Will AI cause humans to live forever? What would you do if you could live forever?

[Phil King]

^^^ This expert in AI claims that within 10-20 years, advances in AI + medicine will bring a cure for all diseases and allow for complete body rejuvenation so that you could be in your physical peak for essentially forever. Do you guys think this that within the near future, we'll all be immortal or at the very least, live a couple hundred more years? Would you guys even want to live forever? Does death give life meaning? How would you guys live your life if your current ego self could become immortal?

Edited September 2, 2023 by Phil King

[avatarse]

Can you let me know how why guy is an expert?  I've never heard of him and I can't see to find any credentials or experience that would qualify him for that evaluation.  

 

I think expecting that in 10-20 is a bit of a knee jerk reaction by him.  It'll help a lot in different researches likely, but predicting it's trajectory isn't something I think anyone can really do.

[Phil King]

19 minutes ago, avatarse said:

Can you let me know how why guy is an expert?  I've never heard of him and I can't see to find any credentials or experience that would qualify him for that evaluation.  

Hes worked in the field for the past 15 years, has written 3 books on cognitive architecture and Large Language Models, does consulting for tech companies on how to best implement AI in their business, and basically reads papers on AI all day and posts his findings on YouTube. https://www.daveshap.io/home

21 minutes ago, avatarse said:

I think expecting that in 10-20 is a bit of a knee jerk reaction by him

Yeah he has always made super bold predictions. At the beginning of the year he claimed that we would have AGI within 6-12 months, which looks unlikely. Still with people like Bryan Johnson and David Sinclair pushing boundaries of human longevity, I think that human lifespan could increase by like 50+ years

[caspex]

That's nice. More time for spirituality. I am not quite sure how it'd work considering I'd have to regularly take the anti-aging medicine, but I'd like to continue a spiritual practice for at least 100 years, considering I'll be living indefinitely. With time not being an issue anymore, I'd meditate to my hearts content.

[LastThursday]

On 9/2/2023 at 4:53 PM, Phil King said:

Do you guys think this that within the near future, we'll all be immortal or at the very least, live a couple hundred more years?

I think the only two paths to immortality are to either "encourage" the body to repair and rejuvenate itself or to produce molecular type machinery (probably proteins) that will do it for us. I don't see any other way, but hey I'm no expert - at all.

I think for either path there needs to be nearly a complete knowledge of the physics and chemistry of the body. We are nowhere near that. But AI could greatly accelerate that aim. How long will it take? Dunno. But change is exponential not linear. Already AI has "solved" the protein folding problem, this allows us (with the further help of AI) to far more easily design new proteins. The coding sequences for these new rejuvenative proteins can then be inserted into our DNA. Gene therapy is already a thing. 

I would say it has to be proteins, as they are completely compatible with our bodies in a chemistry sense.

On 9/2/2023 at 4:53 PM, Phil King said:

Does death give life meaning? How would you guys live your life if your current ego self could become immortal?

Death is the main driver of survival. Even if we are immortal, we can still die, a car could hit us. And even if we had immortality we still need to eat, so we still need to worry about survival and paying the bills. The only thing that changes, is that we have a huge amount of time to do stuff, and the pace of life would change.

I for one have a million things I want to try and work on, I wish I had all the time in the world to do them! To me, that would be a more meaningful life, than one wracked with urgency and the spectre of bad health and death itself. At the moment,I could live another fifty years or die tomorrow. If I could guarantee another fifty or longer years instead, then that puts a totally different complexion on living.

[MarkKol]

If you became Immortal you would eventually look for a way to kill yourself.

Edited September 7, 2023 by MarkKol

[LastThursday]

2 hours ago, MarkKol said:

If you become Immortal you would eventually look for a way to kill yourself.

There's definitely an argument for having an exit option if you know you can live indefinitely. But we have a hard enough time with the morality of euthanasia as it is. I mean if you're 200 years old and fed up with being alive, should you have the option to exit then? What about at 150? Earlier? 

[LoneWonderer]

People have been claiming and searching for immortality since the dawn of time. Only time shall tell. Focus better on yourself. What can you do to improve your health with the best science and knowledge we have right now to live a long and healthy life. Forget about 10-20 years from now. What can you be doing right now is a much more interesting question in my opinion.

[DefinitelyNotARobot]

There are always higher magnitudes of death waiting for us. Even if we did manage to overcome all of the inherent dangers of our own planet (disease, famine, war, natural disasters) and our biological decay, the sun would still explode, our galaxy would still collide with other galaxies and even the universe itself would eventually die right with us, as it isn't exempt from death either. And even if we overcame all of THOSE threats by, for example, moving to another much safer universe altogether (I'm just using this as a thought experiment, I'm not saying that there is a multiverse), we would still stumble upon another existential threat on the multiversal level in the future.

Think about it. Our universe could be 5 minutes away from crashing into another universe and being shattered entirely, but we wouldn't know since we don't even know if there are any other universes, just like a small spider might always be 5 minutes away from accidentally being stepped on by a human, a possibility that exists far outside of it's ability to comprehend reality. So even if you couldn't die to the stuff that is threatening you on earth, how would you know whether the universe itself wasn't at constant threat?

So death doesn't just lie within that which we know, but also in that which we don't. How are you going to prepare for something not even an AI can comprehend?

Edited September 8, 2023 by DefinitelyNotARobot

[jimwell]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:53 PM, Phil King said:

This expert in AI claims that within 10-20 years, advances in AI + medicine will bring a cure for all diseases and allow for complete body rejuvenation so that you could be in your physical peak for essentially forever. Do you guys think this that within the near future, we'll all be immortal or at the very least, live a couple hundred more years?

Becoming immortal in this century is a pipe dream. Staying alive for a few hundred years is not possible within 30 years.

 

On 9/2/2023 at 11:53 PM, Phil King said:

Would you guys even want to live forever? Does death give life meaning? How would you guys live your life if your current ego self could become immortal?

Many years ago, I used to struggle with the fact that I am mortal and will die in the future. Death makes life empty because all your experiences, accomplishments, and even memories will all be wiped out when you die. When you're dead, it feels as if you have never been born. If you understand I'm saying, it will be obvious to you that death renders life empty (other humans use the words "pointless" and "meaningless." to describe it).

When I finally discovered the ultimate purpose of my human existence, the depression and lamentation about the fact of death significantly decreased. Instead, I started to feel deep joy, love, excitement, and peace regularly. It's still clear that death renders life empty, but it feels it has a noble purpose, is beautiful, and is worth living.

During those years of depression, lamentation, and nihilism; I wanted to live eternally. I felt that would be the only way for my life to have meaning and value. In retrospect, it was foolish of me to desire immortality.

I would want to live for a few hundred years so I can maximize the accomplishment of the purpose of my human existence. I feel that staying alive for less than one hundred years is too short. I have too many plans and ambitions. I have too many concubines, wives, parks, hills, walking paths, songs, articles, videos, birds, dogs, lakes, cuisines, technological advancements, houses, etc., to enjoy, appreciate, and create.

But I would NOT want to be immortal. It's clear to me now that being immortal is the worst mental-emotional torture God could ever inflict on its creatures. That might sound surprising, but it is the case. It's because I am limited. All the beautiful things I can enjoy, appreciate, and create will always be limited. More importantly, I myself am limited. My intelligence, perception, senses, and capacity to appreciate, enjoy, and create beauty are limited. After a few hundred years of human life, I would be sick of all the things I used to enjoy and admire. That's what being limited means.

Hence, it is appropriate that my lifespan should also be limited. God seems to know what it's doing after all via the creation of death.