This article is also available in Italian / Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano
For the Think Tank section of Renewable Matter #57, focused on Human Tech, we truly put ourselves to the test, engaging with three visions of the future that challenge us to rethink how society and the economy are organised, and to reconsider the very boundaries of human life. We began with an exploration of the longevity economy, guided by one of the world’s leading experts on ageism: Nicola Palmarini, director of NICA - UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing.
Next, we spoke with James Arrowood, CEO of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, the American non-profit that, for over fifty years, has been welcoming cryopreserved “patients” in an attempt to halt the biological decay triggered by death, with the hope of one day reversing it.
Finally, we interviewed Randal A. Koene, a Dutch neuroengineer and pioneer in the field of mind uploading and brain emulation. Below is a glimpse into the themes we explored. You can read the full interviews in Renewable Matter #57.
Nicola Palmarini: how longevity is transforming society and the economy
“It is paradoxical how everyone is drawn to the idea of living for a long time, but no one is attracted to the idea of growing old.” This sentence by Andy Rooney, an American television author of the last century, perfectly sums up the contradiction contemporary society finds itself in.
An ever-increasing global percentage of over-65s continues to be met with a narrative of old age as a disgrace and a problem to be dealt with. Instead, we should be seizing the enormous opportunities – social, cultural, economic – of what is in fact humanity’s greatest achievement: longevity. So believes Nicola Palmarini, an expert in artificial intelligence and innovation (he has worked for IBM and MIT, among others), a scholar of ageism and author of Immortali. Economia per nuovi highlander (Immortals. Economy for new highlanders, published by Egea, 2019).
As director of NICA - UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing, the UK government’s organisation for the development of the longevity economy, Palmarini focuses on creating and promoting solutions that seamlessly link all dimensions of ageing: personal, social, medical, cultural, economic, and environmental. In order to develop what is, and increasingly will be, the new transformative force in the world ahead. Giorgia Marino interviewed him for this issue of Renewable Matter.
James Arrowood: the cryopreservation wager
Putting death on hold. Stopping the inexorable process of cellular decay that begins once the heart stops beating, and keeping the body intact in hibernation, as if suspended in limbo. Waiting for future science to be able to wake it up. This, in short, is the challenge of cryopreservation.
It sounds like science fiction. And indeed, sci-fi imagery – from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Vanilla Sky, from Interstellar to Futurama – has drawn heavily on this pioneering research. But in reality, cryonics has a widely accepted scientific basis and has been practised since the 1970s.
There are currently a handful of cryopreservation centres around the world: in the United States, Russia, Europe, and China. The pioneers, however, were Fred and Linda Chamberlain, who founded the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in California in 1972, later moving it to Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1994. Here, at Alcor’s headquarters, there are currently 250 “patients”, cooled down to a temperature of -196°C, “vitrified” and cryopreserved in metal Dewar vessels filled with liquid nitrogen, which, without electricity, will protect them from decay for thousands of years, theoretically. Or at the very least until science will be able to bring them back to life. Giorgia Marino got the full story from Alcor CEO James Arrowood.
Randal Koene: the frontier of whole brain emulation
How close are we to digitally emulating the human brain? Will we one day be able to recreate a complete consciousness in a computer? A mind capable of feeling, remembering, and thinking like ours?
Dutch neuroscientist and neuroengineer Randal A. Koene, founder of the Carboncopies Foundation, has been addressing these questions for over a decade. In this interview with Simone Fant, he outlines the current state of research into brain emulation, explores the most pressing scientific and ethical challenges, and reflects on the increasingly central role of artificial intelligence in the quest to map one of the most complex objects in the known universe: the human brain.
DOWLOAD AND READ ISSUE #57 OF RENEWABLE MATTER: HUMAN TECH
Cover: Nicola Palmarini, James Arrowood, Randal A. Koene