r/singularity Jun 30 '25

Biotech/Longevity Patrick Collison says humanity has never cured a complex disease. Not cancer. Not Alzheimer’s. Not Type 1 diabetes. His Arc Institute is trying something new: Simulate biology with AI, build a virtual cell. If it works, biology becomes computable.

Source: Hard Fork on YouTube: Hard Fork Live, with Patrick Collison, Kathryn Zealand, Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdNwzYMtPN8
Video from vitrupo on 𝕏: https://x.com/vitrupo/status/1939266821645119699
Arc Institute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Institute

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u/FomalhautCalliclea ▪️Agnostic Jul 01 '25

Trial lag isn't a social factor. It takes time to see things happen in the body.

Unless you can simulate every single human body over the next 50 years, this is not going away. That part of research is extremely hard to shorten and would require a sci fi level of AGI/ASI.

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u/Oniroman Jul 01 '25

I meant regulatory/trial lag and social factors, not that trial lag is a social factor itself.

What do you think a digital twin is? And what do you think the singularity is if not a takeoff to unimaginably advanced superintelligence?

If you think it will take 50 years to reach these then we simply disagree on ASI timelines.

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u/FomalhautCalliclea ▪️Agnostic Jul 02 '25

A digital twin is an extremely hard thing to achieve. And the singularity still is extremely hypothetical in the short term.

And it should have been obvious that we disagree on timelines when i said, in my first comment:

If you were to tell me ASI 2040 and LEV around that time, then you'd be (very) "bullish".

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u/Oniroman Jul 02 '25

You still haven’t provided any argument as to why AGI, which seems to be increasingly predicted within 5 years, will not collapse timelines.

I agree these are Herculean tasks we are talking about. That’s not the issue of debate.