Shaker Cherukuri

Fortunately, I have 35 years of experience in biomedical research (anyone is welcome to check my scientific record), and I have been saying the same thing for years. I completely agree with Demis: we will cure all diseases within 10 years AND reverse aging in approximately 15 years! I realize I am an exception among my colleagues, but what I find truly messed up is denying people, whether sick or healthy, this very real hope for the future. Let me explain the main reason why even brilliant scientists and experts struggle to imagine how this could possibly happen. It comes down to extreme cognitive dissonance and the enormous ego of human intelligence: if WE cannot achieve something, we find it inconceivable that MACHINE intelligence could. In fact, the smarter people are, the harder it often becomes for them to accept this possibility, and the more elaborate their coping mechanisms become. Top mathematicians have just lived through this realization, and physicists will be experiencing it soon. Yet biologists somehow feel more secure. Not because they are smarter, but because biological systems are vastly more complex. After centuries of research by some of the greatest minds in human history, the idea that AI could solve problems in biology that have eluded us for so long, and do so within just a decade or two, seems utterly inconceivable to them. Well, they will find out soon enough! As someone who understands biology deeply, I know that its complexity is not insurmountable. Yes biology IS extraordinarily complex, but it is ultimately a system governed by physical laws and principles that can be decoded, which we have been doing albeit very slowly. Achieving this in a decade will require superintelligence, vastly greater computational power, and enormous amounts of biological data. That is why I believe it will take a decade or two, compared with mathematics and physics, where AI is already making extraordinary progress at a much faster pace. The fundamental mistake is assuming that the limits of human intelligence are also the limits of intelligence itself. We have spent centuries trying to understand biology with human brains, same substrate it is made of. We are about to bring an entirely different level of intelligence to the problem, one that will eventually surpass the collective intellectual capabilities of all scientists who have ever lived. As such, I stand 100% behind Demis and others, including Dario Amodei, who have made similar predictions. Mark my words: the coming revolution in biology and medicine will be unlike anything humanity has ever experienced!

I claimed that about 2–3 years ago, we entered a new era of science that I called Science 3.0, in which human scientists and AI work together to conduct research and make discoveries. Science 1.0 was the era of individual scientists making discoveries, dating back to the beginnings of modern science. Science 2.0 was the era of teams of scientists working together, which became the dominant model of scientific research over the past century and almost exclusively so in recent decades. Soon, within just a few years, we will enter Science 4.0, when AI, or rather superintelligence (SI), will make most scientific discoveries largely on its own. However, we humans will still be in the driver’s seat, directing which problems to solve, setting research priorities, and applying and validating discoveries in our wet labs. After this relatively brief period of Science 4.0, perhaps lasting a decade or two, we will enter the final phase of scientific research and discovery: Science 5.0. At that point, superintelligence and autonomous robots will independently drive and determine virtually all scientific progress. The intelligence gap between us and SI will have become so vast that our own intelligence will be too limited even to formulate the right questions, let alone comprehend the full depth of the answers. In fact, I recently told a friend and fellow scientist that we, the scientists trained today, are the last generation of human scientists. I believe this will turn out to be one of the most profound transformations in the history of humanity. I feel incredibly honored and privileged to be part of this extraordinary transition, and deeply grateful to be alive to witness humanity passing the torch of scientific discovery to a far greater intelligence. For thousands of years, we have struggled to unravel the mysteries of the universe with the limited intelligence evolution gave us. Soon, we will pass that quest to minds far more capable than our own, minds that may finally uncover the deepest secrets of reality, life, consciousness, and perhaps even the ultimate meaning of our existence. What a magnificent time to be alive, to witness the final chapter of human-led science and the beginning of an age of discovery beyond anything we can possibly imagine!