Hans Ulrich Obrist and Danny Hillis talking about new methodology for cancer treatment (Taken with Instagram)
In this part of the conversation, Danny Hillis (right) talked about one of his newer areas of focus, using some old tricks he learned in creating parallel-processing supercomputers that once were the world’s fastest.
Here he’s talking rather generally about harnessing relatively slow and dumb technologies working in parallel to help figure out new ways to defeat cancer.
In what he says is the likely first application of the work, the technologies will tell you when it’s time to get a colonoscopy based on a blood test that may indicate some sort of marker protein has been detected.
Interesting stuff, though he did indicate it doesn’t consume his fertile mind nearly as much as working on the Long Now clock project.
The full talk was recorded on video and audio through For Your Art. I don’t have the links at hand right now, but track it down under Obrist and FYA, which had a pretty fabulous weekend of events leading up to this, including another Obrist conversation on Sunday with influential SoCal artist John Baldessari, and an afternoon-long celebration Saturday of the connections between food and art (I believe).
