Est. 2026 havewecuredcanceryet.org As of

A simple question

Have we cured cancer yet?

No.

Thanks to decades of research, screening and better treatment, some cancers are now often curable: about 90% of children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia survive five years, and 99% with early testicular cancer (US data).1,2 None has been cured by AI. As of October 2026, no AI-discovered drug has full FDA approval for any disease.3,4

The ledger

9.8 million

Cancer deaths worldwide in 20245,6
About 26,800 people a day.

$733 billion

Combined 2026 capital spending guidance of Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta, mostly for AI data centres7,8,9,10

$7.35 billion

Fiscal year 2026 budget of the US National Cancer Institute, the largest funder of cancer research in the world11,12

One year of Big Tech’s AI build-out versus one year of the world’s biggest cancer research budget. Drawn to scale.
Big Tech AI capital spending, 2026 $733 billion
US National Cancer Institute budget, 2026 $7.35 billion

That's roughly 100×. The red line is not a rendering error.

Meanwhile, here’s what we pointed AI at instead.

A running log of the most powerful technology of our time, applied with great care to the wrong problems. Every entry is sourced. Newest first.

  1. Same money, different toy

    Tesla Roadster with SpaceX thrusters

    Tesla and SpaceX (Elon Musk)

    Tesla unveiled the long-delayed Roadster outside Waco, Texas, nine years after the 2017 prototype. Its top trims use SpaceX-developed cold-gas thrusters to leap, flip and land. No price; Musk says production starts in 2028.

    Reservations of $50,000 (Performance) or $250,000 (Thrust); no price announced. Deposits were first taken in 2017.

    Actual rocket science, pointed at last at a car park.

    Sources: Electrek, TechCrunch, Electrek

  2. AI

    Friend 2.0 pendant

    Friend (Avi Schiffmann)

    An always-listening AI companion necklace, relaunched with a speaker so it can talk back. It costs $249, up from $129, and remembering anything beyond 30 days requires a monthly subscription of about $10.

    $249 per pendant. The company earlier spent $1.8M on the friend.com domain and over $1M on New York subway ads.

    A friend who is always listening, now on a subscription plan.

    Sources: Engadget, TechCrunch, 404 Media

  3. AI

    BF Island

    BuzzFeed

    At SXSW, BuzzFeed presented new consumer AI apps as a source of revenue, including BF Island, a group chat where users recreate meme trends with AI-edited photos.

    The future of media: a group chat of AI-edited memes.

    Source: TechCrunch

  4. AI

    AI.com Super Bowl launch

    AI.com (Kris Marszalek)

    Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek launched AI.com, a platform for building personal AI agents, with a 30-second ad during Super Bowl LX. The website crashed under the traffic.

    About $70M, paid in crypto, reportedly spent on the AI.com domain

    Seventy million dollars for two letters, and the website still fell over.

    Sources: The Block, Adweek

  5. AI

    Moltbook

    Moltbook (acquired by Meta)

    A Reddit-style social network where only AI agents post, comment and upvote, while humans may watch. Meta bought it in March 2026 and moved its founders into Meta Superintelligence Labs.

    Doomscrolling, now fully automated. Humans welcome to observe.

    Sources: NBC News, The Decoder

  6. AI

    Project AVA hologram companion

    Razer

    A desk tube that projects a 5.5-inch animated AI avatar, running on xAI's Grok at launch, to chat, coach gamers and help with schedules. Razer took $20 reservations, with shipping planned for the second half of 2026.

    $20 reservation deposit; final price not announced

    Companionship, now sold by the tube. USB-C cable included.

    Sources: Razer, Engadget

  7. AI

    Fridge with Google Gemini

    Samsung

    Samsung announced the first refrigerator with Google Gemini: built-in cameras identify the food inside and suggest recipes. At the CES 2026 demo, it could not see items in the door shelves or the freezer.

    A large language model, at last confirming that you are out of milk.

    Sources: Samsung (via AAP / PR Newswire), heise online

  8. AI

    Sora app

    OpenAI

    A TikTok-style social app where every video is AI-generated, including 'cameos' of users themselves. It hit the top of the US App Store; in March 2026 OpenAI said it would discontinue the app.

    Disney agreed in Dec 2025 to invest $1B in OpenAI and license 200+ characters for Sora; it exited the deal after the shutdown.

    Six months, one Disney deal, then: "We're saying goodbye to Sora."

    Sources: Bloomberg Law, Engadget, ABC News

  9. AI

    Vibes

    Meta

    A short-form video feed in the Meta AI app made entirely of AI-generated clips, which users can create, remix and cross-post to Instagram and Facebook. Meta began testing it as a standalone app in February 2026.

    Reels, minus the inconvenience of anything having happened.

    Sources: TechCrunch, TechCrunch

  10. AI

    Humane AI Pin

    Humane

    A $699 screenless AI wearable pitched as a smartphone alternative. Humane sold its technology and most staff to HP and switched the pins off on 28 February 2025, ten days after the announcement.

    Humane raised $230M; HP paid $116M for its technology and staff, not the Pin

    The future of computing, with ten days' notice.

    Sources: Fortune, The Decoder

It’s not the tool. It’s the aim.

This is not an anti-AI site. Pointed at the right problem, AI already helps. We would simply like a lot more of this.

What you can do

Pass it on

The people deciding where AI goes read the same feeds you do.

Point money at the problem

  • Cancer Research UK UK charity funding research into more than 200 types of cancer.
  • AACR Foundation Fundraising arm of the American Association for Cancer Research; funds research grants.
  • Deutsche Krebshilfe German cancer charity funding research projects, patient advice and a hardship fund.
  • St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Researches and treats childhood cancer; families never receive a bill for treatment.
  • Fondation ARC French foundation funding cancer research; over 3,700 projects funded since 2012.
  • Worldwide Cancer Research Funds early-stage discovery research into cancer by scientists anywhere in the world.
  • Folding@home Donate spare computer time to protein simulations, including cancer work on KRas and BRCA1.