The Immortals - Ep 8: The Prophet

Intrigue

BBC

True Crime, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.6 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2023

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A new philosphical movement is gathering steam in Silicon Valley, one that promises immortality by using technology to solve the problem of death. This movement is led by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom. Professor Bostrom is the author of Fable of the Dragon Tyrant, the original manuscript of the modern immortality movement. It was published in 2005 in the Journal of Medical Ethics as a response to what Bostrom described as the absurdity of the inevitability of accepting ageing and death. Far from being a one-off, the Fable is one of the core texts that form part of a moral philosophy of the future of humanity called transhumanism. Adherents believe that we will achieve immortality by merging with artificial intelligence and becoming “post-human", and that the next step in our human evolution is nigh. In this series, technology reporter and psychologist Aleks Krotoski explores the frontiers of the extreme longevity pioneers. They've made their money in Silicon Valley. And with their technology solutions - PayPal, Facebook, cryptocurrencies - they've ushered in the world that we live in today, with all its unintended consequences. Some of them now want to solve the "problem" of aging, or even death, and they are making bigger strides than we may think. Can they? Should they? A Pillowfort production for BBC Radio 4 New episodes released Mondays. If you're in the UK, listen to the full series of Intrigue: The Immortals first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3WEQS5W

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:06.1	In this series, we are tracking down who is behind the modern pursuit of everlasting
0:11.3	life.
0:12.3	In the last two episodes, we've heard how the fable of the dragon tyrant has inspired
0:17.1	Silicon Valley billionaires to believe aging may not be inevitable.
0:22.2	People like Brian Johnson, who gave their lives over to algorithms or large-scale doers
0:28.1	like Vitalik Buterin, who was using technology to try to usher in the world that it
0:33.9	envisages.
0:35.4	To understand why the dragon tyrant has had such an impact, I want to speak with the
0:40.8	mind that imagined it.
0:42.9	I'm a professor at Oxford University.
0:45.8	I've been running this thing called the Future of Humanity Institute since back in 2005.
0:52.6	Professor Nick Bostrom is the author of the fable of the dragon tyrant.
0:57.1	It's a kind of fictional story, but people fighting a dragon and at the same time a philosophical
1:02.4	argument for the moral imperative of pursuing anti-aging therapies with greater urgency.
1:09.9	Bostrom wrote the dragon tyrant in 2005 and it was published in the Journal of Medical
1:15.1	Ethics.
1:16.1	Since then, its influence has grown.
1:18.6	Where does he think the fable will take us and is it where we want to go?
1:25.3	I'm Alex Kratowski, a psychologist and I have been reporting on technology for 25 years.
1:31.2	I know that when the tech industry gets interested in something, they'll do anything to make
1:36.0	it happen.
	...

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