of delivery, the toxin would need to be delivered to the body in an undetectable way to be really dangerous... This is explored in an episode of The Expanse [0]. - carbon dioxide catcher - I wondered before to what extent does production of [...] synthetic fuels, using the captured carbon dioxide as a key ingredient even make sense - more energy is spent (likely from carbon) to produce the fuel than is released by burning the fuel, so this really only makes sense if we have enough clean energy to power the whole world (e.g. solar), but not enough batteries to run the economy (cars don't just need energy, they need energy in a convenient portable form). The CO2 -> fuel processes could enable us to go to zero-net-CO2 energy cycle, while keeping current infrastructure (fuel-burning cars, planes, ships). - an ECG on your wrist - how about an ECG in your wrist - a chip implanted into your body that would be able to not just measure the heartbeat, but also continuously monitor various blood markers - glucose, cholesterol, stress hormones, ... Is anyone aware of any company working on this? Are such sensors even possible from a medical-technology perspective (disregarding energy, data transfer and privacy issues)? - sanitation without sewers - a similar technology (full dirty feces -> clean carbon & water process) will need to be developed for space habitats... - smooth-talking AI assistants - this almost seems like a solution in search of a problem. Do we actually want to haggle with an AI (hyperoptimised and hyperexperiences and almost certain to beat us while giving us the impression that we're getting a great deal!), don't we just want to get a fair price (in the free market sense, i.e. with most profit competed away)? I wonder what are some problems that can/should be automated at scale, but that cannot be automated via other means (e.g. buying plane tickets online)... I'm guessing Google's application of an AI booking appointments (with people) is one of the best applications, as it treats speech as a kind of a universal interface (originally developed for humans)... [0] https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/The_Monster_and_the_Rocket https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/The_Monster_and_the_Rocket

joe_the_user 8y ago
All these seem like more or less products that are variations and extensions of things already existing. Indeed, a lot of them are solutions in search of a problem. Robot dexterity has indeed been increasing for a long time but has been held back back by computational complexity of interacting with the world. Cancer treatments relying on the immune system have been tried over and over again and have failed for a similarly period, undone by the complexity of cancers. Carbon sequestering in various forms is often talked about but none of them make much sense compared simply stopping profligate carbon release (sure, once that stops and things are still bad, then this maybe but stopping release is always going to be the most cost effective until we some serious reduction). So either the complexity of modern society means world-change innovation has become vanishingly small or Gates is pushing products of some pals rather than taking a serious look at possibilities.

by tomp 8y ago

joe_the_user 8y ago

All these seem like more or less products that are variations and extensions of things already existing. Indeed, a lot of them are solutions in search of a problem. Robot dexterity has indeed been increasing for a long time but has been held back back by computational complexity of interacting with the world. Cancer treatments relying on the immune system have been tried over and over again and have failed for a similarly period, undone by the complexity of cancers. Carbon sequestering in various forms is often talked about but none of them make much sense compared simply stopping profligate carbon release (sure, once that stops and things are still bad, then this maybe but stopping release is always going to be the most cost effective until we some serious reduction). So either the complexity of modern society means world-change innovation has become vanishingly small or Gates is pushing products of some pals rather than taking a serious look at possibilities.