This blog post examines the changes anti-aging technology will bring and the resulting ethical issues. Is eternal life truly a blessing for humanity, or will it spark new controversies?
If someone asked you right now how long you’d like to live, how would you answer? 80 years? 90 years? 120 years? Or even longer? And do you think your answer would change by the time you reach that age? Fifty thousand years ago, many people died young. Data suggests that less than 25% of the population survived past the age of 20. However, as humans developed ways to utilize resources and heal themselves, mortality rates gradually declined. Today, people live healthier and longer lives than ever before in history. It’s said that nearly 90% of the population now lives past 60. Yet this has led to an outcome humanity didn’t anticipate: the time spent sick and in need of care during life is steadily increasing. Most people will meet their end in a hospital bed. Dying in a hospital bed is depressing enough in itself, but it also means having to watch loved ones go through the same thing. That’s why scientists are trying to shift the medical field’s focus from ‘life extension’ to ‘life quality extension’. In other words, they aim to increase the time people spend free from disease. To achieve this, they must target aging itself—the fundamental cause of bodily decline. Though not widely known, the field of aging research has recently made dazzling progress. This scientific approach can be broadly divided into two categories: biotechnology and non-organic engineering.
Biotechnology-based life extension has two leading frontiers. The first involves senescent cells. Every cell has an expiration date. Each time a cell divides, it copies its chromosomes, gradually losing small pieces of DNA at the ends during this process. To protect against the risk of genetic information loss, the human body creates long strands of DNA called telomeres at the ends of chromosomes. Think of them like the hard plastic tips on shoelaces. However, these telomeres also shorten with each cell division. As most cells divide repeatedly, telomeres eventually disappear, resulting in the cell becoming a senescent cell. Senescent cells remain in place without dying, and their proportion in the body increases with age. They damage surrounding tissues and cause various diseases associated with aging, such as diabetes and kidney failure. In other words, removing these cells could restore health. Scientists genetically engineered mice to eliminate their own senescent cells. The aged mice, now free of senescent cells, became more active, experienced improved heart and kidney function, and saw a reduced risk of cancer. Consequently, they lived 30% longer and healthier lives than regular mice. However, since it’s impossible to genetically engineer all human cells, alternative methods to deal with senescent cells are needed. Most cells are designed to self-destruct when severely damaged, but senescent cells are not. This is because they fail to produce sufficient amounts of the protein that triggers this self-destruction. A study in late 2016 successfully injected this protein into mice, eliminating 80% of senescent cells without harming healthy ones. In other words, it selectively removed only the cells threatening life. As a result, the mice generally became healthier, and in some cases, even regrew hair they had lost.
Second is the NAD+ enzyme. Cells are composed of hundreds of millions of parts. They consist of structures, machinery, signaling components, and catalysts that trigger chemical reactions. All these parts are constantly being damaged, cleaned, and rebuilt. However, as we age, the efficiency of this process declines. Components break down, become clogged, or are cleared more slowly. Eventually, the body cannot meet its required production levels, and one such component is NAD+. This enzyme essentially tells the cell to take care of itself. By age 50, NAD+ reserves drop to about half of what they were at age 20. The problem is that this decline in NAD+ is linked to various diseases. Examples include skin cancer, Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, and various sclerosis conditions. However, NAD+ cannot penetrate cell membranes, making it impossible to administer as a drug. Therefore, scientists discovered a substance flexible enough to enter cells while also capable of converting into NAD+ inside them. In 2016, repeated administration of this substance to mice accelerated the proliferation of stem cells in the skin, brain, and muscles. The mice literally ‘rejuvenated,’ and their lifespan also increased somewhat. While it’s premature to say this technology will accelerate human life extension or longevity, it is a noteworthy advancement and has the potential to serve as humanity’s first true ‘anti-aging agent.’
The approach using inorganic engineering is quite different. The core idea of this technology is to create an entirely separate, inanimate entity distinct from the physical body we inhabit and to inject our consciousness into it. Representative examples include computer programs and computer viruses capable of independent evolution. The Blue Brain Project, launched in 2005, aims to recreate the entire human brain within a computer simulation. Furthermore, the movie ‘Transcendence’ depicts the protagonist existing within a supercomputer, accomplishing feats unimaginable while confined to a human body. Unlike biotechnology, which feels more directly tangible, non-organic engineering has a lower probability of success. Yet it represents a new endeavor aiming for immortality. If successful, it could unlock greater potential, as we would no longer be confined to our physical bodies.
But if we could halt aging this way, would it be desirable? Life extension or the end of aging makes many people uncomfortable. Humans have always lived following nature’s law: born, enjoying youth, growing old, and dying. Aging, spent accumulating experiences over time, is often seen as a kind of blessing. As the saying “golden years” suggests. Yet, while most people view the aging process positively, few actually enjoy becoming elderly. Consider the story of Tithonus from Greek mythology. Tithonus was the lover of the goddess Eos. Eos loved him so deeply that she asked Zeus to grant him eternal life. However, she forgot to request eternal youth. Thus, Tithonus lived forever but continued to age. Centuries later, he shrank to the size of a grape, condemned to an endless, meaningless existence. Thus, for millennia, humans have feared unending aging. Yet ending aging does not mean perpetual decline. From a biotechnological perspective, if someone is already too old, it’s too late. A 90-year-old whose aging is halted will still die within a few years. If inorganic engineering succeeds, it cannot be considered weakening, as it would free us from physical disability. The concept of life extension signifies the end of disease and the accompanying fixed life expectancy, meaning one could live forever while still finding sufficient meaning in life. Now, let’s examine the counterarguments from the perspectives of biotechnology and inorganic engineering, and see how they might be resolved.
One objection is that the burden of sustaining eternal life would be too great, meaning only a select few could enjoy its benefits. These issues of justice and equity are frequently raised when opposing life extension, and of course, predicting the hypothetical price of anti-aging treatments is impossible. Considering the biotechnology perspective, it has already been demonstrated that many medical innovations are not immediately available to everyone. Early antibiotics were only available to the elite, and many technologies like CAT scans and heart transplants were not accessible to everyone. Yet, we do not ban pacemakers or regenerative medicine for this reason alone. The fact that some people cannot enjoy all benefits does not mean they should lose the opportunity to live a healthy life. Moreover, even if anti-aging treatments are expensive initially, mass production could make them affordable, at least in developed countries. This is a common trend in medical innovation. From an inorganic engineering perspective, transplanting the human mind into an inanimate object is expected to be far cheaper than biotechnology. Just as two people in a simulation cannot be completely identical and evolve differently, carefully controlling initial conditions can create distinct minds. Therefore, the cost per person would be lower than biotechnology. However, non-organic engineering remains in its early stages, making it impossible to predict how much additional initial development costs will be required. Therefore, we must examine whether biotechnology or non-organic engineering is more economical.
Another counterargument claims that eliminating deaths would cause the population to surge rapidly, leading to a shortage of space to accommodate so many people. (In inorganic engineering, a person’s consciousness does not necessarily need to occupy a physical body, so the space shortage problem does not arise.) In fact, this argument is almost identical to Malthusianism, which predicted major problems caused by overpopulation in the year 2000 back in the 1970s. However, the proponents of this argument failed to account for technological advances in agriculture, transportation, and other fields, leading to completely inaccurate predictions. Therefore, if we succeed in preventing aging, it should be viewed not as an isolated, groundbreaking event, but as part of the overall evolutionary process of the ‘social organism’. Over the past century, the world population has nearly quadrupled, yet humans today enjoy a quality of life unparalleled in history. Moreover, many developed nations, including Japan and several European countries, face challenges of population decline and aging. This means humanity would have ample time to adapt even if aging prevention succeeds. Beyond aging prevention, other fields like space industry and ocean city construction are also advancing steadily. Should we find new habitats like cities on Mars or in the deep sea, they could sufficiently accommodate a rapidly growing population.
When Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus explored the world, they left death and injustice in their wake along Europe’s shores. Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon at the height of the Cold War, and Tim Berners-Lee did not wait for poverty to end when he invented the internet. None of them achieved their feats under ideal circumstances, yet their discoveries and efforts brought immense benefits to society and humanity. Whether biotechnology or inorganic engineering, each has its advantages and disadvantages. But whichever method sets new boundaries and achieves new discoveries, it will ultimately improve everyone’s life. If anti-aging becomes a reality, we can all enjoy growing old without suffering.
