Professor's grim math: slowing AI costs 100,000 lives per week
DoctorJosh · x · 2026-10-05
Hod Lipson re-upped his argument against AI doomerism: unlike unverifiable p(doom) speculation, the cost of slowing AI down is tangible and certain. Nearly 200,000 people die of cancer worldwide every week; if advanced AI could cure half of those cases within a decade, a slowdown effectively postpones 100,000 potential saves per week — equivalent to detonating a Hiroshima-scale bomb every month while we debate ethics. And that counts only cancer, ignoring the broader toll on families and communities.
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