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Bridges to Life

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The Future of Aging

Abstract

The future of aging and human life extension begins today, using presently available tools, but will be increasingly shaped and accelerated by ongoing breakthroughs in biotechnology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence in the years ahead. These developing technologies should allow many to journey over what can be seen as three bridges to ever-improving life and health expectancy, such that some who survive as a result of “bridge one” may be able to benefit from “bridge two” and even from “bridge three.” We begin our perspective on the future of aging with a brief overview of a sampling of present approaches to life extension (“bridge one”) and then explain why biotechnology (“bridge two”) and nanotechnology plus artificial intelligence (“bridge three”) might allow many of us to benefit from remarkably extended lifespans in the future.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kurzweil Technologies, Inc., Wellesley, MA, USA

    Ray Kurzweil

  2. Frontier Medical Institute, Denver, CO, USA

    Terry Grossman

Authors
  1. Ray Kurzweil
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  2. Terry Grossman
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Correspondence to Ray Kurzweil .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Intervene Biomedical, LLC, Box 478, Norco, CA, 92860, USA

    Gregory M. Fahy

  2. BioTime, Inc., 1301 Harbor Bay Parkway, Alameda, CA, 94502, USA

    Michael D. West

  3. Institute of Molecular Biology Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Young Hall, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1569, USA

    L. Stephen Coles

  4. Critical Care Research, Inc., 10743 Civic Center Drive, Rancho Cucamonga, CA, 91730, USA

    Steven B. Harris

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Kurzweil, R., Grossman, T. (2010). Bridges to Life. In: Fahy, G.M., West, M.D., Coles, L.S., Harris, S.B. (eds) The Future of Aging. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3999-6_1

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