AI will help us become ‘biologically immortal’ by 2030.

Could dying of old age be another human disease that can be cured?

While not yet a consensus, Venezuelan futurist José Luis Cordero suggests that evidence suggests that death and aging are not the inevitable facts of life that most people assume.

A concept called the “escape rate of longevity” refers to the theoretical point at which technology can extend a person's lifespan faster than his or her age. So when you grow a year older, your life expectancy may increase by two years.

Cordero's David Wood predicts the watershed period to be before 2040, while Harvard professor George Church predicts 2037.

But Cordero believes that 2030 will be much earlier.

“If we get to 2030, we'll basically live forever because we'll live a year a year and more and more,” he says.

“People still don't understand that aging is a treatable disease and that we will cure it in 20 years.”

In the year He believes that by 2045 we will begin to reverse aging using regenerative therapies on cells and organs that will make us as “young” as we choose.

If that all seems far-fetched, Cordeiro makes a compelling case that it's at least possible.

Artificial intelligence has enabled vast expansions in our ability to analyze the human genome to understand the key ingredients of longevity and to zero in on giant drugs and compounds into effective treatments.

He says that there are “immortal” cells in the human body and creatures that never age on earth. If we can unlock their secrets, we can all live as long as we want.

Longevity and death: Jose Luis Cordero

The Cordero is also far from cranky, though not the mainstay. A fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences and a board member of the Millennium Project, he studied at MIT and received his PhD from Simon Bolivar University. He is a candidate for the European Parliament in the upcoming 2024 elections.

He laid out evidence for his ideas in a 2023 book called “The Death of Death,” co-authored with Symbian creator Wood.

More recently he has been looking at AI, tissue regeneration, stem cell therapies, organ printing and genetic therapies. Futurist Ray Kurzweil said the book “clearly explains how we will soon reach longevity escape velocity and live forever.”

Of course, the concept of biological immortality is divisive. Many people believe in a pie in the sky fantasy, while others are horrified at the thought of living forever.

“People tell me, ‘I don't want to live forever,' and I say, ‘Well, you could die at any time, you know. Death is very easy. Jump and I'll help you' This is about choosing not to die if you don't want to. By 2045, this will be an option.

Read more: Crypto leaders are obsessed with life extension. This is the reason.

If it all sounds a bit science fiction, Cordeiro points out that cell phones and landing on the moon were both science fiction concepts until now.

“I believe we are very close to all these technologies. We know they are scientifically possible when it comes to longevity. You have the same genome today as you did when you turned 10 or when you turned 60. So if you have the same genome, why were you younger and why are you older?”

Telomeres, telomerase and longevity

Although there are about 10 different causes of aging, “one of the most important is telomere shortening,” Cordeiro said.

You may have heard the factoid that every cell in your body is replaced every seven years on average. This is not true because the 30 trillion cells in the human body are replaced at different rates. Some nerve cells and heart cells last your whole life, skin cells can last for a few weeks, and the cells in your stomach change in five days.

But in 1961, after scientist Leonard Hayflick discovered that human cells can only divide 40-60 times, they built a timer called the Hayflick Limit. Then they enter senescence.

This is governed by the telomeres at the end of each chromosome, which shorten with each division until the cell can no longer divide. However, some cells, such as stem cells and cancer cells, have mechanisms to maintain telomere length and can divide indefinitely.

Biologically immortal cells in the human body

Cancer cells produce an enzyme called telomerase, which causes the telomeres to grow continuously. This allows the cancer to continue dividing until it kills the host.

“They are biologically immortal cells,” he said, adding that the reproductive or germ cells that produce sperm in men are similarly biologically immortal.

“So we have two types of cells, somatic cells, which are 99.9% of the body, and a smaller, smaller part, which is called germ cells. They don't age like cancer does. They produce telomeres, and they continue to divide until the end.

Elsewhere in nature, Turytopsis dohrni, known as the “immortal jellyfish,” has learned how to revert to polyp form and start over with new cells.

“So for me, as an engineer, we know that immortality exists in nature. So we just need to know how nature did it. This is a very basic point. We need to replicate what nature does, but better and for the whole body.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who has donated tens of millions to longevity research, believes that “aging is an engineering problem.”

Rehabilitation and longevity

“We think we're on the cusp of understanding how to solve those engineering problems,” Cordero said. 2012 Nobel laureate Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka “found genes that control aging and was able to regenerate cells,” Cordero explained. Yamanaka was able to transform adult skin cells into stem cells.

Today we know this can happen. So this is not science fiction.

In the year In 2020, Harvard professor David Sinclair published a study in Nature showing how it can rejuvenate cells in the retina and reverse age-related vision loss.

“Scientists are currently working on other organs. “Skin and then eyes, now hearts and lungs in other species closely related to humans,” he said.

Senescent cells and the role of autophagy in longevity

Senescent cells that no longer divide must be properly cleared by the body's autophagy process, which literally means “eating itself.” However, this cleaning process can be affected by disease, malnutrition, stress, infection and aging, which is dangerous to health. Cordeiro calls them “zombie cells.”

“Some of them don't die completely, and they stay in your body and they're like a rotten apple like all other apples rot, so you need to get rid of these senescent cells,” he said.

Drugs like Rapamycin and Metformin promote autophagy, and Cordeiro predicts that many more drugs will be available soon. In the meantime, the best approach for most people is to stay healthy and exercise, which promotes self-healing in many parts of the body.

Cordero vows to fast three days every month as a biohack.

Because this forces the strong cells in your body to eat the weak cells in your body and that includes many cancer cells. It is not enough to start cancer cells. So normal cells will eat them up, so I recommend everyone to do auto-healing.

Artificial intelligence in medicine and longevity

The human genome consists of three billion DNA pairs organized into 23 pairs of chromosomes. There are about 23,000 genes. Analyzing that massive amount of data for just one person is a huge task, let alone replicated by a small fraction of the people on Earth.

But AIs are well-suited to integrate such huge data sets without ever getting tired, and comparing the results to the genomes of different mammals allows us to understand why mice live for two years, humans for 90, and whales for 200.

Cordero is a consultant to the Rejuve project, which uses AI to analyze the genes of Methuselah flies, which are five times longer than normal flies. Since humans share about 60% of the same genome as flies, the team hopes to find longevity lessons that can be applied to humans. It has developed a promising treatment for Alzheimer's.

Another example can be seen with Google DeepMind's AlphaFold, an AI that can predict how proteins will fold. This has huge implications for drug discovery and understanding how diseases work. The technology will help better understand the biology of the virus during outbreaks and help design treatments and vaccines.

“It has been written that it took centuries for people to figure out how proteins were made. AI did it quickly,” Cordero explains.

“So AI will help us understand all diseases, find some compounds that allow us to live longer and longer, and also help us understand the genetic basis of aging.”

Digital longevity: nanobots and brain implants

Cordeiro is a fan of Kurzweil's “Immortal Bridges.” The first “bridge” is our current health knowledge, which is built around healthy living, preventive medicine, and biotechnology.

We are entering the second bridge, he says, to the biotech revolution built on genetic and tissue engineering and advanced regenerative medicine.

The third and most speculative bridge leans towards the concept of the singularity – the point at which technological progress becomes exponential – and a future where nanobots repair our bodies and our minds merge with AI to increase intelligence and capacity.

“These nanorobots clean up cholesterol, plaque in our brains, and connect our brains to the cloud,” he said. “Artificial intelligence is fundamental.”

Although nanobots have been a popular science fiction feature since the 1990s, scientists haven't gotten much further than inventing nanoparticles and nanomaterials. But AI can already interpret and read our brain waves when we think about an image or music, and Elon Musk's Neuralink interface can connect human software to computers.

Digital immortality in two decades

As a result, transhumanists like Cordeiro believe that humans could become “digitally immortal” within two decades by uploading our brains to the cloud.

“I think we will pass the human condition after we become very intelligent […] If we could have unlimited memory, unlimited computing capabilities, unlimited communication capabilities,” he says.

While the whole concept of the cross of the mind may seem strange and terrifying to most people, transhumanists look forward to the next stage of human evolution.

“We really outgrow our humanity,” he says. “And that's okay. I'm not afraid of that.”

Humans exist today only because chimpanzees evolved into something else centuries later, so we shouldn't be afraid to take the next step, he says.

“I think we'll be something else, something better, smarter, longer-lived and happier people. So I'm a fan.

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Andrew Fenton

Based in Melbourne, Andrew Fenton is a journalist and editor covering cryptocurrency and blockchain. He has worked as a film journalist for News Corp Australia, SA Wind and national entertainment writer for Melbourne Weekly.

Follow the author @andrewfenton