According to Inc, tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson announced on December 16 that achieving immortality is now a “reasonable target” due to the accelerated rate of AI innovation. He made the statement on X and Facebook, declaring that the past 24 months have, for the first time in Earth’s history, opened a window for a conscious being to realistically strive for this goal. Johnson’s own life is a testament to this pursuit, managed by a team of 30 specialists who conduct daily body fat scans, MRIs, and blood and stool sample tests to monitor his biological age. His entire regimen is characterized by strict schedules and medical prescriptions, all in service of reversing aging. Johnson called this moment “absolutely insane,” framing the quest for the fountain of youth as the oldest story ever told.
The Data-Driven Fountain
So, how does this actually work? Johnson’s approach is basically extreme biohacking meets corporate management. He’s treating his body like a complex system that can be optimized through relentless data collection. Daily MRIs and stool samples? That’s next-level monitoring. The idea is to get a real-time dashboard of his “biological age” at the organ level and then intervene with diet, supplements, and treatments to roll it back. It’s a massively expensive, all-consuming experiment in self-quantification. But here’s the thing: even with all that data, we’re still fundamentally guessing at the levers of aging. We can measure inflammation or cellular senescence, but reversing it system-wide to achieve “immortality”? That’s a whole other ballgame.
The AI Wild Card
Now, Johnson’s real bet isn’t on the kale smoothies and nightly scans. It’s on AI. His argument is that the breakneck speed of development in artificial intelligence, particularly in fields like generative biology and protein folding, will crack the code faster than anyone expects. He’s looking at tools like AlphaFold and imagining what comes next. Could AI design a perfect, personalized therapy that repairs aging damage at the cellular level? Maybe. But that’s a huge leap from where we are now. AI is great at pattern recognition and simulation, but translating that into safe, effective human treatments involves years of clinical trials, regulatory hurdles, and potential side effects we can’t even foresee. It’s one thing for an AI to model a protein; it’s another to have it reliably rewrite your biology.
Skepticism and Scale
Let’s be real for a second. This sounds like classic Silicon Valley solutionism—applying tech-world logic to the messy, ancient problem of death. Set a target date! Disrupt mortality! But human biology isn’t software, and death isn’t a bug to be patched. Even if the science eventually gets there, who does it get there for? Johnson’s project reportedly costs millions per year. This isn’t a scalable health plan; it’s the ultimate luxury good. So the bigger question might be: if a path to radical life extension is discovered, does it become a technology that uplifts humanity, or does it just create an immortal elite? The pursuit is fascinating, but the implications are staggering. For now, it remains a multi-million-dollar experiment for one very dedicated man, waiting for an AI breakthrough that may or may not arrive in time.
