“Death is a technical problem, and it will have a technical solution,” says José Luis Cordeiro. He speaks at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but on the Sabadell stage, where a series of thinkers, scientists and visionaries imagine the world as it will be in four years. 4YFN (4 Years From Now), is precisely the name of this section of the world‘s largest mobile technology fair, even if there are few smartphones to be seen.
But Cordeiro, a well-bred 60-year-old Venezuelan citizen of the world, is somehow at home, as one of the co-founders of Symbian, the mobile operating system adopted by 73% of mobile phones in 2006. Hundreds of millions of copies (mainly thanks to Nokia), before Apple and Android came along and changed the mobile market forever. Today Cordeiro, who is an engineer and economist, defines himself as a “futurist”, which however in Italian would be better translated as “futurologist”. In Barcelona he talks about his book The death of death. The scientific possibility of physical immortality and its moral defense. Released four years ago and translated into several languages, it explores the possibility of defeating death through the use of technology, especially artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and biotechnology. “In the future – he explains – we will be able to repair and replace parts of the body, regenerate tissue and even rebuild the entire brain”. The key to immortality lies in reversing the aging process, which for the scientist is simply a disease: “And we are very close to understanding how to cure it. On the other hand, between 1800 and 2000, life expectancy increased by about 30 years, reaching a global average of 67 years and in some countries more than 75 years”.
The time for the conference is short, half an hour, the theme enormous, and Cordeiro doesn’t always have the opportunity to go deeper into it. Thus he carries on quoting Schopenhauer: “All truths pass through three stages. First: they are ridiculed; second: they are violently contested; third: they are accepted as obvious”. He talks about a dead and frozen friend of his, and reveals that there are already dozens of people preserved at very low temperatures. He explains that immortality already exists in nature “even if people don’t know it”; in 1951 it was discovered that cancer cells are immortal, i.e. that “cancer causes cells to stop aging”, when a patient, Henrietta Lacks, suffering from cervical cancer, died and doctors removed the his tumor, which “is still alive today”. The point is to make even the good cells live forever; for Cordeiro it is not only a possible goal, but a near one.
“Anyone still alive by 2030 could have a good chance of living forever,” he notes, and adds that immortality is the next logical step in human evolution. Stopping the aging process would be a simple matter of engineering. A bit like for the technological singularity and artificial intelligence, here too there is a point of no return: it is the so-called escape velocity of longevity, a situation in which life expectancy improves at a faster rate than the aging of people.
Biohacking, it’s called, with a name that seems taken from a science fiction story, but which hides a very concrete implication for Cordeiro: “Those who do not deal with biotechnology in ten years will be out of the job market”.
Perhaps he exaggerates, but it is true that there are many scientists working to find the elixir of life. And many hi-tech companies: two years ago Amazon founder Jeff Bezos created Altos Labs, a start-up with the aim of extending human life; in 2016 Mark Zuckerberg announced a $3 billion plan to eradicate all disease by 2100. In 2013, Google created its biomedical research subsidiary, Calico (California Life Company). The stated goal is to combat aging and age-related diseases. Among the research projects are the mapping of the human genome and the development of therapies based on stem cells. Apple has a research division to develop new technologies and tools to help people monitor health and well-being (and now aims to detect diabetes before it’s full-blown). Microsoft Healthcare, born in 2016, is the Redmond project that focuses on artificial intelligence to create advanced technologies for health and longevity, primarily aiming to defeat cancer. And then the States, including South Korea and Japan, where population growth is very low and which for this reason seek to extend the average life span of the inhabitants.
Cordeiro is sure: “In 2045, death will be optional and aging will be a curable disease”. He looks to the future with even a little naive optimism: “Take a picture of this stage today, in thirty years you will look at it and you will see the beginning of a new era”. Assuming that indeed the devices we will use in 2053 can still read the file.
And give
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