'Wildly off-base and impossible': Anthropic's Dario Amodei says AI will cure cancer. Doctors disagree
Yahoo Finance
X post (part 2 of 2), reply to investor Gavin Baker
“I think it will actually be possible to cure most human disease in ~5-10 years, as crazy as it may sound to ordinary people and frankly to biologists as well (I used to be one!).”
Dario Amodei15 August 2026- What you'll lose0/5
Nothing taken.
- Condescension3/5
'As crazy as it may sound to ordinary people.'
- Tone-deafness4/5
Doctors called it 'wildly off-base and impossible'.
- Doom0/5
The opposite of doom.
- Hypocrisy2/5
In the same thread: the industry has not 'yet delivered on our big promises'.
Full time9 pitchforksof a possible 25
Think the referee got a count wrong?
Call received. VAR is having a look: the referee reviews every call, and the score stands until then.
The occasion
X post (part 2 of 2), reply to investor Gavin Baker, 15 August 2026.
Context
Replying to investor Gavin Baker, who argued Amodei's risk warnings fuel public backlash against AI, Amodei defended his messaging by pointing to his essay Machines of Loving Grace. He said the public's negative view is 'fundamentally a crisis of trust' and that the most accurate criticism of AI companies is that they have not yet delivered on their promises.
Crowd reaction
Widespread criticism
Cardiologist Eric Topol called such cure projections 'wildly off-base and impossible'; Gary Marcus called the timeline 'so naive as to be absurd' and collected a thread of doctors and biologists pushing back ('anyone claiming AI is curing most diseases in 5-10 years is spewing magical thinking'); Arianna Huffington's Time essay and a CH Health Tech piece called it hype or too optimistic; Yahoo Finance headlined 'Doctors disagree'. The post drew over 11 million views.
- Primary source, post
- X (Dario Amodei): 2/2 Second, on the messaging around AI.
- Marcus on AI (Substack): No, Dario Amodei, we will not be curing cancer and “most human disease” in five to ten years
- CH Health Tech Advisory: Why Dario Amodei’s Disease Cure Timeline Is Too Optimistic
- Time (via Yahoo News UK): We Need a Cure for AI Health Hype
- Yahoo Finance: 'Wildly off-base and impossible': Anthropic's Dario Amodei says AI will cure cancer. Doctors disagree
- Where the exact words are printed