Summary

To this day there is a lack of systematic research to evaluate a cause area with immense potential: aging research. This is the first of a series of posts in which I'll try to begin research to address this gap. The points made in this post are about how to evaluate impact using the concept of Longevity Escape Velocity. Bringing the date of Longevity Escape velocity closer by one year would save 36,500,000 lives of 1000 QALYs, using a conservative estimate. Other sources of impact that arise from the same concept include: increasing the probability of Longevity Escape Velocity, making Longevity Escape Velocity spread faster, and making a new future portion of the population reach Longevity Escape Velocity by increasing its life expectancy. Aging research could also positively impact the cost-effectiveness of other interventions by increasing the probability that Longevity Escape Velocity will be attained in the recipients' lifetimes. I will also discuss why the probability of Longevity Escape Velocity is substantial and why QALYs should be the measure of impact, and I'll give mathematical proofs that the adoption speed of the technologies that arise from research doesn't impact cost-effectiveness analyses.

The need of a theoretical foundation to evaluate aging research

I think one important approach to research in Effective Altruism is to try to lay theoretical foundations and put together tools for helping to evaluate a specific cause area that can be generalised to any intervention inside that cause area. Such work is often not possible because of lack of time and expertise, making it preferable, sometimes, to scout specific promising interventions or refine existing research.

One cause area that absolutely needs this kind of more systematic groundwork is aging research. The current EA research about aging is lacking in number and in what I think are crucial considerations, even though informal discussion with members of the community reveals that many people regard it as potentially promising. The expertise required to make such an analysis possible is rare to find. It requires people with a strong quantitative background who are also interested not only in biology but in the biology of aging in particular, and they must be accustomed to predicting the future of scientific research and making cost-effectiveness evaluations. I obser... ,,

Aging Research