Life extension and impact on insurance: Altered Actuaries

Evaluating life extension technologies and implications on actuarial domain of living in a post-human ‘Altered Carbon’ Society

Syed Danish Ali

Introduction

In a society resembling that depicted in the Netflix series "Altered Carbon," the traditional parameters and models used in actuarial science would undergo a dramatic shift. You don’t need to see this series first and only then be able to understand this article. This article describes the key aspects and how they relate to insurance implications so that its accessible to all readers and not only for those who have previously seen this series ‘Altered Carbon’.

In the universe of Altered Carbon, human consciousness can be transferred between bodies, referred to as “sleeves,” effectively offering a form of immortality to those who can afford it. The invention of “stacks,” digital storage devices implanted in the spinal column, is the store for consciousness. The physical body, referred to as a “sleeve,” has become interchangeable and disposable as the 'stack' can be taken from one sleeve and fixed in any another sleeve. This revolutionary advancement has disrupted the very essence of life, death, and identity, presenting uncharted territories for various sectors, including the field of actuarial science.

Building the Context

This article explores the profound implications and challenges such a society would pose to actuarial work and the insurance industry, and contemplates the evolution of these fields in adapting to these new realities. We also look at what pathways we have in our current times and how we can adapt ourselves pragmatically. But before that let’s explore some viewpoints surrounding life extension such as our tendency to predicting the future in one way or the other.

While it is true that we are seeing a lot of innovation in the life extension and longevity industry over the past decade, it is also important not to get carried away. Statements from futurists or longevity experts to create hype to create more funding avenues like we will conquer death, or seeing death like a disease, or saying that person living to 1 thousand has already been born[1], only serves to polarize the readers between the two; the skeptics and radical optimists. It is true that mRNA, CRISPR, biological medicine, research on animals to unlock their secrets[2] etc. have increased rapidly, but we must also realize that we haven’t cured COVID9 or influenza simple virus yet. Such outlandish statements force people to pick up one side whereas the truth is more moderate and pragmatic. The best view that I have come across from a moderate point of view is that of Michio Kaku who says in ‘Physics of the Future’ that over future we will compromise with diseases to prolong life but not conquer death; because there are so many diseases and diseases are not static but evolve and mutate too; so we will have biochips in our blood that will repair our bodies quickly in real time and we will have many cures but new health problems will arise and we cannot say we have gotten rid of diseases altogether. To get a sense of how many diseases are actually out there currently, see that according to the 11th International Classification of Diseases (2019), there are currently 17,000 diseases, syndromes, and injuries. There are more than 6,000 generic medicines and over 4,000 medical and surgical procedures to deal with these afflictions, “each with different requirements, risks, and considerations”[1].

We should realize that we only increase the magnitude of our fundamental existing social polarities if we continue throwing tech at every problem. So, for example, we have current problem of huge inequality where globalization has worked for few but left billions behind and left them vulnerable to face the climate change onslaught.? This financial inequality can be enhanced through biological inequality if the rich get access to expensive gene editing and other technologies that make them biologically superior to rest of the people. Throwing tech at everything without social transformation with it is a recipe for disaster.

We can already see 5 Blue Horizon Societies in the world that have built a foundation for leading the highest longevity ages from humans in the most disease minimized way as possible. The Okinawa blue horizon society has people who get less sick, less cancer, life above 100 the most per capita and so on many more amazing statistics. They do this by combining physical, mental, social and spiritual domains in a holistic ‘ikigai’ lifestyle which doesn’t explicitly aim to live that long but still achieves it. Even today what we need more is to replicate the social model adopted by these 5 Blue Horizon societies to reconfigure our modern societies to it rather than only throwing tech at every problem. This can help us from overcoming many of the problems associated with ageing societies that are being seen rapidly in the developed Far East specially like Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and China.

Similarly, we can learn from Scandinavian policies and social reform in Iceland. These countries focus not on the jobs whether they will be automated due to AI but on the people because jobs do not matter but people do. So, governments retrain them in retraining centers and help the displaced to find new jobs[3]. Already we are seeing massive protests even though only a shadow of AI has been implemented in real life relative to AI’s potential in the future like the Screenwriters winning a historic victory against AI writing implications in Hollywood after 148 days of strike[4]. The problem is not to dismiss those who get left behind due to the rapid pace of technology as ‘luddites’, but to address their underlying concerns which are pretty much all the same like human needs viable work for reasonable pay and conditions to make us feel useful members of the society. Iceland performed remarkably in the 2008 crisis by strictly handling the ludicrous aspects of banking that had led to that crisis and in a decade converted its reliance from oil to running the whole country on geothermal energy.

When evaluating social change, we have to note that it won’t be just one big bang and then everything changed forever. It won’t be linear too. Social change will be exponential punctured with paradigm shifts (Thomas Kuhn) every now and then. This will allow insurers to catch up as new emerging risks will present themselves and ossify over time before the next paradigm shift.

And it’s also important to understand the specific AI that we have currently and differentiate it from the General AI AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Under specific AI, we are looking at explosion of tailored made AI solutions but survival of the fittest will ensure only about few % will succeed. What's material is that if we let's say in next 30 years develop Artificial General Intelligence AGI which is sentient and can act upon its own will. AGI is the real unknown scenario which should be feared but not today's AI parrots. At that time of AGI, humans will have no option but to go for Brain Computer Interface (BCI) to merge in order not to be left behind. We are already hooked up if we compare what humans were even like even 50- 80 years ago; no machines no oil no mobile no being connected all the time; we are cyborgs already if someone from 1900 would time travel to today.

Commentary on specific scenes with the series Altered Carbon

Now that we have established the context, let's move on to exploring Altered Carbon in more detail. Thomas Hobbes famously said that life in the past without a centralized draconian ruler imposing order was ‘nasty, brutish and short’. For the dystopian future foretold in Altered Carbon, this statement would be replaced by that life in future would be ‘timid, lonely and long’ due to the extremely high biological and financial inequalities, lengthy lifespans due to reincarnations brought about by sleeves, and people having little power to change their society’s dynamics.

In the initial episodes, Takeshi Kovacs, a former soldier, is killed and re-sleeved into a new body. This process, common in the Altered Carbon universe, highlights the first challenge for actuaries: assessing the risk of death in a world where physical death doesn’t equate to the end of consciousness. Actuaries would need to factor in the quality and availability of sleeves and the risk associated with consciousness transfer, including potential data corruption or loss during the transfer process including cyber hacking risk. Personality fragmentation where a person gradually goes mad if he/she keeps resleeving into bodies that are different than the current body. Sleeve fever also happens in the initial time after resleeving. The old actuarial models based on biological lifespan, health conditions, and lifestyle factors become obsolete in such scenario. True immortality is still not possible because diseases and people and arms can still kill and because only the very few can actually afford a sleeve but a technological ‘reincarnation’ has been made possible.

'Real death' means case where sleeve and stack have both been destroyed whereas 'sleeve death' where the cloned sleeve only dies but stack is intact so it can still be transferred into a new sleeve. Serious criminals are put on 'ice' by Police which means that stack in sleeve is still there but person is sleeping indefinitely instead of actually dying. They can be revived even hundreds of years later if they can be used to serve a social purpose.

In a poignant scene, a little girl is resleeved into the body of an elderly woman due to financial constraints, showcasing the economic disparities in sleeve accessibility. This scenario underscores the need for new insurance models. Scenes also depict characters being resleeved against their will, or into bodies not of their choosing, emphasize the ethical considerations actuaries must grapple with. Actuaries would be tasked with developing insurance products ensuring equitable sleeve access, assessing risks associated with various sleeve types, and determining the economic implications of sleeve damage or loss.

The series introduces the Meths[5], a class of wealthy individuals who can afford high-quality sleeves and regular resleeving, essentially achieving immortality. The Meths, a class of ultra-wealthy individuals, live in opulence and have the means to acquire high-end sleeves, ensuring their continuous existence. Amidst the glimmering spires of a futuristic cityscape, the Meths, an elite echelon of society, bask in the luxury of high-end sleeves, their lives a continuous, unbroken thread woven through the fabric of time. The economic and social implications of this division are profound. This class division highlights the need for actuaries to consider social and economic factors in risk assessment and insurance product development. The longer they live, the more bored they get and the more extreme their ways of partying becomes.

The unintended consequences always take priority as we see over and over again throughout the present and history. Fire was meant to cook food but it also used to scare animals and then burn humans. Dynamite was created to clear rocks for mining not lead to a new industrial warfare. Internet was meant for internal communications. Before Starlink could even become common worldwide, it saw itself become the nerve center of communications for an international war. In Altered Carbon, the inventor says that stacks were designed for long-term voyages into outer space so that they could travel those large distances. Hence, we must keep a rich imagination and anticipate that technologies will be used in unintended ways. That’s why Yuval Noah Hariri notes that new health technologies start with overcoming illness but over time become source of improvement and enhancement rather than about overcoming adversities. If we think that a poor person in the next 200 years will be grateful that at-least in his time, pistachio is not something reserved only for the elites as was few hundred years ago, or that the greatest miracle was ‘supermarket’ which had abundance of natural materials like spices pepper salt at such cheap rates (over which wars used to be fought in history), we would be wrong. The person in the future would care that he/she is behind the current ultra-rich and wants to catch up.

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The Concept of Risk in a Post-Human World

In the world of "Altered Carbon," the very fabric of life and death is altered, rendering traditional actuarial models obsolete. Characters within the series navigate a complex terrain where "sleeves" (bodies) can be replaced, and consciousness can be stored digitally. This shift in mortality and consciousness dynamics has substantial implications for actuarial science, reshaping risk assessment, insurance models, and ethical considerations.

Given the show's futuristic and dystopian setting, the role of an "altered actuary" could be quite different from the traditional actuarial role we're familiar with today. Here we explore some speculative roles and responsibilities of an "altered actuary" in the universe of "Altered Carbon":

·??????? Life Expectancy Analysis of Sleeves: With the technology of sleeves, people can technically live forever. However, each sleeve has its own lifespan depending on its quality, origin, and how it's maintained. An altered actuary might be responsible for assessing the expected lifespan of different sleeves based on various factors.

·??????? Sleeve Insurance Anyone?: Just as we have life and health insurance today, in the world of "Altered Carbon", there might be insurance policies for sleeves. Actuaries would play a role in determining premiums, coverage limits, and conditions under which a policyholder can claim for a new sleeve.

·??????? Consciousness Transfer Risks: Transferring consciousness might not always be foolproof. There could be risks of data corruption, loss, or even theft. Sleeve fever, being caught up in trauma loop and personality fragmentation would be huge health challenges to quantify for morbidity and mortality. Actuaries would assess these risks and help in pricing products or services that protect against them.

·??????? Digital Realms and VR Life Expectancies: The series also explores digital realms where consciousness can exist outside of a physical sleeve. An actuary might assess the life expectancy and risks associated with these digital existences.

·??????? Criminal Sentences and Storage: In the series, criminals can have their stacks (their consciousness storage devices) put on hold, effectively pausing their existence. Proposition 653 gets passed which allows Police to revive a person who was killed so that they can identify and testify against their murderers. Actuaries might work with legal systems to determine the economic and societal costs of such sentences.

·??????? Stack Damage and Loss: While the stack is designed to be robust, it's not indestructible. Energy weapon hit destroys stacks. Actuaries would be crucial in determining the risks associated with stack damage or loss, and the implications for insurance and other financial products.

·??????? Concept of risk: The concept of “risk” would be fundamentally altered. With the ability to transfer consciousness to a new sleeve after the death of the original body, mortality risk would no longer hold the same meaning. Actuaries would need to consider new variables, such as the availability and affordability of new sleeves, the potential risks associated with different types of sleeves, and the societal and legal contexts in which sleeves are used and insured. All the time while knowing that ‘sleeves’ are so expensive that they are available only for the ultra-rich who live in sky mansions Aeriums to escape the poor mundane life below or for government to give as incentive to achieve its objectives to only very few.

Ethical considerations would take center stage as actuaries navigate the complex landscape of a society where life can be extended indefinitely through technological means. Actuaries would play a critical role in ensuring that the insurance industry operates ethically within this new context, helping to establish standards and guidelines for insurance coverage and pricing that consider not only financial and technological factors but also social equity and justice. But at the same time, we should not pretend that even in current times that actuaries are bound by the ethics code so no unethical aspects exist in insurance or the broader society. Actuaries are not revolutionaries and are bound by their employers who pay for their services and this aspect will continue in a Post-Human world as well where the rich will be biologically superior to rest of the population.

There are various other re-engineering implications and questions of entering a post-human society for insurance products such as[6]:

·??????? Will universal health coverage include life prolongation methods? Does such a procedure qualify as a 'medical essential'? Is it a fundamental right for everyone? Will the inclusion be based on the technology used or the specific issue addressed?

·??????? How will terms like 'life' and 'death', as present in current life insurance documents, annuity incomes, and disability benefits, be understood if life prolongation means transferring one's mind to another vessel, be it organic or digital? We apply Markov chain transition states when pricing over different states like ‘healthy’ ‘sick’ ‘dead’ but now a new transitional state of dead-to-alive would also be there, as another sci-fi anime series “Ingress” anime central character says in a very actuarial sort of way that 'death is the imaginary number between 1-3 and 3-1'.

·??????? If disability benefits are set to a specific age or if retirement benefits are tied to a particular age milestone, will there be a need for policy adjustments believing that what was once considered age 65 is now 75?

·??????? Could insurance companies consider financing life prolongation to delay the payout of death-related benefits? Will lifelong insurance policies account for the possibility that a person might not pass away?

·??????? How will the evaluation criteria change for life insurance and longevity-related products like annuities? As medical advancements grow, curing more diseases and reversing impairments, what novel insurance practices might emerge?

·??????? If prolonging life leads to a surge in long-term care or financial assistance requirements, is our community prepared to handle that?

·??????? In the same vein, how will businesses and individuals recalibrate in response? Significant lifespan alterations could amplify commitments related to pensions and annuities and possibly escalate healthcare costs. On the flip side, life policy claims might see a decline. Could insurance firms see benefits in covering advanced medical treatments for select clients to minimize such claims? Would health coverage entities deem it beneficial to finance body enhancements or replacements when illness strikes, sidestepping expensive terminal care?

Through sci-fi genre as well as ‘Altered Carbon’ we come to know that Simulacrum is important. Simulacra is a targeted attack on the senses aimed to simulate reality. But through this imitation, it becomes reality itself kind of like ‘The Matrix’ becomes the reality. We really don’t know whether the person is the same one in the new sleeve as was in the old sleeve but since he/she has same habits and preferences, they are assumed to be the same as before. At the heart of actuarial science is the construction of models to predict future outcomes based on historical data. These models, in essence, are simulacra, they are representations of reality, not reality itself. Just as Baudrillard warned about the dangers of mistaking the simulacrum for the real, actuaries must be wary of over-relying on their models or mistaking them for reality.

Baudrillard's work often touched on the idea that in a world of simulacra, perception becomes more important than reality. For actuaries, there's a parallel in how they must understand public perceptions of risk and how those perceptions can influence behavior, even if they don't align with the "real" risks as determined by data.

With the rise of virtual realities, cryptocurrencies, and digital assets, new insurance products might emerge to cover risks in these virtual spaces. Actuaries would be dealing with risks and models that are based on virtual, simulated realities, a clear overlap with the concept of simulacra.

Modern predictive models, especially those incorporating machine learning, can create feedback loops. For example, a model might determine that a certain behavior indicates a higher risk. If this information is acted upon (e.g., by increasing premiums for those exhibiting the behavior), it might alter the behavior of people, which in turn affects the data, which then affects the model. This continuous loop, where the representation (the model) affects reality, aligns with Baudrillard's discussions on how simulacra can influence and reshape the real.?

Conclusion

?In conclusion, to summarize, examining specific scenes and concepts within "Altered Carbon" provides a detailed and nuanced understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing actuarial science in a post-human world. From the death and resleeving of Takeshi Kovacs to the economic disparities in sleeve accessibility and the ethical dilemmas presented by the commodification of bodies, actuaries would navigate a complex landscape, reshaping traditional models to meet the unique demands of this new societal context.

The series, through its diverse characters and intricate plot, unveils a myriad of challenges and opportunities for actuaries in this novel societal context. The role of actuaries transcends mere risk assessment and financial calculations to encompass ethical stewardship, social equity advocacy, and the development of innovative models and products tailored for a society where mortality is no longer a constant but a variable dependent on technology, economics, and individual choice.

Actuaries, as they navigate an increasingly complex and virtual world, would also do well to consider the implications of working in a reality filled with representations and simulations or the simulacra.

[1] https://www.dawn.com/news/1794112

[1] The gerontologist Aubrey De Grey has said that he believes that that the first human who will live to the age of 1,000 has probably already been born https://www.technologyreview.com/2005/02/01/231686/do-you-want-to-live-forever/

[2] No cancer in naked mole. Water bear’s near indestructible properties. Salt Shrimp. Greenland shark 400 years average life. Immortal jellyfish. But also, on the opposite. Octopus few years life and self-destruction after mating, Mayflys short adult lives of few hours, female Mantis heading head of male Mantis upon mating and black widows eating mates too and Angler Fish female using the much smaller male as just a socket in their bodies. The natural world is full of biological wonders.

[3] https://hallbar.org/2021/05/robots-welcome-how-sweden-protects-workers-not-jobs/

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/07/screenwriters-won-a-historic-victory-against-ai-the-rest-of-us-should-follow

[5] Meths in the series is taken from Methuselah from the Bible who had lived to 969 years. After the great flood, humanity had lost that ‘longevity gene’. Another insightful piece from this article is on the theory of why there is death in the first place? “The theory about why death happens goes back to the very beginnings of life here on Earth. Without death, there is no recycling of the finite resources of the planet. The biomass that has built up over the 3 to 3.5 billion years since life first emerged has a natural limit on a planet of our size. Death makes life possible by endlessly recycling organic materials necessary to sustain our existence”. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/immortality-moral-peter-diamandis-poses-question-seeks-len-rosen/

[6] Milliman. Hans K. Leida. Altered Carbon, actuarial escape velocity and insurance in a post-human world.