The Thought Experiment
What if artificial intelligence actually cured cancer tomorrow? This is something that growing up in my generation—the Gen Xers and, of course, Baby Boomers—they brought this into the old mindset: if somebody ever discovered something that was making so many other people billions and billions of dollars, the cure probably would never really surface.
That's kind of the underlying tone. Everybody says tongue-in-cheek jesting, "Well, you know, they've already found a cure, they're just not going to release it because there's so much money made by trying to keep it going as long as possible without actually curing it and fixing it."
This isn't about if AI solves cancer—it's about when. And when it does, the real story won't be the scientific breakthrough. It will be everything that happens next in our systems, our economies, and our ethics.
The Timeline of Consequences
Let's paint a picture. It's tomorrow morning. You wake up, grab your coffee, scroll your phone, and there it is. Every news outlet, every social media feed, the same headline: "AI System Discovers Universal Cancer Cure, Verified by Independent Researchers."
A small group of researchers—whether at MIT, Stanford, Switzerland, or rogue scientists in China—tested an AI-discovered treatment on terminal patients. Stage 4 pancreatic cancer cured. Stage 4 breast cancer cured. Liver cancer, brain tumors, metastatic lung cancer—all reversed. Works 100% on every type tested.
FDA headquarters scrambles. The treatment wasn't developed through their process—no IND application, no Phase 1, 2, or 3 trials. Rogue researchers tested on humans without approval. Are they heroes or criminals?
The stock market opens. Pharmaceutical companies that make billions on cancer treatments—Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Pfizer—see hundreds of billions in market value evaporate in hours.
Every oncologist in America has patients calling. People undergoing chemotherapy want the treatment NOW. But it exists only in a lab. There are 2 million new cancer cases in the US each year. Who gets it first?
Option A: Follow standard protocol—5-7 years of trials. Estimated 3 million Americans die during that time. Option B: Emergency authorization—risk unknown side effects. If you were FDA commissioner, what would you do?
The cure can now be manufactured. What should it cost? What if it's $500,000 per treatment? Does the cure for cancer become something only the wealthy can afford?
The Hard Questions
Those researchers who tested it illegally—are they heroes or criminals? They broke every rule, could have killed people, but also just cured cancer. Do we throw them in prison or give them the Nobel Prize?
If your retirement account was heavily invested in pharmaceutical stocks, how would you feel about the announcement? Should anyone be allowed to profit from a cancer cure?
Should we have laws that prevent dying people from trying unproven treatments? These laws exist because snake oil salesmen have killed people with fake cures. But these same regulations might delay a real cure by a decade. How many people die during that decade?
The Uncomfortable Mirror
When that day comes, we'll spend years arguing about who gets it, who pays for it, who's responsible when it goes wrong, and whether we can really trust it. That's the tragedy hiding inside that miracle.
If AI announced a verified cure for cancer tomorrow, what's that first emotion you would feel? Not the emotion you think you should feel, but the one you'd actually feel. Hope? Relief? Skepticism? Fear? Anger that it took this long?
Your answer tells you something important about yourself, and also about all of us.