[revorad]

This discussion between Peter Thiel, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Aubrey de Grey - http://www.vimeo.com/7396024 - has some good thoughts from the top people who are in fact working on those problems.

Couple of important highlights for me were:

Eliezer saying that he has to often remind himself to do not what he has most fun doing, not even what he has talent for but what needs to be done.

The other is Aubrey talking about how appalling it is that the smartest people in science work on the same things instead of working on important but ignored problems.

I highly recommend watching it, it's well worth the 29 minutes.