AI and Living Forever?

Welcome to The Transatlantic Post an editorial on innovation and international growth. With occasional British satire. By Kajal

Some of you may have read about Silicon Valley's obsession with immortality in its various forms, call it age-hacking, eternal youth, defying death - the fads are ridiculous and plentiful.

Take Bryan Johnson, a tech multi-millionaire that strives to reverse his age from 45 to 18, his company website Blueprint reads like a fictional Hollywood tagline “Death is now our only foe - battle gear is here” or simply by signing up their newsletter you can “be the next evolution of human”. I’ll remember to add that tagline to the next Post.

Thankfully, there are underlying segments of these age-defying quests that do hold promise - especially those applying AI in healthcare. As these technologies evolve beyond the billionaires row, there is real potential to help us live healthier and longer lives, to reduce health inequality and to support more sustainable healthcare systems.

Tectonic demographic shifts and healthy ageing…..

The global longevity and anti-ageing market will reach $183 billion by 2028. 1 By 2030, a staggering 2.1 billion people will be over 60. At the same time, fertility rates continue to fall rapidly in major world economies (see chart below for England) creating a so-called demographic timebomb - Governments need urgent solutions.

Countries around the world are employing macro policies to help positive ageing and maintain healthy populations with varying degrees of success. There are the reactive fertility policies - here is a $740 monthly stipend - have a baby! (Korea). Have some more maternity leave - have another baby! (China).

Incentivising women to have babies falls flat against a backdrop of lack of funding in maternal health and support in the workplace, motherhood career penalties and rapidly rising childcare costs. Policies need to address root causes. As Martin Wolf accurately notes in his Op-ed From the baby boom to the Baby bust 2 “It is essential, in the modern world, to help parents, especially women, combine careers with children”.

Slightly more promising are long overdue positive ageing policies that challenge beliefs and attitudes around the over 65 age group. Such policies acknowledge this age group’s ability and motivation to contribute to society and are more effective when combined with healthy ageing investment and advancements (Japan).

Yet many policies still carry a lack of urgency with half-baked solutions despite the tectonic demographic shifts that have been occurring for some time. Countries that embrace new technology into their policies to advance healthy ageing will have the lead to establish a more equitable and resilient path forward for their senior citizens.

AI healthcare innovation at the heart of change…

Opportunities for AI and healthy ageing are limitless - AI touches nearly every part of our healthcare ecosystem. Below is a snapshot of AI applications across the spectrum from drug discovery to cancer vaccines and includes a mapping of the vast number of companies, investors and hubs in each sub-sector.

AI application to preventative care and precision medicine using genomic data is one area where I have seen critical and accelerated innovation to support longer, healthier lives.

The UK is a leader in the field of Genomic Medicine. Genomics looks at the complete genome – that is, all of your DNA from genes to 'junk' – to get a clearer picture of how it can affect our health. AI-assisted genome analysis and its predictive capabilities can support a more proactive, personalised healthcare journey. Imagine being able to identify your high-risk disease areas and administer interventions before any chronic conditions appear in your late sixties?

In a report titled the "A New National Purpose: Innovation Can Power the Future of Britain." 3 Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Lord Hague called for the UK to establish a "national laboratory" to test out AI and for countries to put their unmatched wealth of national health data to work to harness the global artificial intelligence revolution in health care.

Last year, I co-hosted an “Innovation in Genomics” event panel with healthcare ThinkThank PPP and genomics experts. Part of the conversation centred around diversifying and sharing genomics data from leading national programs to support the prevention of rare and chronic diseases. To Blair and Hague’s point, the benefits of cross-country collaboration to multiply health data analysis cannot be understated.

The UK for example has pioneered the 100,000 genome project which seeks to improve patient care in particular for rare disease and cancer with NHS data. The USA’s All of Us program?is building a diverse database that can inform thousands of studies on a variety of health conditions.

In the Middle East, the UAE launched the ambitious Emirati Genome program - a study which aims to explore the genetic makeup of Emiratis, using advanced DNA sequencing and artificial intelligence technologies that ultimately aid in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. The program already incorporates the UK’s Oxford Nanopore Technologies - a global leader in genome sequencing.

As demographic shifts continue to pressure governments to adopt more sustainable healthcare policies, significant potential exists for AI healthcare innovators to scale their solutions globally. Despite barriers to cross-country collaboration on national programs due to complexities including data privacy, companies like Oxford Nanopore demonstrate the potential for global solutions as our populations age.

Blue Zones and the 100 year life…

What if the solutions to live longer and healthier lives are right in front of us and far simpler to administer than the latest AI tech? Netflix “Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones” has been on my watchlist for some time. In it, author Dan Buettner explores 5 unique communities where residents often live to be 100 years or older while maintaining vibrant health.

What are the secrets? Well, it is not rocket science if you are motivated enough to walk more, you have access to good quality simple food and a strong community. Even good tea makes a difference. As with many things in life, we all have good intentions. For some the barriers to incorporating better daily habits are truly about unequal access and others simply that life or motivation gets in the way. Who better to illustrate that than Oscar Wilde below.

As the world rapidly ages, there is no panacea. It will take a combination of proactive Government healthcare policies, technological innovation and individual awareness to maintain resilient and healthy societies. We might not live forever but the forevers we do live can be exponentially better.

“To get back my youth, I would do annything in the world, except take exercise, get up early or be respectable” Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Sincerely, yours, Kajal

References and Further reading

1 Inside the longevity industrial complex - AXIOS

2 From the Baby Boom to the Baby Bust, Financial Times

3 Innovation can power the future of Britain, The Tony Blair Institue for Global Change

About the Transatlantic Post

An editorial on innovation and international growth. With occasional British satire. Written and edited by Kajal Sanghrajka, founder and director of Growth Hub Global Kajal has worked with more than 250 businesses to support their international growth efforts to the US, Europe and MEINA regions. The full version is available via email 2 weeks prior. Subscribe here for the full version each month.