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Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist, futurist, and professor at the City College of New York. He is the author of many fascinating books on the nature of our reality and the future of our civilization.

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Do you think 1 day technology will allow individual human beings to become immortal besides just through the ability to digitize our essence?

Yeah, I think that artificial intelligence will give us the key to genetic immortality.

You see, in the coming decades, everyone's going to have their gene sequence.

We'll have billions of genomes of old people, billions of genomes of young people.

We're going to run it through an AI machine, which has pattern recognition, to look for the age genes.

In other words, the fountain of youth that emperors, kings, and queens lusted over, the fountain of youth will be found by artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence will identify where these age genes are located.

This means that cells eventually become slower, sluggish, and they go into senescence and they die.

We die because of the buildup of mistakes in our genome, in our cellular activity.

But you see, in the future, we'll be able to fix those genes with CRISPR-type technologies, and perhaps even live forever.

Given a car, where does aging take place?

A, that's where you have a lot of moving parts.

Well, where in the cell do we have combustion?

And if we cure many of the mistakes that build up in the mitochondria of the cell, we could become immortal.

Let me ask you, if you yourself could become immortal, would you?

No, I think about it for a while because of course it depends on how you become immortal.

You know, there's a famous myth of Tithonus.

It turns out that years ago in the Greeks mythology there was the saga of Tithonus and Aurora.

Aurora was the goddess of the dawn and she fell in love with a mortal, a human called Tithonus.

And so Aurora begged Zeus to grant her the gift of immortality to give to her lover.

So, Zeus took pity on Aurora and made Tithonus immortal.

But you see, Aurora made a mistake, a huge mistake.

She asked for immortality, but she forgot to ask for eternal youth.

So poor Tithonus got older and older and older every year, decrepit, a bag of bones, but he could never die, never die.

So I think immortality is a great idea as long as you also have immortal youth as well.

Now I personally believe, and I cannot prove this, but I personally believe that our grandkids may have the option of reaching the age of 30 and then stopping.

They may like being age 30 because you have wisdom, you have all the benefits of age and maturity, and


Speaker 0: Do you think 1 day technology will allow individual human beings to become immortal besides just through the ability to digitize our essence?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that artificial intelligence will give us the key to genetic immortality. You see, in the coming decades, everyone's going to have their gene sequence. We'll have billions of genomes of old people, billions of genomes of young people. And what are we going to do with it? We're going to run it through an AI machine, which has pattern recognition, to look for the age genes.

In other words, the fountain of youth that emperors, kings, and queens lusted over, the fountain of youth will be found by artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence will identify where these age genes are located. First of all, what is aging? We now know what aging is. Aging is the buildup of errors.

That's all aging is. The buildup of genetic errors. This means that cells eventually become slower, sluggish, and they go into senescence and they die. In fact, that's why we die. We die because of the buildup of mistakes in our genome, in our cellular activity.

But you see, in the future, we'll be able to fix those genes with CRISPR-type technologies, and perhaps even live forever. So let me ask you a question. Where does aging take place in a car? Given a car, where does aging take place? Well, it's obvious, the engine, right?

A, that's where you have a lot of moving parts. B, that's where you have combustion. Well, where in the cell do we have combustion? The mitochondria. We now know where aging takes place.

And if we cure many of the mistakes that build up in the mitochondria of the cell, we could become immortal.

Speaker 0: Let me ask you, if you yourself could become immortal, would you?

Speaker 1: Damn straight. No, I think about it for a while because of course it depends on how you become immortal. You know, there's a famous myth of Tithonus. It turns out that years ago in the Greeks mythology there was the saga of Tithonus and Aurora. Aurora was the goddess of the dawn and she fell in love with a mortal, a human called Tithonus.

And so Aurora begged Zeus to grant her the gift of immortality to give to her lover. So, Zeus took pity on Aurora and made Tithonus immortal. But you see, Aurora made a mistake, a huge mistake. She asked for immortality, but she forgot to ask for eternal youth. So poor Tithonus got older and older and older every year, decrepit, a bag of bones, but he could never die, never die.

Speaker 0: Quality of life is important.

Speaker 1: So I think immortality is a great idea as long as you also have immortal youth as well. Now I personally believe, and I cannot prove this, but I personally believe that our grandkids may have the option of reaching the age of 30 and then stopping. They may like being age 30 because you have wisdom, you have all the benefits of age and maturity, and

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Michio Kaku: AI Will Help Us Discover Genetic Immortality | AI Podcast Clips