“Sadly, biological humans are likely to be mortal for centuries more unless a dramatic increase in both resources and life extension scientists is marshaled.”
Certain well-known gerontologists and longevity experts around the world believe that sometime in this century—probably in the next 15-50 years—medicine will likely overcome and cure most forms of disease, and even death itself. Billionaires such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Alphabet’s Larry Page, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison have jumped on board, pledging billions of dollars to “conquering all disease by this century” and mortality altogether.
These business titans hope age reversal techniques via genetic editing therapies, stem cell rejuvenation, 3D bioprinting of organs, and the widespread creation of synthetic organs like artificial hearts could keep people indefinitely young and healthy. If biological human death from disease and aging are overcome, then only catastrophic accidental death—such as an airplane crash or incineration—can kill people. (Accidental death in this vein accounts for about 7% of all deaths in the United States.)
Transhumanists believe that the human being is like a machine—an entity that can be fixed and made to overcome nearly all biological death. The question is how fast can this be done? If the human being is indeed a machine-like entity as nearly all credible scientists propose, then the answer almost certainly rests not in the limits of biology but, rather, in the amount of work and resources put into the life extension field.
But this optimism about overcoming death in this century is likely misguided according to a unique historical methodology that this essay will explore. Sadly, biological humans are likely to be mortal for centuries more unless a dramatic increase in both resources and life extension scientists is marshaled.
The Senescence Inference
In determining the length of a human’s life expectancy, it is essential to attempt to devise an objective system that can approximate that value, as well as a value of what lifespan might be possible with improved medical technology. The aim, therefore, is to create something similarly enduring and impactful as Moore’s Law has been in technology—but for biological human lifespan potential. Already relatively sound estimates—called Period LEB (life expectancy at birth)—can be made of an individual’s length of life by artificial intelligence examining DNA, ethnicity, background, socioeconomic status, education, geographical locations, and other factors.
To understand accurate assessments of future human lifespan—especially with regard to transhumanist aims to overcome death with science—I propose a methodology called the Senescence Inference. This system of calculations incorporates detailed lifespan estimates of the individual (Period LEB), then adds it together with that of every living person alive and divides it by the number of the living population. This results in the maximum number of life years people on average have left to live (Period World LEB), given current medical, science, and healthcare conditions. Period World LEB, which is approximately age 72.6, is then averaged with what the Period World LEB was 72.6 years ago, which was approximately age 48 for those born in 1901 and—on average—dying in 1949. This results in an approximate 1.5x lifespan expectancy gain from 1901 to now, making children born in 2021 expected to average nearly 110 years.
It is possible the Senescence Inference can go back further in history by doing the process again (for example, resulting in 30-year lifespan expectancy gain from those born in the year 1901: a 1.6x lifespan gain. Then 1.6 and 1.5 averaged together equals 1.55, which if applied to an infant born today would mean the infant has an average of 113 years to live). But going too far back is likely not too useful. This is because anything beyond 100 years from today increasingly has inaccurate mortality figures, far smaller population sample sizes, and may not reflect how medical science has changed in the last century compared to the centuries before. (However, for those curious: Period World LEB remained relatively stable between 30 and 40 years of age for people from the 1600s to 1900, resulting in an approximate 1.1x life expectancy gain per generation.)
Analyzing the Methodology
Adult transhumanists find the current Period World LEB number (age 110) totally unacceptable because it suggests that all of humanity is destined for death for still many centuries, including all those living today working on life extension technologies (and whose LEBs are below age 110).
Transhumanists also find the current Period World LEB partially unreliable because it does not incorporate black swan events in human evolution of scientific progress, like the microprocessor, artificial intelligence (AI), vaccines, or the Internet, which can dramatically speed up the trajectory of medical technology. (However, it must be noted that the inverse can also occur, and an asteroid, plague, or rogue Superintelligent AI can stop or postpone global scientific progress, and life extension technology and progress can be severely stunted.)
Either way, the transhumanists response is the same: The primary current goal of life extension must be to increase dramatically the world’s resources and human talent toward the effort of creating better life extension technologies and therapies. To do this, the two primary aims are the creation of more scientists (specifically those contributing toward longer lifespans) and a suitable allocation of resources for them to draw upon. Currently, the number of all scientists (including life extension scientists) is less than a quarter of 1% of the world’s population—at about 8 million, compared to 6.5 billion adults. The number of life extension scientists (or those directly focused on the field) is almost certainly under 10,000, based on my ten years of being a writer and speaker in the industry. And the amount of money going into the longevity field—approximately $600 billion by 2025—is just a fraction of the world’s total net private wealth at over $450 trillion.
The Senescence Inference upholds the idea that a tenfold increase of scientists, research, and resources into the field of life extension will have approximate commensurate results—meaning the Period World LEB of age 110 for anyone born today could be 10x higher if a tenfold increase of life extension science is undertaken over what would have been normal resource allocation otherwise. Naturally, scientific progress is not perfectly linear, but if the human body is truly a machine, then it really is a matter of money and resources to uncover the secret of how to make it ageless and immortal, given how much science (according to the Senescence Inference) has already historically helped it to live dramatically longer. Therefore, even if a tenfold increase in life extension scientists and resources did not create approximate commensurate results, it is still overwhelmingly likely to make a significant positive difference in progress of life extension aims. This is important because the Senescence Inference—and its formulated Possible Period World LEB number, which will be introduced below—still holds as a highly valuable way to quantify decision-making for transhumanists, especially in how aggressive they are in pursuing their goal to live indefinitely.
Possible Period World LEB
Transhumanists consider the overall life extension science output—called LE Output—to be the number of scientists directly working on life extension research (LE Scientists) added to the amount of life extension resources (LE Resources) available to them. This LE Output is then multiplied to the Period World LEB number, giving us Possible Period World LEB.
Possible Period World LEB is the actual number transhumanists consider the base for what they see possible today in how fast science can overcome death. However, this number is also the key number in determining how far transhumanists are willing to go in their activism and support of the science—given traditional morality and ethical decision-making to accomplish their goal of living indefinitely.
If the Possible Period World LEB number is low (as it is in 2024), then extreme utilitarian acts—even those that are illegal or traditionally perceived as immoral, such as civil disobedience, stealing property, and even starting wars—may appear philosophically justified so long as they seem reasonable and tangible measures actually to increase the speedy success of life extension goals. Such questionable extremism would be based on the premise that saving life through life extension technology is a defensible moral duty that is superior to just letting people’s lives end, since existence seems more valuable than nonexistence (this essay presupposes that the belief in any religious afterlife is nonsense).
However, if the Possible Period World LEB number is high, then less extreme life extension advocacy and ethical legal activism are adequate. But, for now, it is important to remember that as long as the traditional Period World LEB is so low and only a tiny fraction of scientists around the world are actually working on life extension science, then transhumanists alive today believe dramatic measures—extreme activism, moonshot actions, and watershed science discoveries—are required for those currently living not to perish. This is because the Senescence Inference (calculated toward the future, and not the past) holds that a logical date for humans to overcome death—or at least reach a semblance of it with 500+ year lifespans—is the year 2915.
Using the approximated average lifespan improvement figure of 1.5x per Period World LEB, here the calculation goes: From year 2021, we add Period World LEB age 110 years to it. This takes us to year 2131 and Period World LEB age 165, which takes us to year 2296 and Period World LEB age 248, which takes us to year 2544 and Period World age 371, which takes us to 2915 where newborns will have Period World LEB age 556. In short, it will take well over a millennium from today to attain Methuselah-like lifespans nearing 1,000 years. (And that is of course, assuming AI or some other existential threat does not wipe humans out first or force us back to the Dark Ages).
While it is comforting to think that our great-grandchildren may have a shot at living hundreds of years someday, it does little but sentimental good for transhumanists alive today, whose individual selves will be nonexistent by the end of this century or early in the next. This is why transhumanists alive today—as first seen in my 2013 novel The Transhumanist Wager—sometimes say: Morality is defined by the amount of time one has left to live.
In a scenario not that different from Sisyphean Tragedy, realistic transhumanists know only that the most extreme measures, acts, and diligence can have a chance to save those alive today by dramatically increasing the field of life extension science. A new, much larger wave of scientists, politicians, entrepreneurs, and longevity activists must urgently step forward if any momentous difference in this century is to be accomplished.
Zoltan Istvan writes and speaks on transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and the future. His 7-book essay collection is titled the Zoltan Istvan Futurist Collection. He is the subject of the documentary film Immortality or Bust and the nonfiction book Transhuman Citizen.
