Can AI and nanotech extend human life? Explore ageing, longevity, and the future of immortality in this thought-provoking article.
How long would you like to live? That is, of course, if you’re healthy and having a good time. Decrepit and dysfunctional, it’s hardly worth it. Say then if things are going well … 30 more years? Fifty maybe? How about forever?
Flip back just over 100 years and you probably wouldn’t even be reading this article. At the beginning of the 20th century, you could expect to live until a miserly 47 years (in the US). Fast forward to the middle of the last century and chances of living a much longer life had improved considerably to around 66 years for men and 71 for women. This was largely due to improved sanitation, babies and children dying less and the power of antibiotics to treat infections. In essence, the average extension of our lives had precious little to do with our own efforts or lifestyles. Technological advances had just rendered us more insulated and protected.
Advance to the end of that century and life expectancy increased to about 78 years. This may have been linked to heart disease prevention, which gained momentum in the early ’60s, with a focus on cholesterol and dietary strategies — tactics we’ve embraced ever since to slow the rise of a modern plague that, to this day, remains the leading cause of premature death in the Western world. Despite the advent of powerful medications and even more potent industrial-strength pharmaceuticals, heart disease remains our primary nemesis.
By the end of the last millennium, we had on average managed to elongate our chances of survival to our late 70s, which led scientists to examine if this projected increase in life expectancy had been maintained into this fresh millennium. What they uncovered was rather disappointing. Except for South Korea and Hong Kong, where an increase in life expectancy persisted, most countries experienced a downward trajectory living on average shorter lives than we enjoyed 30 years ago. This is not by much, but what experts are asserting is that while some of us might live to a ripe old age, most of us are governed by the biology of ageing. The malicious forces of nature simply limit how long we are currently able to survive.
None of this has reckoned with the emergence and rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI). Almost overnight, we have invented a cognitive powerhouse that has the capacity to digest and assimilate masses of information within a very short space of time and c