What would you do with an extra century of life? Would you travel? Would you learn 10 languages? Would you write the novel of the millennium? A Davos 2025, Dario AmodeiCEO anthropic, made a chilling statement:
Artificial intelligence will double human lifespan by 2035.
“We are not talking about immortality, but about accelerating medical research by 100 years in a decade”, Amodei specifies. His reasoning is based on the ability of AI to simulate 40.000 proteins in 10 seconds or design drugs in weeks instead of decades. Too bad biologists snicker: Stuart Jay Olshansky ofUniversity of Illinois reminds us that No human has ever lived past 122, and 150 may be the upper limit.
The challenge is clear: even if AI optimized every stage of research, biological limitations would remain an insurmountable wall. “Can we repair a car while it is traveling at 200 km/h?”, asks Olshansky.
Davos 2025: Between Utopia and Skepticism
The World Economic Forum has turned the Swiss Alps into a stage for hyperbolic visions. Amodei is not alone: funds like Altos Labs (funded by Jeff Bezos) and Calico (by Google) they are pouring billion in anti-aging research.
“If you think about what we could achieve in 100 years of biology, doubling human lifespan is not crazy. With AI, we could get there in 5-10 years,” the CEO said during the panel. "Technology in the World".
But the numbers tell another story: only the 3,1% of women born in 2019 will reach 100 years. To double life expectancy, it would take 160 years on average: a milestone that not even Jeanne calment, the Frenchwoman who died in 1997 at the fateful age of 122, came close.
Not Just Dario Amodei: The Paradox of Immortal Billionaires
There is a reason why the tech big they dream of thehuman life extension: Peter Thiel, Bryan johnson and Larry Page have invested in startups looking to “hacking death”. Emma Morales, a bioethicist at Stanford, notes:
It's the new gold rush. But when we talk about longevity, we should ask ourselves: for whom? And at what cost?.
Obsession has deep roots. Yuval Noah Harari in the essay Homo Deus warned: “Immortality could create biological castes”. Meanwhile, projects and "dreams" like those of Liz Parrish (Biotechnologist and “guinea pig” of her startup) show the risks: in 2024, an experimental treatment on mice caused aggressive tumors.
Limits of Science, Ambitions of AI
Dario Amodei, about whom we have noted other shock forecasts, admits: “It's not an exact science”. But he also says, “I think by 2026 or 2027, we’ll have AI systems that are vastly better than almost any human at almost any thing. I see a lot of positive potential.”
Of course, there is progress. In 2024, DeepMind found 2,2 million protein structures unknown, accelerating research on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and AlphaFold2 “won” a Nobel.
“AI is changing the rules of the game,” he acknowledges Liisa Partanen, gerontologist atETH Zurich. “But we cannot ignore the complexity of the human body. Every cell is an ecosystem.”
The real crux? Even if AI found a "treatment" for aging, it would be useful decades of clinical trials. And as a note And dear su Gizmodo: “Every cigarette steal 20 minutes of life. Maybe we should start here”.
Beyond the Dario Amodei Hype: What Can We Really Expect?
Between proclamations and reality, there is a balance to be found. Tom Kirkwood, expert in aging at Newcastle University, proposes: “Instead of fixating on immortality, let’s use AI to extend our healthy years. It’s more useful and realistic.”.
The data confirms: from 1900 to today, global life expectancy has gone from 31 to 73 years, thanks to vaccines and hygiene. Could AI replicate this leap? Perhaps, but not alone. It will take health policies, a reduction in inequalities, and a bit of technological humility.
For now, Dario Amodei's bet remains a thought experiment. As he would say Stuart Jay Olshansky: “The human body is not a software. An update is not enough”.
Or not?