#E23 Understanding Immortality and What Life Will Be Like by 2045 With Futurist José Luis Cordeiro.
Read the HYPERSCALE transcript.
(00:42) Briar: We are bringing you an exclusive episode of Hyperscale. A behind the scenes glimpse into the making of our documentary on trans-humanism longevity and my journey to augment with technology. Join us as we speak to the world's leading experts and uncover ground-breaking revelations. Today we have José Luis Cordero joining us, a renowned futurist. He's the author of The Death of Death and known for his infamous speech. Death will be Optional in 2045. As a graduate of MIT and founder of the Prestigious Singularity University, Cordero is a citizen of the world and has visited, studied, and worked in over 130 countries. Cordero will be sharing his expertise in robotics, artificial intelligence, and his prediction for the future of human life and aging. Will humans live forever? Will AI take over the world all will be uncovered?
(01:48) Briar: I'm very much on my quest to become better, faster, stronger, and it looks like there potentially could be an opportunity for me to live forever. I hear
(02:01) Jose: Absolutely. That's the idea that we will have rejuvenation technologies. So not only will you live for forever, you will live indefinitely young, which is the important part. We don't want to believe in indefinitely old. We want to be indefinitely young.
(02:21) Briar: Okay, so I, I've got so many questions. So how can I go about this? So, I, I was reading in a publication that you were saying by about 2045, death could be optional. Are we on track to still achieving this?
(02:36) Jose: Yes. That is what we hope. And the date is not really mine, but by a very good friend from Google Ray Kurzweil, who is an engineer from MIT also my alma mater. And he founded Singularity University and he's a director of engineering at Google. So he has been talking about exponential technologies for half a century, and he's basically very much on track. And he talks about two dates in terms of longevity in the future. One is 2029 when we will reach longevity escape velocity. That means if we make it between 2029 to 2030, we will gain an extra year per year we survive, but it's still aging. So we will be living longer and longer, but it's still aging. And then in 2045, we will have rejuvenation technologies. So it doesn't matter how old we are in 2045, we will be able to rejuvenate people.
(03:45) Briar: Wow. Okay. So that's just around the corner. How are we going to start rejuvenating people? Like what aspects of technology will become more common practice for us to start potentially going back in time for us to become fresher, my organs to potentially be like how an 18 year old has organs? Tell me a bit about this.
(04:10) Jose: Yes. Well, first of all, we need to understand that immortality already exist in nature. There are cells that are immortal, like bad cells like cancer cells. Cancer cells discover how to stop aging. So cancer cells do not age and they live indefinitely. Eventually they eat the person, so they die when the person dies. But cancer cells do not age. Also, there are good cells that don't age, which are the germ cells. They're reproductive cells. Also, they do not age. They are considered biologically immortal. Additionally, there are some small animals that we are discovering that are also biologically immortal, like jellyfish, hydras, medusas. These small animals also are biologically immortal.
First just to put it into context, immortality already exists in nature here today. So we just need to understand how these cells and how these small organisms are biologically immortal and how cancer discovered immortality as well. And we are advancing very quickly. One of the first treatments to rejuvenate has been learned from cancer. Cancer continuously grows the telomeres, which are the end caps of the chromosomes so that the cancer cells divide indefinitely, forever and ever. So telomeres, which is the enzyme to grow the telomeres, is one of the therapies that are being investigated right now, and it was learned from cancer. Other things we are learning from germ cells or from these small jellyfish, immortal jellyfish and hydras and medusas are the important role of stem cells and how some types of stem cells are always active and building different parts of the body.
Additionally, the Nobel Prize of Medicine in 2012, Shinya Yamanaka he discovered four genes that control aging. And you can actually modify these genes to become young again. There is a lot of money being put into this, which is called cellular reprogramming because we can reprogram the age of the cell actually also to become older. If people want to become older, we will be able to do that too. We can actually accelerate aging and stop aging and reverse aging. So this is so fascinating that we have discovered these genes related to aging that billions of dollars are going into this. For example, Jeff Bezos and other wealthy billionaires created a company called Altos, Altos Labs. Based in Altos, California Silicon Valley. And they began with an investment of 3 billion to use these genes to reprogram cells and become younger. This is already proven at the cellular level and at the tissue level. And right now scientists are working on organs. The first organ that has been experimented on is eyes, the eyes and also with animals. People work with animals first. So they did experiments with the eyes of mice and mice that were about 80 years old, equivalent in human age, which is about two years for a mouse. They did this gene therapy in their eyes and they regained their side. They were already blind because they were old, and they recuperated their sight. This has already Wow, wow. Been done on eyes. So more and more organs will be experimented on more and more animals and eventually on humans.
(08:16) Briar: Wow. Okay. Well, I feel very inspired and very excited about all of this. When I was at an event recently in New York, I was meeting a lot of human longevity experts, and they were all saying to me, sure, yeah, you can maybe live 200, 300 years old. You can replace your heart, your lungs, you can chop your leg off, you can put a blade, whatever. And someone said to me, sorry, I hate to burst your bubble, but the one thing that you can't replace is your brain. And I said, well, surely I can just upload my brain to the cloud by that point. And he said, but yeah, it's not going to be you. It's going to be a version of you.
(08:57) Jose: Well, of course we will be able to upload our brain, and this is going to happen also in 20 years. This is one of the things that Elon Musk is doing with his company, neural Link, but there are 20 companies like that trying to read your neurons and put it in a different substrate. So we will have actually two types of immortality, not just one, two types of immortality. One is biological immortality because we will be able to live indefinitely young, thanks to all these technologies like cellular reprogramming once we can do it for the whole body. But there are, again, many other things that are being experimented in terms of the human biology, or the hard word as I call it, the hard word. But also we will be computationally immortal because we will be able to upload our minds. And this would be in a way, a continuation of us. So these two things will be possible. The software immortality and the hardware immortality.
However immortality is a big word and we can never really eliminate all accidents. There might be a plane crash and people will die. And there are also, sadly, homicides and suicides. So there are different ways for people to die. So immortality can never be guaranteed completely. If we avoid accidents and homicides and suicides, we should be able to live for as long as we want.
(10:36) Briar: Sounds almost like a game really, isn't it? When you put it like that? It's like, listen, you can live forever, but just avoid getting shot and having a car crash and falling off this and doing all of these things. Wow, fascinating. And do you think that in the future there will be avatars and metaverses? Do you think there will just be one metaverse? Tell me a bit about this.
(11:01) Jose: Yes, actually, artificial intelligence is advanced so fast and not just in this world, to put it that way, but in another world of artificial reality, augmented reality. So yes, I do think we are going to have many interesting lives in this world and in virtual worlds. I don't know how this will be, but I can tell you, once we enhance our minds, we increase our intelligence. And that is why it is important to connect ourselves to the cloud because we will have unlimited memory, unlimited communication, speed, because now we have to talk or write. And this is very inefficient, very slow, very, very slow. While computers communicating gigabits per second, we communicate in bits per second. So we need to learn how to communicate faster, and once we can connect to the cloud, we will be able to transmit our thoughts also faster. We will also have computational capabilities that we don't have now because we will have like a bigger chip, a bigger brain with bigger memories and bigger transmission speed and computational capabilities. This will allow us to be in different places at the same time. The real you may be somewhere physically and then some other aspects of you in different parts of the world or in different virtual realities.
(12:40) Briar: Amazing. Because I currently split, split my time between Dubai and New York. I've got my business in both locations. I've got my gym in both locations. I've got friends, I've got my cats in Dubai and my boyfriend. So I sometimes miss them. But just imagine in the future, if I could be living this double life, as you say, as different versions of myself, I think I'd get so much more done.
(13:05) Jose: Yes, absolutely. And you will be able to have all your senses, like even the touch senses, smell taste everything in different places. There are so many technologies being developed to be able to touch someone far away, to be able to taste the food that they are preparing somewhere else, maybe your parents want you to eat something they're cooking for Christmas, if you could not go and visit them. So yes, we will enhance our experiences.
(13:42) Briar: Wow. Okay. Yeah. Sorry, my mind's just kind of blowing a little bit. I'm very excited by what you're saying. Okay. So I can have taste senses and all of this. Tell me a little bit about the singularity, because there's been so much movement in regards to AI it feels like, especially this year in 2023. Do you think that we're on track to achieving the singularity soon? I know that you mentioned it in an interview, I think it was 2045, was it?
(14:11) Jose: Yes. Again, those are the dates by my friend Ray Kurzweil, and he has been tracking technologies for 50 years, and he has been making forecast for that long. And he is over 80% correct. For example, he predicted in the 1980s that by 1999, by the turn of the century, last century a computer could beat humans on chess. And it actually happened two years earlier. It happened in 1997. He, he predicted that by 2015, a machine, a robot and artificial intelligence, good be humans in the TV show Jeopardy. And it actually happened before it happened in 2011, because these technologies are even moving faster than expected. This is an exponential trend, and it continues, like Moore's Law, for example, that computers double their, their power like every two years and the price goes down. Well, this is happening now in all technologies that can be digitized, including medicine and biology, because now that we have sequenced the genome, we are digitized. We can be digitized and understand everything, our body. So anyway, these trends continue. And Ray Kurzweil, again, talks about two things. By 2029, just like we will reach longevity escape velocity, we will also pass the Alan Touring test, which is the time where you don't know if you're talking to a human or to a machine.
(15:56) Briar: Yes.
(15:56) Jose: In fact, do you know if I'm not a machine, if I'm not an artificial intelligence?
(16:02) Briar: I don't know, maybe you are artificial intelligence right now. I've got no idea.
(16:09) Jose: Yes, that is why I am I am asking. But I can tell you I am human still yet.
In 2029, you will not know if I'm human or not. So this is passing the Alan Touring test, and then this continues, continues, continues. And then by 2045 Ray Kurzweil expects that we will reach the technological singularity, which means a big artificial general intelligence in the cloud throughout the planet that combines all the human intelligence, all of us together in one single artificial general intelligence.
(16:54) Briar: Wow, that was going to be one of my questions to you actually. If we're all connected to the cloud, how will we still maintain our personality or our intelligence? Because these days we're taught, oh yeah, you are smart, or you're intelligent in this, or you're intelligent in this. But then one could also argue that we're already connected to the cloud or internet anyway, because we all carry our phones around. Just before we didn't know the answer to a question, so we started Googling it.
(17:23) Jose: Well, but you will actually have your phone in your brain, these phones are becoming smaller and smaller and smaller and better connected, maybe well, we are coming out with 5G, the fifth generation of telecommunications maybe 7G will be in your brain. And actually you will google directly your brain. Don't use a phone. Use your brain to get the information. So we will be connected and we will be able to communicate with other people. So maybe no one knows what will happen once we reach artificial general intelligence, because this is a singularity point. So we don't know what will happen after that, but probably all of us will also be connected.
So we might become a super mega organism or a super planet like our own bodies. Our own bodies are made of little tiny cells. So all these cells make us, and evolutionary, if we begin with the start of life, the origin of life, three and a half billion years ago, there were single cells bacteria, and then they began combining and they created multicellular organisms like we are, and we are still evolving, but biological evolution is very slow. It takes millions of years. Now we have technological evolution, so we can direct where we want to go. And again, I think if we can be more connected, it can-- if we can all be connected, if we can be all smarter, more intelligent and immortal, it will be fun.
(19:13) Briar: Yeah. Amazing. But what happens in the future? So I would be one of these people, I would sign up to everything you're saying. In fact I'm keen. So as soon as all of this technology's dropping, you've got my contact details, you hit me up and I'll start augmenting myself. But what about the people in the world that potentially are frightened by the sort of thing or perhaps can't afford it? Are we going to have two types of people? Are we going to have the haves and the have-nots, so to speak?
(19:41) Jose: Okay, well those are two separate questions. One is the cost. And in terms of the cost, I can tell you actually, I think this will be free, free to everybody who wants it. Like the covid vaccines, how much did you pay for the Covid vaccine? Nothing. People didn't pay exactly. It was paid by the governments and by companies who developed the technology. The same will happen with rejuvenation technologies. These therapies will eventually, very quickly after they are developed, they will be free to everybody who wants them. So in terms of cost for everybody who wants it. Then the problem is if someone doesn't want those technologies, and this is a bigger issue, to me, it is not the price because everybody will have access to them, is if they wanted or not. And then that is a big problem, a more difficult problem.
The Amish community, the Amish, they live in the 18th century. They don't want the technology of the 19th century, the 20th century, or even the 21st century, and you cannot do anything. This is their own decision. I grew up in South America and there are many Indian communities in the Amazon, in the Orinoco Rivers. They live like they have been living for 10,000 years. They don't want to learn Spanish, they don't want to learn Portuguese, they don't want to use clothes, which is okay not having clothes, I guess, in the tropics. But they don't want any of the technology of the world today, and you cannot force them. So if they want to be naked, that's good. If they don't want to learn Spanish Portuguese, that's good too. If the Amish want to, to be living like they were living 200 years ago, that is okay.
Again, that is a big discussion. It is important because some people will not want the technologies. Even worse some people will want to destroy those technologies like the Luddites, the Luddites in the revolution in the industrial revolution in England, the Luddites were people who began destroying the machines. Because they said that the machines would take away our jobs. Fortunately, it was the robots who won the machines who won, and that is why we live in an advanced world.
(22:18) Briar: Excellent. Yeah, and I was reading somewhere recently as well that, that actually predicting, of course, AI is going to take jobs because that's always been the case. And if we look back on history, we can see how the world evolved and how jobs evolved as well. But I was actually reading that AI is going to create more jobs than what potentially is lost. Is that your thoughts about this as well?
(22:40) Jose: Absolutely. Throughout history, new technologies destroy all jobs, but create more jobs and more interesting jobs, better jobs, which is important. If we were talking 200 years ago, 80% of humanity were farmers. We were farmers just growing food to survive. Imagine how horrible all day, all night working to grow food that was humanity before the industrial revolution. And if we go even farther back in time, 60,000 years ago when we were in Africa, we didn't even have agriculture. There was no farming. So we had to fight against the lion to get some food. We would have to grab some bananas If we found bananas, it was even worse than agriculture. And it was unpredictable. Maybe there were no bananas. Maybe we didn't find an animal to eat. So anyway, my point is technology makes us move up the ladder of Maslow's pyramid of needs. Abraham Maslow has a very nice pyramid. On the bottom is survival. Once you survive, you keep on going up, up, up into the pyramid towards more enlightenment, to utter realization to be yourself, to express yourself, to create not just survival or working. No technology helps us to move up the ladder of development.
(24:17) Briar: What will happen in the future if we're all living forever? How's this going to work? Because one might argue that death is what gives our life meaning, and we need to die in order to create space for people who are being born.
(24:32) Jose: Well actually Malthus, who was a very famous economist in England 230 years ago, said that, that there were too many people. We don't have enough food, we have no resources. We have a big problem. And yes, there was a big problem, but then technology came to the rescue. Before the Industrial Revolution we were farmers, but it was human labour and maybe a few cows and horses. And then we began with industrialization. And that allowed to grow more food and to actually work less. So every time we produce more and more with less and less. So the situation you described has been always a worry, but it has always been overcome by technology. Technology has helped us really improve the human condition. In fact, technology is what makes us different from animals. We are basically animals with technology to improve the human condition. So we have been improving and we will continue improving thanks to technology.
(25:44) Briar: I was reading yesterday in the trans-humanist studies by Natasha Vita-More and Max Moore about how one might argue that human almost have-- we've never been happy with our body. Sure, we're happy with the way it looks and things like this, but we were uncomfortable walking on the ground. So we invented shoes. We weren't very good at fishing, so we invented fishing hooks and fishing rods. So we've always been using tech technology throughout the, the years in order to make us better, faster, stronger. Where do you see in the next five years? In the next 10 years? So what's just around the corner for us?
(26:25) Jose: Okay. Normally, I like to talk about the hardware, the software and space. And three incredible things are going to happen in those three areas in terms of the software, meaning our brains, our computational capabilities. We are going to pass the Allan Touring test, and we will soon be able to connect our brains to computers. I don't know if 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, but Elon Musk actually, for example, he's very famous talking about neural link, that he's ready to connect humans already to the computers. But the FDA says, no, no, no, no. We have to wait too early, too early to, to connect humans to computers. So to me it's a question of time. And if the Americans or the Europeans don't do it, the Chinese and the Russians will do it. So someone will do it.
So that is in terms of the software, our computational capabilities, in terms of our hardware, our body, our biology, we are going to have the first rejuvenation therapies in five to 10 years. So we will be able to live longer and healthier and younger. Younger, which is what we want. And in terms of the space, as you probably know, we will probably have the first human base on the moon and probably also on planet Mars. And this will change humanity forever. Once the first humans land on Mars and stay on Mars, we will also become a multiplanetary civilization. And we will see how this tiny planet has been the cradle of humanity, but it's not the future of humanity. Our future is probably to go all over the cosmos, the universe, which is so big.
(28:16) Briar: Yeah, I'm really excited about all of this. I definitely want to go to Mars. I definitely want to go to the moon. The only thing that's stopping me from signing up for Mars, so to speak, is it's just such a long journey. So I look forward to the day that it's all a bit quicker, and maybe it takes a couple of days and not like months and months and years to get there.
(28:39) Jose: Absolutely but you can go to the moon, going to the moon, just takes one day if you do it right with the latest technology. And it would be fantastic to spend a honeymoon on the moon.
(28:52) Briar: Maybe I'll tell my boyfriend that. That's the plan.
(28:55) Jose: Yes.
(28:57) Briar: I'll probably never get engaged.
(29:01) Jose: To go to Mars. It takes a bit longer, as you said, with the current technology, it takes about six months to go to Mars. So it is a long trip. But remember when the Spanish went to America, it also took three months, four months to cross the ocean. Now we do it in in six hours flying.
(29:23) Briar: That's very true. So I'm obviously on this journey, and you've given me lots of food for thought. You've made me feel very hopeful about everything, because like I said earlier in our discussion, I was thinking I could live 200, 300 years. I'd been told I could live forever. And then someone basically burst my bubble and said, no your brain is the sticking point. Maybe you'll live 120, 130, but it won't be in your lifetime. So I felt like I had a bit of a wall, and now you are, you're telling me all these very inspiring things. What can I be doing tomorrow in order to start bringing my energies levels up in order to become more intelligent? Is there any magic pill I could be taking? Is there anything that I need to be doing outside the whole exercise, sleep, eat, healthy routine?
(30:17) Jose: Okay. Again, my friend Ray Kurzweil in a book that he wrote before called Fantastic Voyage, Live Long Enough to Live Forever. In that book, he talks about the three bridges to immortality. And one bridge takes to the second bridge that takes you to the third bridge that takes you to immortality. Each bridge is one decade. So it begins in the 2010s. Okay, in the 2010s last decade, which is what you said, eat well, sleep well, exercise, don't drink too much don't smoke, meditate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's bridge one. Basically the things that your mother told you already, we know them. Now in the second bridge that we are crossing at this point in the 2020s, we will have the first biotechnology therapies.
There are things that we are discovering which work in animals, and that will work hopefully in humans. One of them is metformin, for example. Another one that is being used with animals is rapamycin. And another one that we should have in 2, 3, 5 years are senolytics. So these things already are there, or almost there. So in this second bridge, we have the first biotechnology therapies, and they will take us into the third bridge. In the 2030 which are the nanotechnology therapies, we will have nanobots, nano robots in our body, cleaning the cholesterol in the veins. We will have nano robots cleaning the plague in our brain so that we don't get Alzheimer's or other dementia diseases. So one bridge takes to another bridge, to another bridge. So we have to stay healthy and begin using the first biotechnology therapies. But anyway, you are young enough from what I see that you should be able to make it to 2045 anyway. And then once we get there, we will have rejuvenation technologies.
So I tell all my friends, stay healthy, do all the good things, begin taking some of these biotechnology therapies that are coming out so that we make it first to 2029, 2030, which is longevity escape velocity. And once we are at that point, we will be gaining one year per year, we survive. We will then have nanotechnology therapies. And finally at the latest, we expect that by 2045, we will have free rejuvenation technologies for anyone who wants them. And I say it cannot be forced. If some people want to die, that's their choice. And when you said that death gives meaning to life, I don't think so. This is like saying divorce gives meaning to marriage.
(33:27) Briar: Yeah. I'm pretty keen to live forever, but it's been very interesting to see what everybody in my office has thought about it and my friends and family and things like this. What about the governments? Are they on board with stuff like this? Because I often, my perspective is a lot of the time, the, the governments aren't really talking about this kind of stuff. Only recently did we maybe hear a little peep from them regarding AI but until this point, it seems like they just brush it all under the carpet. They're not even talking about the future. They just want to, in my opinion, create discussion about things that are here and now, because that's what everybody in society perhaps understands a little bit more. What are your thoughts?
(34:15) Jose: Well, sadly, I agree with you. And I think that most politicians are not leaders. They are followers. They follow trends. They don't lead the trends, and they don't really see what is happening. So yeah, most politicians don't know about any of these. Most politicians, as you mentioned, they just have heard now about artificial intelligence. They have maybe heard that cancer becomes immortal, but they don't understand much of it. So yeah, politics is far behind technology. Technology is moving very fast exponentially, and politics is moving very slow, if at all, because, this is one of the characteristics of bureaucracies. Bureaucracies are stagnant. They stay there. Bureaucracies don't move. They are not dynamic. They are basically static. So yes, we do have a problem with politics. That is why I think we should have a robot president, an artificial intelligence that becomes president. It could be a better government that most human politicians.
(35:22) Briar: Yeah. So I think this is very interesting what you're saying. And certainly I think that the, the four year life cycle with when politicians get voted in, I think makes it all quite challenging because they're not thinking ahead. They're not thinking about 2040, like people like you and I are, they're thinking about, okay, how can I get my votes from the people in order to make it to the next term? And I live in Dubai now, as I mentioned, where I think we're, we're very lucky to have such a visionary and technology focused leadership who very much have the long game in sight for their society and for their country.
(36:02) Jose: Absolutely most politicians think about the next election. They don't think about 2030, 2040 or beyond. So I was last year, a couple of times in Dubai, I was for the opening of the Museum of the Future, which was on a fantastic day that I cannot forget or people will not forget, because it was on February the second month, the 22nd, and the year 2022. So it is a very interesting date. And also, I was, again in November for the Symposium of the Future, the Forum of the Future in Dubai, and I led a session about immortality. We talked in Dubai about everlasting life. So this, this was really incredible because this was a big event in the Beautiful Museum of the Future in Dubai talking about these things. And there were some political leaders. There were some academics, there were some business people. So it was a very interesting mix of experts talking about the long-term future. At the Museum of the Future that I recall you take the elevator and you go up to the year 2071, which is the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the United Arab Emirates.
(37:32) Briar: Yes. No, it's, it's, it's a very exciting place. And I think that's what I love most about living in Dubai, is it constantly feels like it's moving, progressing, that we can create our future, which I know is one of the concepts of trans-humanism. It's that, okay, we can guide our future. We can make it better. And I think that's what excites me so much about speaking to people like you and about exploring this journey, is it's, we can have an active participation. And it's very much how, my experience over the years before I even got into technology, when I was just starting out in my career, I thought, oh man, life isn't good. Oh, life isn't going very well because I was just waiting for life to happen. Whereas once you realize, oh, I can go out there, take action, I can learn, I can get knowledge, I can be bold and take risks and create companies, whatever it may be, I think it's amazing how powerful you feel when you are out there progressing.
(38:38) Jose: Absolutely. And this is the best time to be alive and to remain alive indefinitely. I like to say we are between the last mortal generation and the first immortal generation. So now is the time to be alive. And we could have never said that before because we were not so close to immortality like we are now. If we stay alive for 20 years, maybe a little bit more, we will be able to rejuvenate people. So I want to be part of the first immortal generation.
(39:16) Briar: Oh my gosh. Same. I'm so excited. I think you've given me lots of food for thought today. So I'm going to go away and digest it all and keep exploring and everything. And if you've got any things that are happening today, you mentioned people who are obviously exploring neuro links and connecting the brain to the cloud, you mentioned people who are inventing technology that will allow different versions of myself as avatars being able to smell and touch and do all of these wonderful things. I'd be so interested in getting in touch with these people as well.
(39:51) Jose: Fantastic. So as my Treki friends say, live long and prosper.
(39:59) Briar: Live long and prosper .
(40:00) Jose: Yes. Close enough. Live. Live long and prosper, my friend.
(40:03)Briar: Thank you so much.
