H+ Weekly - Issue #399
This week - the real cost of rejuvenation; OpenAI and Microsoft extend partnership; ChatGPT freaks out Google; bionic 3rd thumb; and more!
🦾 More Than a Human
A 45-year-old biotech CEO may have reduced his biological age by at least 5 years through a rigorous medical program that can cost up to $2 million a year
Thanks to Bryan Johnson, we now know the price of rejuvenation. If you want to make your body younger, you'll need a team of more than 30 health experts to create a personalised health program costing $2 million per year. All of this seems to work - 45-year-old Johnson has the heart of a 37-year-old, the skin of a 28-year-old, and the lung capacity of an 18-year-old.
▶️ Bionic 3rd thumb: The future of human augmentation (12:01)
What started as a fun project, Third Thumb, a 3D-printed extension for your hand that is controlled by your toes may give us a glimpse of human body augmentation. The project already gives us a better understanding of how the brain adapts to augmentation, the limits of neuroplasticity, and how to best utilize it to improve the control and usability of prosthetics and augmentative devices.
🧠 Artificial Intelligence
OpenAI and Microsoft Extend Partnership
Microsoft and OpenAI announced the extension of their close partnership. In 2019, Microsoft invested $1B into OpenAI and now is investing reportedly another $10B to "continue our independent research and develop AI that is increasingly safe, useful, and powerful", as OpenAI wrote in the press release.
Google is freaking out about ChatGPT
According to press reports, the release of ChatGPT raised alarms at Google as the powerful chatbot from OpenAI can be an existential threat to Google. In response, Google plans to launch over 20 AI products this year, including a demo of its own search chatbot.
A robot was scheduled to argue in court, then came the jail threats
A New York-based startup DoNotPay was planning to use its AI to help a defendant fight a traffic ticket. But this has to be put on hold after a series of letters from multiple state bar associations threatened the company with lawsuits and jail time. Lawyers argued that the AI and the company behind it is not authorised to practise law which is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in county jail in some states.
🧬 Biotechnology
Lab-grown meat moves closer to American dinner plates
Lab-grown meat could become reality in some restaurants in the United States as early as this year, reports Reuters. After one company received FDA approval to sell lab-grown meat, the spirits are high. Some of those companies started to sign in high-end chefs to bring slaughterless meat to the public. However, the executives admit it will take some time until lab-grown meat will be available on the shelves.
Next up for CRISPR: Gene editing for the masses?
CRISPR has been discovered 10 years ago. This has transformed genetic engineering and opened new possibilities. Now, we have the first vaccines based on genetic engineering being tested in humans and there are talks about more powerful tools, like base editing and prime editing. Tools that can allow us to treat genetic diseases and make genetic engineering widely available.
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