I also work in drug discovery, and I completely agree; the extent to which the actual causal mechanisms of the efficacy of many drugs is woefully short of some human-appreciable first-principles based explanation. The point is especially undercut by hypothetically suggesting that this drug /does/ in fact pass stage 3 trials, at which point I can't fathom anyone would have a problem advancing it.
Really wish he had chosen a different example; this particular bullet point has been making the rounds on X/twitter to paint Tao as an example of some sort of gatekeeping luddite who would deny the world a post-abundance future in order to maintain the prestige of his particular career path...which is tough because I cannot think of a more responsible steward of our inevitable AI future than Tao at the moment.
Really wish he had chosen a different example; this particular bullet point has been making the rounds on X/twitter to paint Tao as an example of some sort of gatekeeping luddite who would deny the world a post-abundance future in order to maintain the prestige of his particular career path...which is tough because I cannot think of a more responsible steward of our inevitable AI future than Tao at the moment.