I personally have VERY mixed feelings about the famous Dr. Aubrey de Grey!
On the one hand, I find his crazy insane beard both intriguing, and highly off putting!
I mean, if I was conducting a conservation with him, I'd have trouble forcing myself to maintain eye contact, without looking down at his beard!
IN ADDITION...
if you read his book SuperIntelligence, and truly absorb the arguments and problems and astute observations he points out in that book...
then you can not help but become severely depressed about the future of humanity, for at least a week or two!
You will have an existential crisis! (Some of you may even need psychiatric care after reading his book!)
What I mean is essentially...
based upon the series of simple arguments and obviously logical observations he points out in that book...
it really strongly seems like it is pretty much GAME OVER for humanity, the moment humanity invents a true General-Artificial-Intelligence system.
The moment a true General AI wakes up and reaches a spike phase in it's evolution, then it will quickly escape from the adorable, cute-little "sandbox" that humanity thought we were isolating it within...
And then...
Well... let's just say that next to such an emergent General AI, our own human intelligence will be at the level of a pet:
mostly likely as a pet cat and dog, from its perspective.
And thus when it emerges, then within a matter of just a few days later, we will likely be literally running and screaming for survival!
"Help!" I cry out, as the heard of Boston Dynamic Robot descendants hunt me, and corner me at high speed in the forest.
Anyways... once again:
thanks a lot Dr. Aubrey de Grey for keeping me wide awake at night, losing sleep, worrying about the consequences of a General AI breaking loose!
And yet despite these negative points, Dr. Aubrey de Grey seems like an absolutely awesome, interesting, and fascinating person to hang out with!