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The Secret to Living Past 120 Years Old? Nanobots

In “The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge With AI,” the spiritual sequel to his (in)famous first book, Ray Kurzweil doubles down on the promise of immortality.

As AI gains greater ability to understand human biology, it will be possible to send nanobots to address problems at the cellular level long before they would be detectable by today’s doctors. Even if only a minuscule fraction of these values are achievable in practice, it is clear that such technology will allow the digital parts of our brain (stored on nonbiological computing substrates) to vastly outnumber and outperform the biological ones. And even if it turns out that digitizing our conscious minds requires simulating every protein in every neuron (which I think is unlikely), it might take a few more decades to reach that level of affordability—but it’s still something that would happen within the lifetimes of many people living today.

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