The last few weeks, I recorded a series of SuperAge podcasts with some very smart people who think a lot about the future: Andrew Scott from Oxford and futurist Faith Popcorn. What is clear is that the future as we think of it is arriving much faster than we may have thought. The idea of a 120-year healthy lifespan is no longer one of those “flying cars” promises that never come true. The amount of change in the last 15 years is incredible if put against the changes of the previous 15. It was 2007 when the iPhone first launched with a few very clunky apps and a primitive camera. It was seen as a groundbreaking step change in technology. If one went back to just 2006, a device like this would have been almost incomprehensible, as everyone was raving about the now non-existent Blackberry.
Step change is something that is very difficult to comprehend but, once it arrives, we adapt quite well to it. The latest version of ChatGPT launched today and, although still flawed, it is incredible and I encourage everyone to check it out to see for themselves. It makes me ponder if Google will become the Kodak of the next decade: nice, familiar, but overtaken by a vastly more powerful technology. What will age look like in 10 years? What will the effects of longer working lives, longer consuming lives, and thus longer tax paying lives be on our world? Andrew Scott told me in our conversation that if a single additional working year is added to everyone’s work span, the effect would be a 1% increase in the GDP, which is a huge number. But then will existing wealth disparities compound if more of us are working and living longer?
These questions of economics pale in comparison to: What if there is a pill or injection with which one could reset their biological age? This may sound nuts, but if you have been following our health science pieces, you would know that this has actually been done with mice. Why this is not front page news on every paper in the world can be explained by reporters’ difficulty with taking in step change. The non-linear seem too fantastical to be true. Most of us are not prepared on an individual or societal level for anything like this. I would quote Dr Mike Roizen of the Cleveland Clinic here, saying, there is an 80% chance that something like this will happen in the next 8-10 years. As Andrew Scott told me, your age is immaterial; the number to focus on is how many years ahead we have. My own action plan is to try to stay as healthy, engaged and curious as I can, so when these changes arrive, I will be as useful and helpful to others as possible.
Onward and upward,
David
