Latest news with #Thiel
Engadget
20 hours ago
- Health
- Engadget
Peter Thiel is utterly wrong about Alzheimer's
The New York Times ran a lengthy interview this morning between columnist Ross Douthat and venture capitalist and PayPal founder Peter Thiel. There's a reason it was published in the opinion section. Thiel, a Trump booster whose allies — including Vice President JD Vance — now litter the White House, was given free reign to discuss a variety of topics across over an hour of softball questions. Is Greta Thunberg the literal antichrist? Are the three predominant ideological schools in Europe environmentalism, "Islamic Shariah law" and "Chinese Communist totalitarian takeover"? Is AI "woke" and capable of following Elon Musk to Mars? Peter seems to think so! Perhaps the "just asking questions" school of journalism could add " hey, what the fuck are you talking about " to its repertoire. Admittedly, many of these assertions fall squarely into the realm of things that exist within Thiel's mind palace rather than verifiable facts, with at least one notable exception. Relatively early in their chat, Peter tells Ross the following [emphasis ours]: If we look at biotech, something like dementia, Alzheimer's — we've made zero progress in 40 to 50 years. People are completely stuck on beta amyloids. It's obviously not working. It's just some kind of a stupid racket where the people are just reinforcing themselves. It's a pretty bold claim! It's also completely untrue. "There was no treatment 40 or 50 years ago for Alzheimer's disease," Sterling Johnson, a professor of Geriatrics and Gerontology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told Engadget. "What we've been able to do in the last 20 years has been actually pretty extraordinary. We've developed markers that help us identify when this disease starts, using the using amyloid markers and tau biomarkers, we know that the disease actually begins 20 years before the symptoms do, and that is a critical thing to know if we are going to prevent this disease." At the moment, Alzheimer's remains incurable. But the absence of a miracle cure does not negate the accomplishments thus far in detection and prevention. "The first treatments were these window dressing treatments. It's like treating the symptoms like you would treat a cold [...] The first generation of amyloid therapy was that kind of approach where it just addressed the symptoms by amping up the neurons and increasing the neurotransmitters available to the to the brain cells." Johnson, whose team runs one of the largest and longest studies on people at risk for developing Alzheimer's diseases, added, "Now we have opportunities to actually modify the disease biology through the amyloid pathway, but also we're focused on the other proteinopathy — which is tau — and there's clinical trials underway." Thiel, a well-known advocate for advancements in radical life extension (including a reported interest in injecting himself with the blood of young people) sees the state of scientific research in this area as sluggish and risk averse. But the groundbreaking work is happening at this moment. Professor Johnson pointed to a monoclonal antibody called gantenerumab. In an early test of 73 participants with inherited mutations that would cause them to overproduce amyloid in the brain, it cut the number of participants who developed Alzheimer's symptoms practically in half. "The big phase three prevention trials [of gantenerumab] are happening right now," For someone who fashions himself as a heterodox thinker, Thiel certainly seems to have stumbled on a remarkably similar talking point to current Trump administration FDA head Robert F Kennedy Jr. "Alzheimer's is a very, very good example of how [National Institute of Health] has gone off the rails over the past 20 years ago with research on amyloid plaques" Kennedy said at a Department of Health budgetary hearing last month. He claimed the NIH was "cutting off any other hypothesis" due to "corruption." Unsurprisingly, the Alzheimer's Association has called this "demonstrably false." "In reality, over the most recent 10 years available (2014-2023), less than 14% of new National Institutes of Health (NIH) Alzheimer's projects focused on amyloid beta as the therapeutic target," the organization wrote, "As of September 2024, the National Institute on Aging was investing in 495 pharmacological and non-pharmacological trials. To state that Alzheimer's research is focused on amyloid to the exclusion of other targets is clearly wrong." If I, personally, wanted more robust medical research and a chance an eternal life (I don't), greasing the wheels of an administration broadly gutting funding for science would be a strange way to make that happen. But this is the sort of incoherence we've come to expect from tech oligarchs: they say what benefits them, even if it's nonsense on its face, even if a moment's reflection reveals it to be patently false. What's embarrassing is the paper of record giving them free reign to do it.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
AI isn't 'a nothing burger,' but won't end 'stagnation' in tech, says Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel said there would be "total stagnation" in technological advances without AI. The billionaire investor told the "Interesting Times" podcast that there was nothing else "going on" in tech. Thiel wants to see more risk-taking in areas like travelling to Mars or curing dementia. Billionaire investor Peter Thiel has said he sees AI as transformative as the internet was in the late 1990s, but that it might not be enough to end "stagnation" in technological advances. Speaking on The New York Times' "Interesting Times" podcast, Thiel said that, when he's asked "how big" AI will be, his "stupid answer" is that it will be "more than a nothing burger" but "less than the total transformation of our society." The PayPal cofounder argued in a 2011 essay that technological progress had slowed since the 1970s in areas like energy and transportation, causing a general stagnation despite advances in areas like computers and the internet. Thiel told the "Interesting Times" podcast that he still "broadly believes in the stagnation thesis" and that without AI, "there's just nothing going on." Thiel has invested in AI companies including OpenAI, Palantir, and DeepMind, before it was acquired by Google. While AI "might be enough to create some great companies" and add to GDP, Thiel said he's "not sure it's enough to really end the stagnation." Thiel said he'd like to see "way more risks" taken in missions like going to Mars or creating cures for dementia. "I still think we should be trying AI, and that the alternative is just total stagnation," he said. "If we don't find a way back to the future, I do think that society — I don't know. It unravels, it doesn't work," Thiel added. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
a day ago
- Business
- Business Insider
AI isn't 'a nothing burger,' but won't end 'stagnation' in tech, says Peter Thiel
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel has said he sees AI as transformative as the internet was in the late 1990s, but that it might not be enough to end "stagnation" in technological advances. Speaking on The New York Times' "Interesting Times" podcast, Thiel said that, when he's asked "how big" AI will be, his "stupid answer" is that it will be "more than a nothing burger" but "less than the total transformation of our society." The PayPal cofounder argued in a 2011 essay that technological progress had slowed since the 1970s in areas like energy and transportation, causing a general stagnation despite advances in areas like computers and the internet. Thiel told the "Interesting Times" podcast that he still "broadly believes in the stagnation thesis" and that without AI, "there's just nothing going on." Thiel has invested in AI companies including OpenAI, Palantir, and DeepMind, before it was acquired by Google. While AI "might be enough to create some great companies" and add to GDP, Thiel said he's "not sure it's enough to really end the stagnation." Thiel said he'd like to see "way more risks" taken in missions like going to Mars or creating cures for dementia. "I still think we should be trying AI, and that the alternative is just total stagnation," he said. "If we don't find a way back to the future, I do think that society — I don't know. It unravels, it doesn't work," Thiel added.
Otago Daily Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Democracy, society and hi-tech
Artificial intelligence is power-hungry in every sense of the term, Andrew Perchard, John Holt and Duncan Connors write. The Algonquian people spoke of the wendigo: a beast that poisoned people's minds to aid its insatiable gluttony for human flesh and souls. While the Beehive worries about minutae, it is the Tech Bros of Big Tech who present the greatest existential threat to democracy and society. Like the wendigo of old but conceived in the darkest depths of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, Amazon, Meta, Palantir and X owned by Bezos, Zuckerberg, Thiel and Musk, foster worldwide acquiescence to feed their insatiable appetite for resources to concentrate more wealth and power in their hands. Trump is the means to an end; the Tech Bros donated $US394.1 million ($NZ653m) to his 2024 campaign and the President is now a pliable friend. The failed bromance that begat DOGE wasn't about promised government efficiency. This mirage has dismantled vital programmes and undermined democratic institutions. The lauded "Big, Beautiful" spending Bill will limit state-level regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) for a decade. Tech Bros despise regulation and are disdainful of democracy. Society feels their destructive whirlwind as the $US300 billion bet on generative AI remains unregulated. Having relied on massive US government subsidy to grow their businesses (in Musk's case $US38b by 2025, while Thiel landed $US20b between 2016 and 2019 for supporting Trump's first presidential campaign), they now want government to bail out failing AI. Why? In 2024, Darren Acemoglu of MIT and Jim Covello of Goldman Sachs registered their scepticism of AI's economic benefits, while neural scientist and serial AI entrepreneur Gary Marcus views the technology as "driven by hype", predicting the "likely financial collapse of generative AI". Apple recently underlined the fundamental limitations of generative AI. The cash-strapped UK government has allocated £47b ($NZ106b) so, as a minister pungently stated, AI could be "mainlined into the veins" of the nation. Meanwhile, the growing chorus of concern about AI threatening society and democracy are dismissed as Luddite hysteria. The energy implications are also striking. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates by 2030 AI will consume more energy than Japan and US industry combined. Yet governments acquiesce. According to investigative journalists Democracy for Sale, Big Tech has shaped the British government's AI strategy despite these implications while AI-related energy consumption will quadruple in the UK by 2030. National electricity grids already struggle to cope with demand from AI data centres. In Ireland these centres consume 21% of electrical output and nearly caused several grid blackouts last year that led to a four-year moratorium on new data centres. Internationally, AI is placing national grids under strain, crowding out domestic and industrial customers as their needs increase. In New Zealand, Cyclone Gabriel demonstrated we have a delicate energy balance; with ageing, vulnerable electrical infrastructure and lacking government commitments to offshore wind and mass solar, there is a real risk that with AI data centres, like Microsoft's and Amazon's in Auckland, our already troubled grid could reach a tipping point. This is not a local issue; there is a genuine global risk of rolling outages as countries scramble to integrate Big Tech into hybridised energy solutions with unpredictable variability in ageing grid networks struggling with unprecedented demand. The environmental consequences are also troubling. Four Big Tech beasts' AI-technology increased carbon emissions by 135% and 182% over 2020 and 2023, and the IEA predicts that 40% of the increase in AI's global energy consumption (1250TWh by 2035) will come from coal and gas. Musk's xAI supercomputer in Memphis, powered by 35 methane gas turbines, is choking local neighbourhoods. Globally, many countries are struggling to connect new renewable energy sources, causing significant variance between supply and demand. The AI wendigo craves energy resources to sate its appetite. AI is not our saviour because what exactly needs to be saved? Like the Wise Men of Chelm, the Tech Bros create "problems" to which they claim to have an instant "solution". We cannot dismiss AI but it is a limited tool, not our master. Through hype and unlimited expenditure subverting governments, Tech Bros present a threat to democracy and society. As we abdicate our intellects and responsibilities to unconscious machines, fossil fuels feed the wendigo of generative AI. Unregulated, AI is a major existential threat. The wendigo become leviathan, devouring souls marching willingly, not towards a golden age of peace and prosperity, but a future of Orwell's and Huxley's darkest nightmares. — Andrew Perchard is an honorary research professor, University of Otago, and a former head of energy supply policy at the Scottish government; John Holt has worked in heavy industry and infrastructure and has been a senior occupational health and safety professional in Australia and the UK for over 20 years; Duncan Connors is a freelance writer, consultant and has worked in energy and infrastructure policy.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
College Dropout Entrepreneur Boasts That Peter Thiel's Book Is "Probably the Best Book I've Read, and I've Only Read a Few Pages"
Ever since college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak began pedaling the romantic tale of founding Apple in Jobs' parents' Los Altos garage, college-age tech bros have longed to follow in their footsteps. But there's just one tiny thorn: the "founder's story" of late-night struggles and coffee-fueled breadboarding is mostly a capitalist fairy tale. Still, it's a mythos tech billionaire overlord Peter Thiel is all too eager to stoke. His empire is built on image — even the stereotypical "evil mastermind" vibe is a carefully groomed persona — which he disseminates across Silicon Valley hopefuls via the almighty Thiel Fellowship. Each year, Thiel selects up to 20 "Thiel fellows" to each receive $200,000 and drop out of college in order to pursuit a tech startup. Though some come straight out of high school, many Thiel fellows historically come from Ivy league schools, which isn't exactly the kind of background that screams "all or nothing." Thanks to Thiel's massive profile and political influence, a number of Thiel fellows have watched their startups soar to billion dollar valuations. Though tech hopefuls are said to have just .01 percent of a chance to snag a Thiel Fellowship, that isn't stopping scores of wannabe founders from dropping out of college anyway. In a profile of the growing anti-college movement festering in Silicon Valley, Business Insider's Julia Hornstein sat down with a number of young dropouts to figure out just what the hell is going on. Sebastian Tan, one of over 500 students who applied for an internship at Thiel's surveillance and spying company Palantir, dreamed of being an entrepreneur. The billionaire's book, "Zero to One," is basically a tech monopolists' manifesto, and "probably the best book I've read," according to Tan, along with a laughable addendum that underscores exactly how undercooked his worldview is: "And I've only read a few pages." In April, Hornstein writes, Tan got the offer from Palantir, which he accepted, deferring his undergraduate degree until 2026. "In college, you don't learn the building skills that you need for a startup," he confidently declared. Tan's is an interesting story, especially for his early success — but he's far from alone. In 2022, there were 2.1 million college dropouts in the US. According to a World Economic Forum survey in that same year, 28 percent of dropouts did so to start a business. That's a lot of startups. But while the country's tech bros might be agog at the idea of dropping out, the reality is that very few startups succeed without advanced degree holders, let alone people who've completed undergraduate programs. Recent research found that 56 percent of startup executives hold a graduate degree, while the average age of a successful startup founder is 45. The trouble here isn't necessarily that it's "college or nothing," but rather the values, methods, and myths that startups engender — like that regulation stifles innovation, or that Silicon Valley startups exist separate of the massive economic inequality we see in the world today (on the contrary, startups have been key players in building that world.) With the kind of failure rate startups engender, there'll inevitably be a flood of unskilled, untrained labor trickling back into the economy — the kind of people who've been trained to think of themselves as "high agency individuals." That's something Arbaaz Mahmood, a would-be physicist who skipped college to do a startup developing an "AI tool for car dealerships," seems to at least acknowledge. "Honestly, nobody goes to college thinking they're going to change the world," he tells BI. "That's a vacuous lie we tell VCs to get their money. Nobody builds startups to change the world. It's just bullshit." When it comes to startups, Benjamin Shestakofsky, author of "Behind the Startup," summarizes it well: "Our relationship with technology is socially constructed. Yes, we do make choices as individuals, but our choices are embedded in broader structures that create different sorts of opportunities and constraints for us." More on startups: Columbia Student Kicked Out for Creating AI to Cheat, Raises Millions to Turn It Into a Startup
