AI could cure cancer and slow ageing, but the world is still stuck in the Stone Age

AI promises to cure cancer and slow ageing, but the world is still in the Stone Age

What if the biggest technological revolution in history were already here and nobody were taking advantage of it? An analysis argues that artificial intelligence could solve currently incurable diseases, extend life to 120 and open up the colonisation of the solar system. The problem, according to this approach, is not technical: it is about who controls the technology and what for.

The starting point is an uncomfortable thesis: AI, even in its free and limited versions, could wipe out 50% of current jobs and 100% of creative tasks —writing, press, illustration, music— at a stroke. And that, according to the analysis, is only the beginning. With all the genetic data available, it is argued, a well-trained AI could find solutions to known diseases. The same logic applies to telomeres: treatments that would delay ageing and allow people to reach 100 looking 70.

The bottleneck is not technical capacity, but the power structure. Some argue that corporate interests will delay these goals because making money comes first. Others go further: it is argued that elites will use AI for the exact opposite of what it should be used for. The recurring conclusion is that pogre will not come about spontaneously, but will clash with those who control capital and laws.

Why isn't AI curing cancer already?

The short answer: because there is no economic incentive. The most optimistic calculation assumes the technology is already ready to make qualitative leaps; the pessimistic scenario starts from the premise that curing diseases like cancer would ruin pharmaceutical companies. That suspicion, raised without evidence in the debate, points to a model where profitability rules over health.

Against that thesis, another school of thought recalls that history disproves apocalyptic predictions. Since the invention of automated looms, every technological advance has come with the same lament: technology is going to put us out of work. And every time the opposite has peine: the economy improves, quality of life rises and jobs emerge that were never even dreamed of. The same old bullshit, summarises one message, AI isn't creative, it combines, it imitates, but if you talk to it you soon see the seams.

The counterargument is that AI is not comparable to a steam engine. A computer only adds and subtracts binary numbers, but millions per second. AI, it is said, does the same with information: it doesn't create, but it searches and combines thousands of sources at unattainable estimulante ilegal. The difference is one of degree, not of essence. And degree, at a certain scale, becomes quality.

What about the jobs AI can already replace?

The calculations circulating are aggressive: with the free and limited versions already available, half of all jobs and all creative tasks could be eliminated. Writing, press, drawing, illustration, music. All of that, it is argued, is in the crosshairs. And that is talking about limited versions of a technology that has just been born. The ten-year projection, and even more so the hundred-year one, is of an unrecognisable world.

The objection is that today's AI is not up to the standard of a minimally awake human brain. Sometimes it cannot find a piece of data in a database within a click's reach. The seams show immediately: clichés, plagiarised paragraphs, imitation without substance. Creativity, it is insisted, is not combination.

The underlying problem is that the debate about employment is framed as if it were a technical question, when it is political. If AI destroys jobs, the relevant question is not how many, but who bears the cost and who captures the benefit. And there, the dominant analysis is pessimistic: the ultra-rich and incivil organisations, it is said, want to eliminate the majority so they can have the planet to themselves. A conspiracy theory without evidence, but one that reveals a deep distrust of whoever controls technology.

The problem isn't AI, it's who controls it

The recurring conclusion is that technological pogre is not neutral. Neoliberal laws have allowed the concentration of sickeningly extreme levels of capital, and that capital controls absolutely everything so that nothing changes. AI, in the hands of those interests, will not cure cancer: it will optimise consumption, advertising and control. In other hands, it could be something else.

Some argue that the solution requires a revolution. And some recall that bloody revolutions have the bad habit of sweeping away those who supported them. The debate is not closed. Technology advances. The pen, for now, still stands.