There's A Chance Billionaires May Eventually Be Able To Extend Their Lives By Uploading Their Minds Or Modifying Their Genetics.‍

Reverse aging and live for decades longer? Transmit your mind to a database for digital immortality? Such alternatives may one day be available to humans.

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The quest for the Fountain of Youth is an ancient one.

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Over the years, efforts to increase human lifetime have shifted from philosophical to scientific; now, some real progress in longevity is being achieved.

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Numerous firms are working hard to produce novel gene therapy drugs. Rapamycin, a Pfizer PFE, -0.55% medicine used to prevent kidney transplant rejection and the growth of some forms of cancer, has been shown to reduce aging in mice by 20%. It has a comparable impact on invertebrates with the extra benefit of preventing diabetes, cancer, and heart attacks in humans.

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Acrabose BAYN, +2.13% from Bayer AG is another interesting possibility. The medicine is used to treat diabetes in humans and has increased the longevity of mice by 20%. This is because its effect on the organism is similar to calorie restriction, which has been demonstrated in mice to extend lifespan and health span.

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Stealth BioTherapeutics' SS-31, also known as Elamipretide, is a synthetic peptide that enhances mitochondrial activity; it is being tested in clinical studies for mitochondrial disorders including heart failure. It has a lesser-known anti-aging function. This study reveals that it can cure aging-related impairments in skeletal muscles in mice, with the potential for human use.

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A push is being made to multiplex these three medications for an increased anti-aging impact, and the results of this work are only a matter of time.

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Backers who are wealthy and powerful

It stands to reason that those with the most to lose would be captivated by the notion of eternal life. Clearly, this contains some of the world's wealthiest individuals.

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Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com AMZN, +0.40% has allegedly invested in Altos Laboratories, a biotech start-up created in 2021 with the goal of reversing the aging process. The investment is consistent with a recent trend of high-profile individuals and corporations investing in longevity research, which might result in important discoveries in the future years. Yuri Milner, the Russian-Israeli billionaire who has invested in Facebook, Russian email provider Mail.ru, and Russian social network VK, is also said to be funding the firm.

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Digital immortality

While longevity is a worthwhile aim in and of itself, medications that extend life are sometimes either prohibitively expensive or have not been sufficiently researched to give the desired advantages. Individuals would be obliged to resort to alternate techniques of avoiding death in such instances, such as the transfer of consciousness onto digital medium.

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Digital immortality is not a novel notion; it has been explored in a number of prominent works of fiction. But first, let's address the fundamental question: what does it mean to "transfer your mind" into a computer?

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The process of translating human mind to a digital domain entails mapping the neuronal pathways of the brain, which may subsequently be converted into computer code. The resulting "digital brain" would be an identical clone of human mind that could operate on a powerful computer system.

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This technology has far-reaching ramifications. It would enable us to build a digital replica of ourselves that could be saved on a hard drive and exist long after we died. In a way, this clone would become eternal, living on in the digital universe forever.

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But there’s a catch.

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Regardless of the technology's potential, the transmitted data is unlikely to constitute our consciousness in the genuine meaning of the word. Instead, we would develop a facsimile of our consciousness that would be controlled by an intelligent AI system. This computer version of ourselves would look, behave, and think like us, but it would not be us. Instead, it would be a complex digital replica.

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There are also ethical and philosophical concerns to consider. For example, who owns a digital duplicate of ourselves? Who has the authority to regulate and access it? Is removing it considered murder? What about the possibility of replication? These issues get significantly more complicated if a digital counterpart is thought to be sentient and self-aware.

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Furthermore, the concept of digital immortality raises philosophical concerns regarding the nature of consciousness and what it means to be human. What does it say about our sense of self and our notion of what it is to be alive if our awareness can be reduced to a sequence of brain pathways?

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Despite these challenges, the search of immortality continues, using both traditional approaches such as gene therapy and the discovery of new medications, as well as more unusual ways such as digital immortality. While none of them are certain to lead to eternal life, the hunt for the Fountain of Youth continues apace.