AI Immortality Sounds Amazing — But Would It Be A Mistake?

All right, so MBD, I'm going to stick with you for the exit question. Different topic. The great Spencer Clavin, who I believe is a listener, had a piece for us the other day on the AI, farsighted AI people who think they're going to be able to do away with death. The advances are going to be so incredible across all realms, medical, et cetera. We are going to have, eventually, a post-death humanity. So the next question. For you, it's a very simple one. Would a post-death future be good for humanity? I just remember that one of the first sentences ever uttered in the history of existence was, surely you're not going to die from eating that apple. Mm-hmm. And this is basically a repeat of that. This promise has been a false promise since Eden and leads only to disaster. It won't be, without death, we're not human. And it's very unpredictable how we would value life afterwards because death would at once be such a huge individual tragedy for you since you were denied eternal life if you think that eternal life is only terrestrial. But also you would be possibly hugely indifferent to the deaths of others because you're just going to meet new people and make new relationships over centuries and maybe... You know, millennia. So that's not a human world. So would God let us eliminate death? What? Would God let us eliminate death? This got really intense really quickly, didn't it? Ha, ha, ha, ha. I'm trying to remember. In Summa chapter 48 in book four. Are you sure about that reference? No, I'm not. I'm making it up. But... I don't think, I think it's a nonsense question. I think... Well, thanks a lot. Well, I'm sorry. I mean, it's just, I reject the premise. I don't think it's in our capacity to end death for humanity. So let me flip it around and ask another version, I guess, of the same question that I've been... I was wondering about when the we're going to destroy humanity debate was running so hot. Would God let us destroy all of humanity? Um, yeah, I mean, in this, um, in this life, yes, I think that's, that is a possibility. So we'd all be extinguished, but there'd still be people who are souls that are dead. Well, I mean, I, I'm a Catholic. I believe that there is, you know, we face death. Judgment, heaven, and hell as the four ends. I really wanted to bring MBD down to this level. We've finally gotten there. So, I mean, so, yes, like, I do believe you have an existence, you know, as you pass, after you pass through the veil of this world. But, yeah, I mean, this world is... Like all of us, born to die. I mean, there will be a heat death of the universe. You're going to hear that from MBD at some point in this episode, right? But the funny thing is, if you dig deep into the AI literature, like the real long-termist, futurist literature, I mean, some of these people, what their theory is, is that we're going to build these machines, and they're going to be our legacy to the universe. We will be defunct, and we will pass away, we'll die, and they'll go on. And the great thing about them... Is that they'll consume all the energy and resources of the universe and hasten the heat death of the universe, thereby ending all possibility of suffering. So their vision is a little bit darker than even mine. Charlie, what do you think? I don't think we're ever going to have a post-death humanity. I do believe, though, in the neural chips, and I would welcome them. I find it highly annoying. During a Yankee day game, I'm at a meeting, and I need to know the score. I really want to know the score, but I can't pick it up on my phone. I've never worn an Apple Watch. I love my VeraWatch now, so I wouldn't. Anyway, but if I could just think, what's the Yankee score, and it could pop into my head, that'd be great. If I'm running to the train station and I want to check what track it is, but I don't have time to stop and look at my phone, it'd be great just to think it, you know, look up the schedule and have it pop into my head. I think that could happen like 100 years from now, and that'd be a good thing. Yeah, so my first thought when I read this story was that it's a disaster for those of us who want to reform Social Security. We can't even do it now. If everyone's living forever, we're totally screwed. Good. Insurance questions would be enormous as well. I mean, actually, you'd have to completely reorganize your economy around this. And you might have a real move towards... The population control, because if people aren't dying, then the population would just keep increasing. I had Lionel Shriver on my podcast, and we talked about death for an hour, because she wrote this great piece for National Review a while ago, and she said that she wants to die. I mean, not immediately, my podcast wasn't that boring, but she wants eventually to die. And because she thinks it would just be enormously boring to live forever. She thinks she would just get bored. I don't. I disagreed with that. So if this were open to me, I would absolutely take it. The Yankees score on the head would be great, but I think eternal life would be better. So Jim Garrity, are you pro or anti-death? Have you noticed at every editor's podcast, Rich has funny question, funny question, and then the kind of question where you're like, Rich, are you okay? Okay. So I have two silly, funny answers and one serious answer. Funny, silly, silly answer one. So under this no-death system, can I eat whatever I want? Do I need to exercise? Can I go over to Ukraine and feel okay about coming? Like, is it one of those things where, like, or is it only, like, Cyber Jim lives on a computer somewhere? I think you'd still be able to be blown up. I mean, that's the problem, right? Okay, yeah, so. Two, if I live forever, that does improve my chances of seeing the Jets win the Super Bowl, right? You know what, Jim? It doesn't. Yeah, yeah. And finally, the serious answer, when someone dies, we don't tell them rest in peace. We say rest in peace. We see it as a rest. We see it as a earned end to all the trials and tribulations and ups and downs of life. And particularly if you've watched someone succumb or deal with great pain or something like that, you know, death is always painful. You always miss the person, but it can be a relief. It can be a sense that that person is now no longer suffering. And so in that sense, why would you want to get rid of that? Why would you want to get rid of something that is kind of the central concept of our existence? All kinds of sci-fi and fantasy stories. I'm talking the classics like Highlander. But the question, like, if you live forever, like, what makes everything meaningful if you're always going to live on? And, you know, plus the fact of, like, let's say you're going to live forever, but the people around you aren't, and you spend the rest of your life watching other people die. That literally might be worse than death.