# Kurzweil expects longevity escape velocity around 2032

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/kurzweil-expects-longevity-escape-velocity-around-2032/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Ray Kurzweil](https://realalpha.app/people/ray-kurzweil/) · Ray Kurzweil is an inventor, AI researcher and futurist.
- Host: [Peter Diamandis](https://realalpha.app/people/peter-diamandis/) · Founder & executive chairman, XPRIZE Foundation · Co-founded Singularity University and founded Zero-G; co-wrote the books Abundance and Bold.
- Show: Moonshots
- Episode: [The Man Who Predicted AGI Decades Ago w/ Ray Kurzweil | EP #125](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/), Oct 24, 2024
- Moment: 42:50 to 48:31 of the episode (6 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/kurzweil-expects-longevity-escape-velocity-around-2032/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/?t=2570

## Quote

> “around 2032, depending on how diligent you are, you'll live a year, you give up a year of your longevity, but you'll **get back a full year** from scientific progress.”
> — [Ray Kurzweil](https://realalpha.app/people/ray-kurzweil/) at [44:32](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/?t=2672) · Moonshots

## Takeaways

1. He expects engineered organs to become more reliable.
2. He estimates research now offsets about four months of aging yearly.
3. His advice is to stay healthy long enough to benefit from progress.

## About this segment

Ray Kurzweil describes organ replacement and faster biological research as ways to extend healthy life. He predicts that around 2032, scientific progress could offset a year of aging each year.

From “The Man Who Predicted AGI Decades Ago w/ Ray Kurzweil | EP #125”, Oct 24, 2024. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[42:54](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/?t=2574) of longevity escape velocity something that we're both passionate about in fact i've got my uh my longevity cup here which says on the back side what would you do with an extra 30 years of healthy life um which is a lowball number um well also i mean when you get the 30 years of extra life it's not like nothing's gonna happen during that 30 years that's the incredible part right it's like every year we're going to be able to develop new things for example all of our organs what do they do they either put things into the bloodstream or they take things out except for the heart and brain which is a different matter but we can also deal with that but like the lungs put in oxygen take out a carbon dioxide and we're actually developing those going to a board meeting of for the United Therapeutics next year,

[43:52](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/?t=2632) and we're actually developing lungs, hearts, kidneys, and so on. Livers, kidneys, yeah. It's amazing. And it's only a few years away. So literally all of our organs will be redeveloped, so they'll be much more reliable. Right now people lose their lives because one of their organs doesn't function properly. So right now you go through a year, and use up a year of your longevity. However, you're getting back approximately four months from scientific research.

[44:29](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/?t=2669) So you're only losing about eight months, a year of your longevity. But by the early 2030s, around 2032, depending on how diligent you are, you'll live a year, you give up a year of your longevity, but you'll get back a full year from scientific progress. Beyond that point, you'll actually get back more than a year. So you'll actually go backwards in terms of time. Now, that doesn't guarantee you'll live forever.

[44:57](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/?t=2697) You could have a healthy 20-year-old. You could. computers longevity is many many decades and he could die tomorrow probably from an accident we're also dealing with act with that yeah um self-driving cars for example have almost no accidents we lose forty thousand dollars a year from human drivers uh generally uh self-driving cars will actually have no accidents um but anyway um Well, it's an amazing time.

[45:30](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/?t=2730) I just tweeted out this morning a quote from a paper by Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, who considers you one of the great visionaries, you're a hero of his. And he says, it is my guess that powerful AI could at least 10x the rate of these biological discoveries, giving us the next 50 to 100 years of biological progress in the next 5 to 10 years. And it's going to keep getting faster and faster.

[46:02](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/?t=2762) It's not like we just go through one step and suddenly we're going from getting back four months a year to 12 months. It's going to go faster and faster. And we're going to actually deal with accidents and actually be able to back up our brain, back up our heart, and it's going to be very hard to imagine how you could die. And people don't really want to die. You ask people, well, do you want to live to 120?

[46:30](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/?t=2790) And people are negative about that because they think of people that they've met. Exactly. They don't actually met anybody at 120, but they've met 95, 100-year-olds, They don't want to be like that, but we won't be like that. And people actually say, well, I don't want to live past 95. But when they get to be 95, and if they have sound mind and body, and they say, do you want to die tomorrow? The answer is no, unless they're in horrible pain.

[47:02](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/?t=2822) And obviously we want to avoid that as well. Yeah, I agree. Now, you've been very, again, part of your predictions, been very specific in saying that we're going to reach longevity escape velocity by the end of the year 2030. You know, I've had this conversation with George Church and David Sinclair, and they are placing it in the mid 2030s. That's still for anybody. listening you know that's the next six to ten years and so i think your advice is is don't die from something stupid between now and then right right exactly um and so and we're still dependent on our own body which is very uh problematic we got all these different organs one of them doesn't function quite correctly and it's not your choice uh you could die But if you, I mean, I really believe if you can hold on for five, maybe 10 years, we can replace all of these problems that enable us to die more quickly than we want.

[48:17](https://realalpha.app/v/xqS5PDYbTsE/?t=2897) Did you see the recent news that scientists have been able to create the Drosophilus connectome?