Aubrey de Grey

Aubrey de Grey

Aubrey de Grey is a transhumanist and cryonicist who posits that the first person to live to 1,000 is likely already alive and that someone born around the year 2000 has anywhere from a 50 to 80 percent of living much longer than the current lifespan, depending on how much funding SENS and related life extension programs receive soon.[1]

Aubrey de Grey famously predicts that humanity will reach longevity escape velocity around 2035, he also proposed a theory for the ways to cure aging, called strategies for engineered negligible senescence, maintaining that all causes of aging can be cured with proper strategies that are within the reach of current technological progress; however, many mainstream scientists believe that his strategies for engineered negligible senescence is a fringe theory;[2] and there are reasons to take a grain of salt on his notion that the humanity will reach longevity escape velocity(LEV) around 2035.

Longevity escape velocity

Aubrey de Grey predicts that the humanity will reach longevity escape velocity (LEV) around 2035, that is, the situation in which the remaining life expectancy of humanity always increases more than one year in each year. His prediction of the timing of LEV has been rather constant over years. In short, longevity escape velocity is a form of biological immortality attained by constant engineering on the human body.

However, in reality, the increment of life expectancy is slowing down, and it is unlikely that the percentage of people living to 100 years old will ever exceed 15% for females and 5% for males without any means to slow aging[3]; moreover, despite the impressive developments in computer technology and artificial intelligence in recent decades, the progress of scientific and technological innovation is slowing down in general[4], especially in medicine, as pointed out by Eroom's law[5], and the progression of computer technology has so far failed to translate to medicine, which means we should not realistically expect that there will be big breakthrough in medicine, and thus should not realistically expect that aging will be slowed or cured, therefore we should not expect the demographic trend that the increment of life expectancy is slowing down will be changed by future technological progress.

Criticisms

See the main article on this topic: Transhumanism § Radical life extension

PZ Myers believes immortality is impossible because the second law of thermodynamics leads to inevitable decay in any living system.[6]

Allegations of sexual harassment

In 2021, de Grey was placed on administrative leave by SENS Research Foundation over sexual harassment allegations.[7] Shortly after, he was removed from his position as he seemed to interfere with the sexual harassment investigation.[8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Caspar Llewellyn Smith (31 July 2010). "Aubrey de Grey: We don't have to get sick as we get older".
  2. ↑ Warner, H.; Anderson, J.; Austad, S.; Bergamini, E.; Bredesen, D.; Butler, R.; Carnes, B. A.; Clark, B. F. C.; Cristofalo, V.; Faulkner, J.; Guarente, L.; Harrison, D. E.; Kirkwood, T.; Lithgow, G.; Martin, G.; Masoro, E.; Melov, S.; Miller, R. A.; Olshansky, S. J.; Partridge, L.; Pereira-Smith, O.; Perls, T.; Richardson, A.; Smith, J.; Von Zglinicki, T.; Wang, E.; Wei, J. Y.; Williams, T. F. (Nov 2005). "Science fact and the SENS agenda. What can we reasonably expect from ageing research?". EMBO Reports. 6 (11): 1006–1008. doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400555. ISSN 1469-221X. PMC 1371037. PMID 16264422.
  3. ↑ Olshansky, S. Jay; Willcox, Bradley J.; Demetrius, Lloyd; Beltrán-Sánchez, Hiram (2024-11). "Implausibility of radical life extension in humans in the twenty-first century". Nature Aging. 4 (11): 1635–1642. doi:10.1038/s43587-024-00702-3. ISSN 2662-8465. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); More than one of |author1= and |last1= specified (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  4. ↑ Park, Michael; Leahey, Erin; Funk, Russell J. (2023-01). "Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time". Nature. 613 (7942): 138–144. doi:10.1038/s41586-022-05543-x. ISSN 1476-4687. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); More than one of |author1= and |last1= specified (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  5. ↑ Lowe D (8 March 2012). "Eroom's Law". In the Pipeline. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  6. ↑ A short argument against immortality
  7. ↑ The Times: Anti-ageing guru Aubrey de Grey accused of harassment, 12 August 2021
  8. ↑ STAT: SENS Research Foundation removes Aubrey de Grey over concerns he was interfering in sexual harassment investigation, 22 August 2021
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