[mhrmsn]

Great achievement, although I think it's interesting that this Nobel prize was awarded so early, with "the greatest benefit on mankind" still outstanding. Are there already any clinically approved drugs based on AI out there I might have missed?

In comparison, the one for lithium batteries was awarded in 2019, over 30 years after the original research, when probably more than half of the world's population already used them on a daily basis.

[pm215]

Arguably awarding early is more in line with the intention expressed in Nobel's will: "to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". It seems to have drifted into "who did something decades ago that we're now confident enough in the global significance of to award a prize". I suspect that if the work the prize recognized reslly had to have been carried out in the preceding year the recipients would be rather different.

[benrapscallion]

Shouldn’t this be GLP1RAs (semaglutide etc.) for the last year?

[cmavvv]

Given that drugs take around 10 years to get to market, and that some time is needed for industrial adoption as well, it's not very reasonable to expect clinically approved drugs before a few years.

[londons_explore]

> around 10 years to get to market

This is really sad. A new recipe for feeding honeybees to make tastier honey could get to market in perhaps a month or two. All the chemical reactions happening in the bees gut and all the chemicals in the resulting honey are unknown, yet within a matter of weeks its being eaten.

Yet if we find a new way of combining chemicals to cure cancer, it takes a decade before most can benefit.

I feel like we don't balance our risks vs rewards well.

[wholinator2]

I think the idea is that we're, as a species, much more comfortable with the idea that 15 years down the line that 50% of treated colonies collapse in a way directly attributable to the treatment than we are with the idea that 15 years down the line 50% of treated humans die in a way directly attributable to the treatment.

Now if the human alternative to treatment is to die anyway than i think that balance shifts. I do think we should be somewhat liberal with experimental treatments for patients in dire need, but you have to also understand that experimental treatments can just be really expensive which limits either the people who can afford it, or if it's given for free, the amount the researcher can make/perform/provide.

10 years is a very long time. I've had close family members die of cancer and any opportunity for treatment (read: hope) is good in my opinion. But i wouldn't say there's no reason that it takes so long