For as long as humans have been alive, they have been trying to defy death: our first written story, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is about a man trying to achieve immortality. Despite our best efforts and our sometimes incessant focus on death, everyone who has ever lived has died. Tech billionaires are trying to change that.
Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) founded Larry Elison says he wants to live forever and has invested half a billion dollars in the venture. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin has also invested hundreds of millions in death defying research. But scientists outside of the tech industry have questioned the efficacy of the approach these billionaires have: throwing billions at scientists in hopes of ending death in their lifetimes. Others have pointed out the skewed priorities massive investment in this research reveals--the world faces countless problems more pressing than immortality.
Yet the tech giants press on. Ebay co-founder Peter Thiel invested 3.5 million dollars in the Methuselah Foundation, an organization which seeks to invent medicine that will stop the aging process by reversing cell decay and death. Google has invested 1.5 billion in Project Calico, an attempt, the company says, "to cure death." In partnership with the pharma giant AbbVie the company is rumored to be developing a drug that mimics the effects of the foxo3 gene which scientists have linked with longevity. Google is also attempting to mine peoples' medical data to see what it can discover about longevity. The U.K.'s NHS turned over nearly 2 million records to the company's AI division.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has criticized these efforts, saying, "It seems pretty egocentric while we still have malaria and TB for rich people to fund things so they can live longer." It would perhaps be interesting to give psychoanalytical reasons for these tech giants obsession with death-their realization--no matter how innovative they are and how many obstacles they've conquered, death will still destroy them as it has destroyed everyone else. But there are also other, more practical reasons. Many tech giants like Sergey Brin have a family history of degenerative diseases. Others like Mark Zuckerberg have wives with a background in the medical community and want to give back.
Yet science is meant to answer specific questions, not solve age old problems like conquering death. In addition, Silicon Valley billionaires are skeptical of traditional scientific approaches, which are expensive and slow and do not guarantee results. But long-term science research is likely the only way research into immortality will ever be successful. NIH director Francis Collins pointed out that while the tech giants have considerable technical and mathematical prowess, they are not scientists nor are many of them scientifically trained. They are engineers and business people, conditioned to think in the short term. They cannot achieve these types of long term goals, because their goals and interests are always changing and they allow for no timeline that extends beyond their own lives.