Steve Koenen

Financial Services Executive. Enjoy hunting, craft beer and rock music! It's better to burn than fade away!

[Evan Luthra @EvanLuthra]

🚨ANTHROPIC'S FOUNDER JUST PREDICTED THAT AI WILL DOUBLE HUMAN LIFESPAN TO 150 YEARS.. CURE MOST CANCER.. AND ELIMINATE POVERTY.. ALL WITHIN 10 YEARS.. AND HE'S NOT EVEN THE OPTIMISTIC ONE..

Everyone thinks Dario Amodei is the guy who wants to slow AI down.. The cautious one.. The safety guy..

He just published an essay predicting what happens if AI goes right.. And it reads like science fiction.. Except he's dead serious.. And he has the credentials to back every word..

Here's what he thinks happens in the next 5 to 10 years..

Nearly all infectious disease.. Prevented or cured.. mRNA vaccines already showed us the path.. AI finishes the job..

Most cancer.. Eliminated.. Not just treated.. 95% or greater reduction in both deaths and new cases.. AI designs treatment regimens tailored to the individual genome of each tumor.. Something that's technically possible today but takes enormous human expertise to do.. AI scales it to everyone..

Alzheimer's.. Solved.. He thinks it's exactly the type of problem AI can crack.. Because it requires better measurement tools to isolate what's actually happening in the brain.. Once we understand it.. Prevention will probably be surprisingly simple..

Genetic disease.. Most of it preventable through improved embryo screening.. And curable in living people through safer descendants of CRISPR..

Most mental illness.. Cured.. Depression.. PTSD.. Addiction.. Schizophrenia.. He believes the answer is some combination of biochemistry and neural network-level problems that AI can untangle..

And here's the line that stopped me..

Human lifespan.. Doubled.. To 150 years..

He points out that life expectancy already doubled in the 20th century.. From 40 to 75.. So doubling it again is "on trend".. Drugs already exist that increase maximum lifespan in rats by 25 to 50%.. Some turtles already live 200 years.. We're clearly not at a biological ceiling..

He calls this the "compressed 21st century".. The idea that AI gives us 100 years of biological progress in 5 to 10 years..

But he doesn't stop at health..

He thinks AI could drive 20% annual GDP growth in the developing world.. Bringing sub-Saharan Africa to China's current GDP per capita within a decade..

He thinks AI could eradicate malaria not through treating millions of people individually.. But by releasing modified mosquitoes that block the disease at the source.. One centralized action instead of a million..

He thinks AI could make democracy structurally stronger.. Not through propaganda.. But by giving every citizen an AI that knows every law they're entitled to.. Every benefit they qualify for.. Every right they have.. And helps them actually access it..

He imagines AI that monitors judicial systems for bias.. AI that helps find common ground between opposing political views.. AI that makes government services actually work the way they're supposed to..

And he addresses the question everyone asks.. What happens to meaning when AI can do everything..

His answer.. Most people aren't the best in the world at anything right now.. And it doesn't bother them.. Meaning comes from relationships and connection.. Not economic productivity.. People will still pursue difficult challenges.. Still compete.. Still create.. The fact that an AI could theoretically do it better won't matter any more than it matters that someone somewhere is already better than you at every hobby you have..

But here's what makes this essay different from every other AI optimism piece..

Dario Amodei runs one of the three most powerful AI companies on earth.. He has a PhD in computational neuroscience.. He personally worked on mass spectrometry and neural probes.. He's not a pundit.. He's a scientist who happens to be a CEO..

And the same man who publicly says there's a 25% chance AI causes human extinction.. Is also saying that if we get it right.. We cure nearly every disease.. Double human lifespan.. Eliminate most poverty.. And fundamentally transform what it means to be alive..

Both things are true at the same time..

That's what makes this the most important essay anyone in AI has written this year..

He ends with this.. "I think many will be literally moved to tears by it"..

He's talking about watching disease disappear.. Poverty dissolve.. Human potential unlock all at once..

Not in a century.. In a decade..

If we get it right.

[Midwest vs. The Rest @midwestern_ope]

Hardest jobs in the universe:

1. Brain surgeon
2. Aerospace engineer
3. Teaching someone how to play Euchre

[Steve Koenen @Runtheball15]

Amazing the stories that come out when private schools are not stealing small town WI kid's/town's dreams.

[WIAA State Tournaments @wiaawistate]

80 years later… Reedsville does it again! 🏀🏆✨

In 1946, a town of 476 shocked the state, winning the single-division WIAA State Championship in an era with no dunks, no 3-point line and underhand free throws.

Now, led by Coach Ron Prochnow and fueled by two great-grandsons of that original team—his own sons—the Panthers are champions once more.

Play hard. Have fun. History made. #wiaabb #statechamps

[Steve Koenen @Runtheball15]

@DavidJHarrisJr Just like a small town Wisconsin sports team coming home after winning a state title...only different.

[Darren Rovell @darrenrovell]

For all Canadians saying they were the better team….

On George Washington’s birthday, let me remind you…the British were the better team.

And yet the Americans still won their independence.

[TodayInSports @TodayInSportsCo]

If he was an NBA player, he would be out for 6-8 weeks.

[Old Row @OldRowOfficial]

If you’re not jacked up to beat the shit out of some Canadians tomorrow morning then you might not be American

USA USA USA 🇺🇸

[Woody @woodyVSworld]

Me liking every tweet about USA beating Canada for a gold medal

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

BREAKING: AI can now build financial models like Goldman Sachs analysts (for free).

Here are 12 Claude prompts that replace $150K/year investment banking work (Save for later)

[Dustin @r0ck3t23]

Alex Karp just said what every other tech CEO is terrified to admit: the world doesn’t split three ways. It splits two. And second place is extinction.

Europe watches. Everyone else becomes a customer. The fight is binary. America or China. One owns the future’s operating system. The other lives inside it, powerless.

Karp: “There are only two cultures that are going to win in the next year. It’s going to be us or China.”

Technology isn’t neutral. The builder’s values get hardcoded into everything. If we don’t own the chips, the models, the infrastructure, the beliefs embedded in the next century won’t be freedom or rights. They’ll be surveillance and control.

Karp: “If we are not the ones controlling the violence, we will not be dictating the rule of law.”

AI is a weapon system. Not potentially. Inherently. Restraint doesn’t buy peace. It guarantees defeat.

If the Constitution matters, if speech matters, if any of it matters, America has to win technologically. Power doesn’t negotiate values. It imposes them.

Thinking caution earns respect is suicidal delusion. The enemy isn’t slowing down for ethics debates. They’re building at war speed while we workshop guardrails.

Karp: “No one is coming to defend you. You have to defend yourself.”

No cavalry. No referees. No shared humanity saving the day. Just two civilizations in a cage match for permanent control.

Outbuild them or surrender everything. Not eventually. Now. Because losing this race doesn’t mean second place. It means your children grow up under a system that doesn’t even pretend you have rights.

[Johnny Midnight ⚡️ @its_The_Dr]

This is why California is Broke and Texas is not. This is pretty good!😂🤣

[Brad @BradleyKellard]

In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell explained why some people succeed & some don't.

This talk reveals:
• Why ability is overrated
• Why effort alone isn’t enough
• How systems quietly decide outcomes

12 lessons from Gladwell that'll permanently change how you think about success:

[Jon Root @JonnyRoot_]

This is the most reasonable, factual, & respectful take I’ve heard regarding the Alex Pretti Border Patrol shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Take a few minutes & give it a listen.

[NFL Memes @NFLMemes]

As we celebrate the Patriots getting back to the Super Bowl, let's take a look back to appreciate all the dominant QBs they had to face to get here 👏

[FanDuel Sportsbook @FDSportsbook]

NO CHEATING.

Do you know the answer? 🧐

#NFL | #SuperBowl

[Steve Koenen @Runtheball15]

I want one!!

[The All-In Podcast @theallinpod]

Jason Calacanis: “Nobody will remember that Tesla ever made a car, they will only remember the Optimus.”

@Jason explains why he thinks @elonmusk’s greatest legacy will be the Optimus robot:

“ I went to Tesla with Elon and visited the Optimus lab.”

“There were a large number of people working on a Sunday at 10AM, and I saw Optimus 3.”

“I can tell you now, nobody will remember that Tesla ever made a car, they will only remember the Optimus.”

“He is going to make a billion of those, and it is going to be the most transformative technology product ever made in the history of humanity, because what LLMs are going to enable those products to do is understand the world and then do things in the world that we don't want to do.”

“I believe it'll be a 1-to-1 ratio of humans to Optimus, and I think he's already won.”

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

They will eventually apply the “wealth tax” to everyone, just like the income tax, which was supposed to be just a temporary tax of a few percent of the top 1% to pay for WW1 …

[Polymarket Football @PolymarketBlitz]

So the LA Rams are suppose to play in this and they havent played a game below 50 all season?

Bears by a million.

[Scary Alvarez @barryisthedon]

When DC Jeff Hafley leaves the Packers this week it will be time for the Jim Leonhard Show