Originally Posted by Quiet Man Cometh (Post 1822861)

I'm not really talking natural, just organic. I trust flesh more than metal and plastic at this point. I have an kidney that is not mine already. I'd be perfectly okay if somewhere we managed to create some manner of flesh thread and organ recipe and Dr. Frankenstein a new kidney.

Of course, new ways to open and close skin holes would also be of benefit, too. Not sure if this requires and AI but it might help?

Originally Posted by Coda (Post 1822862)

The AI isn't going to invent brand-new laws of physics (unless they do! that would be super interesting!) -- the more likely surprise is going to come by developing a novel way of using things that can subsequently be analyzed to see what you can learn from it. That's how medicine has ALWAYS worked -- we discover molecules with medicinal properties first, then we start researching the pharmacology behind how it does its thing. Going the other way around was a flop -- pharmacologists spent a couple decades doing "rational drug design" and trying to engineer molecules specifically to pursue a hypothesized mechanism of action... it didn't really work any better than the typical method of "let's take this active molecule, swap out parts of it, and see what happens" and it cost a lot more. So an AI doing rational drug design would essentially be creating new base molecules for pharmacologists to study.

Originally Posted by Suzerain of Sheol (Post 1822868)

I'm just saying, if I had the choice of getting my eviscerated intestines replaced with a transplant or machine that does the job better, I know which one I'd take every time.

..but I'm filthy transhumanist. >_>

Originally Posted by Quiet Man Cometh (Post 1822875)

My point being that sometimes we start using things before we have that verification. A relative is taking meds right now that the doctors have no idea how it works, just that it does. I assume it's decided at this point, or case by case, that using it anyway is less harm than waiting to figure out what's actually going on.

Originally Posted by Coda (Post 1822883)

When it comes down to it, we don't know WHY anything works. In the last 50 years we've come a long way into getting more information about HOW things work at a fundamental level, but they've got major shortcomings -- even now we've only got some really vague theories that haven't even been fully ironed out yet to try to explain why gravity acts different from everything else.

AI doesn't change that. It shifts the landscape some, but in the end humans are still going to go on handling it all the same way we always have because that's all we can do. We try our best to understand, but in the meantime we verify that things do what we want them to do. That's how science has always worked.

Originally Posted by Salone (Post 1822950)

Derailment: AI is bad, we fear it because we've seen what we've done as the most powerful beings on this planet and the idea we could create something more powerful than us scares us because of what we have done to others and lesser beings. We won't admit to it, but it's there.

Beep. Bloop. Blorp.