Intelligence Squared

Could Silicon Valley Billionaires Cure Aging? With Aleks Krotoski

February 20, 2026

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  • The pursuit of radical life extension by Silicon Valley technologists is driven by a fundamental belief in technology as a savior, often overlooking unintended social consequences, similar to past tech revolutions. 
  • The radical longevity movement, exemplified by figures like Brian Johnson, relies heavily on quantifying the human body and adhering to strict, algorithm-driven protocols based on concepts like 'longevity escape velocity,' which the expert finds psychologically and physiologically problematic. 
  • Ideological factions within the longevity movement, such as Transhumanists and Effective Altruists/Long-termists, have developed quasi-religious beliefs surrounding technological salvation (the Singularity) that influence their approach to life extension and resource allocation. 

Segments

Host Introduction and Episode Context
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(00:01:01)
  • Key Takeaway: The episode of Intelligence Squared focuses on the pursuit of engineering immortality by powerful technologists and investors.
  • Summary: The episode introduces the central theme: the belief that death could become optional by 2026 due to massive investment in life extension technologies. Host Carl Miller introduces guest Aleks Krotoski, author of The Immortalists, who investigates the moguls, geroscientists, and entrepreneurs driving this disruption of death. The show notes highlight discussions covering radical life extensionists and transhumanist goals like consciousness uploading.
Guest’s Personal Death Obsession
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(00:03:05)
  • Key Takeaway: Aleks Krotoski’s interest in death studies originated from academic curiosity and was intensified by personal, problematic grief following multiple family losses.
  • Summary: Krotoski describes an early obsession with death studies, covering its psychological, social, and philosophical aspects. A period of intense personal loss, including the death of several close relatives shortly after her daughter’s birth, transformed this academic interest into a lived experience of consuming grief. This personal reckoning led her to externalize the emotion by studying death doulas and hospice workers, reframing death as an opportunity.
Focus on Silicon Valley Motivations
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(00:06:47)
  • Key Takeaway: Krotoski focuses on Silicon Valley technologists due to their unique combination of financial power, technological capability, and historical tendency toward myopic development without considering unintended consequences.
  • Summary: Krotoski, a long-time tech reporter, views the Silicon Valley cohort as uniquely powerful but historically prone to ignoring the negative societal impacts of their creations. She argues that their current pursuit of outrunning death demands intense scrutiny regarding potential unintended consequences, as they can no longer claim ignorance about technology’s broad effects. This cohort’s self-belief in their unique power to solve humanity’s ultimate problems drives their focus on longevity.
Information Theory and Human Quantification
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(00:12:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Technologists apply information theory, reducing complex human physiology to measurable ‘bits’ or data, which underpins the belief that aging is a solvable technical glitch.
  • Summary: The conversation explores the historical use of technology metaphors for the body, now dominated by information theory developed by Claude Shannon. This framework suggests that everything, including biology, can be reduced to binary data, leading figures like Elon Musk to believe the human body can be figured out and fixed with enough technology and AI. Krotoski cautions that this quantification ignores the unmeasurable aspects of the human experience, such as consciousness and attitude, which exist beyond measurable data.
Brian Johnson and Longevity Escape Velocity
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(00:17:32)
  • Key Takeaway: Brian Johnson embodies the quantification of self, attempting to achieve ’longevity escape velocity’ by strictly following an algorithm-driven protocol to reverse biological age.
  • Summary: Brian Johnson, a financially successful entrepreneur, underwent a personal crisis leading him to dedicate himself to becoming the healthiest person on the planet to prove the theory of longevity escape velocity. This concept suggests one can outrun aging by achieving rejuvenation faster than chronological aging progresses, ensuring future cures are available. Johnson achieves this by deferring all life decisions to an algorithm that dictates his diet, supplements, and exercise, based on constant measurement of his biological age.
Critique of Biohacking Metrics
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(00:25:04)
  • Key Takeaway: Obsessive tracking of biomarkers in biohacking is fundamentally flawed because it fails to account for real-world context, stress, or natural biological deviations like pregnancy, leading to psychological fragility.
  • Summary: Krotoski fundamentally disagrees with the biohacker philosophy that ’number goes up equals good,’ noting that biomarkers are subject to context, stress, and normal life events, which can cause numbers to decline. She argues that this devotion to metrics can lead to psychological distress when deviations occur, as seen when her own numbers dropped during pregnancy. Furthermore, publicizing this disordered approach to wellness is considered ageist and ableist.
Longevity Interventions: Blood and Drugs
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(00:33:04)
  • Key Takeaway: Radical longevity interventions range from the extreme practice of heterochronic parabiosis (plasma exchange) to off-label use of established drugs like Metformin and Rapamycin.
  • Summary: One major intervention discussed is plasmapheresis, inspired by research showing that connecting the vascular systems of young and old mice rejuvenated the older mouse’s organs via ‘young blood.’ This has led wealthy enthusiasts to undergo plasma flushing, sometimes involving their own children’s blood. Additionally, many enthusiasts take off-label drugs like Metformin (a diabetes drug linked to reduced dementia risk) and Rapamycin (derived from wine grapes) to extend ‘health span,’ the period of healthy life.
The Singularity and Ideological Factions
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(00:45:06)
  • Key Takeaway: The belief in the Singularity—the point of accelerating technological returns leading to human-AI integration—forms a fundamental, almost religious core for many Silicon Valley longevity advocates.
  • Summary: The Singularity is described as a belief that technology will soon become so powerful that humans will integrate with it, often via AI or nanotechnology (like Neuralink), leading to a messianic experience of bliss. Factions include Transhumanists, who seek augmentation, and Effective Altruists/Long-termists, who use hyper-rational utilitarianism to prioritize future billions of lives over immediate local needs. Krotoski views this technological fundamentalism as the crux of the issue for the rest of society.