Intelligence Squared: Could Silicon Valley Billionaires Cure Aging?

With Aleks Krotoski | Hosted by Carl Miller
Date: February 20, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode of Intelligence Squared delves into the rapidly advancing, sometimes controversial, quest to cure or at least radically slow human aging, spearheaded by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, technologists, and investors. Featuring guest Dr. Aleks Krotoski, broadcaster, psychologist, and author of The Immortalist, the conversation explores not only the science and biohacking at the heart of the movement, but also the underlying philosophies, ethical quandaries, and quasi-religious ideologies fueling this pursuit of immortality.

Main Discussion Points

1. Personal Confrontation with Death (03:11–07:20)

• Aleks Krotoski describes her lifelong “obsession” with death, rooted in formative academic study and personal loss.
• She shares how profound grief after a string of family deaths shaped her engagement with the science and culture around mortality:
  • “It was all about the psychological, the physiological, the social, the religious, the economic, the political aspects of death... it opened my eyes to such amazing aspects of how we build society around the end of life.” (04:03)
• Her professional background as a tech journalist and psychologist ultimately intersected with witnessing Silicon Valley’s efforts to "disrupt death."

2. Why Silicon Valley? Motives, Power, and Blind Spots (07:20–12:10)

• The episode interrogates why Silicon Valley has become the epicenter of the immortality movement.
  • These are “a powerful cohort that nobody is really trying to understand… embedding their ideas into their technologies.” (10:54)
• Aleks argues that tech leaders carry forward historical hubris, often ignoring unintended consequences of their innovations—ethicists, she notes, are usually sidelined.

3. Information Theory and the Human Body (12:10–17:32)

• The popularization of information theory—reducing all phenomena, including biology and behavior, to data—fuels technologists’ confidence that aging can be “hacked.”
  • “Technologists… have become wedded to this idea of everything can be information… But really, ultimately, you’re only seeing part of the story.” (14:48)
• Aleks warns about the dangers of conflating data with the entirety of the human experience, emphasizing the irreducibility of mind and consciousness.

4. Brian Johnson and Quantified Self (17:32–29:28)

• The hosts spotlight Brian Johnson as a radical case study:
  • Tech entrepreneur who turned his attention and fortune towards achieving “longevity escape velocity.”
  • Meticulously tracks and tries to optimize every measurable biological variable, deferring almost all life choices to algorithmic protocols.
  • “He is no longer a human being with free will when it comes to effectively anything that could affect his life. He now defers to his algorithm.” (22:55)
• Aleks casts doubt on the notion that such an approach can halt aging, and critiques “number goes up” thinking as psychologically and socially perilous.
  • “It is more problematic to talk about the idea that this one person who’s doing a very, very specific protocol for his body… is indeed going to live forever… because his numbers will eventually go down. Life happens.” (28:03)
• She also raises concerns about how such publicized regimes can foster widespread body anxiety, ageism, and ableism.

5. Biohacking and the Techno-Longevity Toolkit (32:03–44:15)

• What are actual interventions being pursued?
  • Plasmapheresis/Parabiosis: Derived from mouse experiments connecting old and young circulatory systems, Silicon Valley elites have paid premiums for transfusions of young plasma, hoping to “rejuvenate” tissues.
    • “They start to pay $8,000 a liter for young blood to be pumped into their veins… What they found is that the liver tissues, and the kidney, and even the cognitive functions of the older mouse appeared to get younger.” (36:47)
    • Aleks humorously calls it “super vampire” science, urging listeners not to try this at home.
  • Metformin: A widely-used diabetes drug, repurposed off-label for supposed anti-aging benefits, based on tentative associations with lowered incidence of certain age-related diseases.
  • Rapamycin and Others: Similar off-label drug experimentation.
    • “These sort of treatments, as it were, all off-label, none of which have been approved by any regulator anywhere in the world for these particular uses, are those that many longevity enthusiasts [are using].” (43:49)
• Emphasis has shifted from increasing lifespan per se toward “healthspan”—maximizing years lived in good health.

6. The Ideological Landscape: Cults, Transhumanism, and Techno-Religion (44:15–54:46)

• The conversation pivots to the quasi-religious fervor and ideological factions within the anti-aging world:
  • Singularitarians believe in a coming “Singularity” where accelerating technological progress (especially powerful AI) will allow humanity to merge with machines and transcend death—a “techno-rapture.”
    • “At some point… we will have a technology that is so powerful that we will be able to integrate with it. And at that point we will become a single consciousness… The apocalypse will come. Everything that we know from the past will be gone, and only the future of Bliss, Delight, and… power and wonderfulness will exist.” (45:58)
  • Transhumanists advocate for merging the body and mind with technology to “upgrade” human existence, sometimes literally envisioning uploading their consciousness to server farms.
  • Effective Altruists and Long-termists: Favor “hyper-rational” frameworks for maximizing future well-being, sometimes to the exclusion of current or local concerns, and can be mired in moral blindspots (e.g., ableism, techno-utopianism, and Western saviorism).
    • Aleks warns that these movements, powered by immense wealth and influence, are capable of shaping humanity's future based on their own narrow worldviews.

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Aleks Krotosky on Silicon Valley’s mindset:
  “They have so much money and so much hubris that they think they can [cheat death]. What’s going on here?” (06:36)

• On the perils of quantifying the self:
  “Number goes up does not take into consideration context… Life happens and you can’t always be in control… it’s not helpful to have this kind of disordered approach to the human body and publicize it.” (28:03)

• On the singularity as techno-messianism:
  “It’s the shoulders of giants vibe, but with… a messianic experience. The apocalypse will come… and only the future of bliss, delight, and… power and wonderfulness will exist. We just happen to be consciousnesses on server farms in Jupiter if we wish.” (47:17)

• Caution on ideological myopia:
  “Because they have these fundamental beliefs that are unshakable, and because they have a particular view of humanity as data objects and solvable, this is where the problem lies.” (53:36)

• Closing Quote from the Book:
  “Death comes to us all… The only thing we can control is how we face it.” (54:46) — read by Carl Miller

Key Timestamps

• 03:11 – Aleks Krotosky on personal experiences with death and grief
• 07:20 – Why Silicon Valley? Power, hubris, and the absence of reflection
• 12:10 – The allure (and danger) of information theory as applied to aging
• 17:32 – The Brian Johnson protocol: quantified selfhood in action
• 24:49 – Do these anti-aging strategies actually work? Psychological and societal consequences
• 32:41 – What are the Silicon Valley elite actually doing to themselves? (Plasmapheresis, metformin, etc.)
• 44:15 – From healthspan to a thousand years: the lived experience of radical life extension
• 45:22 – Technological belief systems, the Singularity, transhumanism, effective altruists, and the rise of techno-religion
• 53:36 – The immense consequences of tech elite worldviews on society

Summary Takeaways

• While billionaire-backed anti-aging science is yielding some intriguing results, the episode cautions that:
  • Many interventions are scientifically unproven or poorly understood.
  • The movement is shaped by a worldview that risks flattening humanity into mere data, and equates technological “solving” with true meaning.
  • The longevity project is tangled up with belief, status, virtue signaling, and even emergent techno-religions—crossing the line from science into cultish faith.
• Above all, the hosts and guest urge listeners to reflect on what a “good life” means—reminding us that, for now, the only certainty is death, and our autonomy is in how we face it.

Tone

Candid, inquisitive, gently skeptical, with flashes of dark humor and academic rigor throughout—matching Aleks Krotoski’s blend of psychological insight, science communication, and cultural critique.