4 ms·

The drug approval process alone would take up most of those 20 years. This means that the methods for making us immortal would have to be perfected in 10 years

The drug approval process alone would take up most of those 20 years. This means that the methods for making us immortal would have to be perfected in 10 years, at most. The only way this is going to happen is if human-level or better AI is finished, like, next week. Meanwhile, in the real world, medicine has made only incremental advances in the past few decades. Witness the fact that pharma is falling off a cliff because they haven't come up with many blockbusters recently: http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/bail-faster-patent-cliff-approaching/2009-01-03 http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/bail-faster-patent-cliff-a... Kurzweil is 61. He's fantasizing that something will be ready in 20 years, which is about his life expectancy at this point. Sad.

steveplace 17y ago
>The drug approval process alone would take up most of those 20 years. That's for U.S. regs only, right? They could (dangerously) release for broader testing in other countries.
- eru 17y ago
  Yes. Though Europe is just as bad.
- rsheridan6 17y ago
  They could, but AFAIK they don't (not that I pay much attention to the drug market in Lower Elbonia). Roughly speaking, the looser a country's drug regulations, the smaller its market. There's not really that much time to be saved here anyway, not compared to the time frame we're talking about. Look at figure 2.1 here: http://books.google.com/books?id=zlzwOEtDu4IC&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&source=bl&ots=NE1UZ-k6dT&sig=Q2GTPTS-TZ0ky9WiUFV2qQtfCw8&hl=en&ei=x0i5StKVM9ev8Qb548meDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#v=onepage&q=&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=zlzwOEtDu4IC&pg=PA11&#3... If you skip the Phase III trials and the red tape, you save maybe 5 years. Probably not enough to do much for a codger like Kurzweil, any more than it did for a couple of other dead people who loudly proclaimed that they would live forever. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM-2030 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM-2030 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson
aarongough 17y ago
This same topic came up in a comment thread on HN a while ago... The drug approval process in most countries definitely needs to be shortened. There are thousands of people that have terminal diseases which are unresponsive to treatment that are willing to undergo experimental therapies. Animal testing is not very nice for the animals and doesn't always provide useful results. Voluntary human trials need to be more accessible...
- eru 17y ago
  Though on the other hand most new drugs aren't that much more effective than the old ones. If at all.
electromagnetic 17y ago
Drug approval processes can take anywhere between several months and a decade, the problem here is that a longevity drug would be screwing around with so many systems in our body that the usual 5 year process (for standard drugs) or even the 10 year process (like for Hep C meds and such) would likely look like a blur to the people developing longevity drugs. My personal bet, the drug approval process alone would take up all of those 20 years. The only way a longevity drug would get through testing quickly is if the benefit seriously outweighed the costs and there was serious public outcry for it. The only fast way to market for a drug like this might seriously be to sell to China or Africa and prove it in the field. The only problem here is that you won't ever get the big bucks from Westerners. Perhaps the best market for drugs like this would be to sell explicitly to countries with universal health cares and form an agreement that a subscription constitutes a 20 year contract. Instead of selling on a premium or by quantity, you sell by longevity and nail entire countries on dependence.
- rsheridan6 17y ago
  >a longevity drug would be screwing around with so many systems in our body that the usual 5 year process (for standard drugs) or even the 10 year process (like for Hep C meds and such) would likely look like a blur to the people developing longevity drugs. My personal bet, the drug approval process alone would take up all of those 20 years. I think we'll see a host of longevity drugs working on different pieces of the puzzle - a longevity Unix toolkit rather than one monolithic drug. Each of them will have a tractable clinical endpoint to measure, and in the aggregate they will extend lifespan. Of course, we won't really know that until we see a lot of 100+ year old people, unless we get AIs first with models of the human body so good that we can be really confident that they're right. I'm not holding my breath. >The only fast way to market for a drug like this might seriously be to sell to China or Africa and prove it in the field. The only problem here is that you won't ever get the big bucks from Westerners. I don't know how patent law would work here - I think your patent would expire in the West while you were field testing your drug in China, so you would fail to enhance shareholder value.
jodrellblank 17y ago
a) He's not talking about drugs, the word 'drug' is not even mentioned in the (hype-filled 'article'). b) Even if he was basing his ideas on one or more drugs, what sort of stumbling block does 'government approval in the USA' present if you're a multimillionaire with contacts in high-tech industries, looking to avoid death? Not much of one. c) The article claims 'could be as little as twenty years' not 'in twenty years exactly'. d) His predictions are based on transformational technologies such as nanotechnology and/or AI, they wont follow on linearly from current ailing pharma, so that's not relevant. e) He has made pots of cash from software that depended on improving technology for many of it's improvements (voice recognition), has predicted when computing power would hit certain levels in advance and designed and made inventions to meet the predictions and his predictions were accurate enough to do that, he has written whole books presenting and justifying his claims, he works part time from a doctor's office while being treated with the currently best available anti-aging and rejuvenation treatments and has changed his life around gunning for longevity. To dismiss him as merely a sad fantasizing old man is completely unjustified as well as being an ad-hom attack.
- rsheridan6 17y ago
  >He's not talking about drugs, the word 'drug' is not even mentioned in the (hype-filled 'article'). I think his nanobots would be regulated by the FDA as drugs. >Even if he was basing his ideas on one or more drugs, what sort of stumbling block does 'government approval in the USA' matter if you're a multimillionaire with contacts in high-tech industries, looking to avoid death, present? Not much of one. The same stumbling block that you would have getting an iphone if they were illegal. They would never have been made in the first place. >His predictions are based on transformational technologies such as nanotechnology and/or AI, they wont follow on linearly from current ailing pharma, so that's not relevant. Right - that's why I qualified my statement with "The only way this is going to happen is if human-level or better AI is finished, like, next week." It could happen, I just wouldn't bet that way. >Ray Kurzweil has counted to infinity... twice Sure, he's a smart guy. I could dig up other smart guys who work closer to the field who don't think immortality will ever be achieved. Smart guys can be right about one thing and wrong about another.

steveplace 17y ago

>The drug approval process alone would take up most of those 20 years. That's for U.S. regs only, right? They could (dangerously) release for broader testing in other countries.

eru 17y ago
Yes. Though Europe is just as bad.
rsheridan6 17y ago
They could, but AFAIK they don't (not that I pay much attention to the drug market in Lower Elbonia). Roughly speaking, the looser a country's drug regulations, the smaller its market. There's not really that much time to be saved here anyway, not compared to the time frame we're talking about. Look at figure 2.1 here: http://books.google.com/books?id=zlzwOEtDu4IC&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&source=bl&ots=NE1UZ-k6dT&sig=Q2GTPTS-TZ0ky9WiUFV2qQtfCw8&hl=en&ei=x0i5StKVM9ev8Qb548meDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#v=onepage&q=&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=zlzwOEtDu4IC&pg=PA11&#3... If you skip the Phase III trials and the red tape, you save maybe 5 years. Probably not enough to do much for a codger like Kurzweil, any more than it did for a couple of other dead people who loudly proclaimed that they would live forever. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM-2030 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM-2030 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson

aarongough 17y ago

This same topic came up in a comment thread on HN a while ago... The drug approval process in most countries definitely needs to be shortened. There are thousands of people that have terminal diseases which are unresponsive to treatment that are willing to undergo experimental therapies. Animal testing is not very nice for the animals and doesn't always provide useful results. Voluntary human trials need to be more accessible...

eru 17y ago
Though on the other hand most new drugs aren't that much more effective than the old ones. If at all.

electromagnetic 17y ago

Drug approval processes can take anywhere between several months and a decade, the problem here is that a longevity drug would be screwing around with so many systems in our body that the usual 5 year process (for standard drugs) or even the 10 year process (like for Hep C meds and such) would likely look like a blur to the people developing longevity drugs. My personal bet, the drug approval process alone would take up all of those 20 years. The only way a longevity drug would get through testing quickly is if the benefit seriously outweighed the costs and there was serious public outcry for it. The only fast way to market for a drug like this might seriously be to sell to China or Africa and prove it in the field. The only problem here is that you won't ever get the big bucks from Westerners. Perhaps the best market for drugs like this would be to sell explicitly to countries with universal health cares and form an agreement that a subscription constitutes a 20 year contract. Instead of selling on a premium or by quantity, you sell by longevity and nail entire countries on dependence.

rsheridan6 17y ago
>a longevity drug would be screwing around with so many systems in our body that the usual 5 year process (for standard drugs) or even the 10 year process (like for Hep C meds and such) would likely look like a blur to the people developing longevity drugs. My personal bet, the drug approval process alone would take up all of those 20 years. I think we'll see a host of longevity drugs working on different pieces of the puzzle - a longevity Unix toolkit rather than one monolithic drug. Each of them will have a tractable clinical endpoint to measure, and in the aggregate they will extend lifespan. Of course, we won't really know that until we see a lot of 100+ year old people, unless we get AIs first with models of the human body so good that we can be really confident that they're right. I'm not holding my breath. >The only fast way to market for a drug like this might seriously be to sell to China or Africa and prove it in the field. The only problem here is that you won't ever get the big bucks from Westerners. I don't know how patent law would work here - I think your patent would expire in the West while you were field testing your drug in China, so you would fail to enhance shareholder value.

jodrellblank 17y ago

a) He's not talking about drugs, the word 'drug' is not even mentioned in the (hype-filled 'article'). b) Even if he was basing his ideas on one or more drugs, what sort of stumbling block does 'government approval in the USA' present if you're a multimillionaire with contacts in high-tech industries, looking to avoid death? Not much of one. c) The article claims 'could be as little as twenty years' not 'in twenty years exactly'. d) His predictions are based on transformational technologies such as nanotechnology and/or AI, they wont follow on linearly from current ailing pharma, so that's not relevant. e) He has made pots of cash from software that depended on improving technology for many of it's improvements (voice recognition), has predicted when computing power would hit certain levels in advance and designed and made inventions to meet the predictions and his predictions were accurate enough to do that, he has written whole books presenting and justifying his claims, he works part time from a doctor's office while being treated with the currently best available anti-aging and rejuvenation treatments and has changed his life around gunning for longevity. To dismiss him as merely a sad fantasizing old man is completely unjustified as well as being an ad-hom attack.

rsheridan6 17y ago
>He's not talking about drugs, the word 'drug' is not even mentioned in the (hype-filled 'article'). I think his nanobots would be regulated by the FDA as drugs. >Even if he was basing his ideas on one or more drugs, what sort of stumbling block does 'government approval in the USA' matter if you're a multimillionaire with contacts in high-tech industries, looking to avoid death, present? Not much of one. The same stumbling block that you would have getting an iphone if they were illegal. They would never have been made in the first place. >His predictions are based on transformational technologies such as nanotechnology and/or AI, they wont follow on linearly from current ailing pharma, so that's not relevant. Right - that's why I qualified my statement with "The only way this is going to happen is if human-level or better AI is finished, like, next week." It could happen, I just wouldn't bet that way. >Ray Kurzweil has counted to infinity... twice Sure, he's a smart guy. I could dig up other smart guys who work closer to the field who don't think immortality will ever be achieved. Smart guys can be right about one thing and wrong about another.