I’ve just watched this Lex Freidman podcast with the talented biologist Michael Levin.

There are lots of new things I learnt from this which is great. But it was amazing to hear about the technological progress towards regenerative medicine, from studying lizards and worms that regrow body parts. He also talks about various immortal species living today that do not age at all.

Levin predicts regenerative medicine will be a thing later this Century, where medicine can literally grow you a new hand or a new organ from your body all pretty much from text prompts. He is (I believe) the leader in this field and is unusually sharp minded, he offers up plenty of evidence.

He says in his own worldview cells are essentially a pool of potential and you just have to give them the correct bioelectrical signal and they will develop a particular morphology, even producing radically different morphology all from identical genes.

IF this is true, big IF, then that means the end game for the human race is to become immortal amorphous shapeshifters.

Where we can demand our cells grow any organ / limb / form, basically on demand and whilst it might take weeks months or years to complete… you could go to bed one night and wake up as a 1,000 tonne dragon (you would require nutrition!). You could also morph into giant brain forms presuming you knew how to also create the required anatomy to support it.

But it does seem like there is a visible technology path to this! Which is absurd, and very new to me. Really changes how I consider the human / AI future.

Not difficult to imagine a complete flip to machine brains and biological bodies. Biology is a long way from over.

A pretty amazing 3 hours of learning…