Longevity In the Media | Longevity Summit Panel at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging

All right, welcome back for the afternoon session.   We're going to kick it off with a panel uh   discussion of longevity in the media. So, Chris,  please go ahead. Thank you very much. Are we hot?    We are. So longevity science is advancing rapidly,  but the public narrative hasn't necessarily kept   pace. Certain, shall we say, shirtless influencers  dominate the headlines at times when rigorous   science has a hard time breaking through.   Hollywood casts those seeking life extension   as villains. And sometimes it's even hard to  get a bead on what the public even thinks about   our sector. So today in pretty broad terms uh the  four of us are going to investigate uh what is the   public story of longevity? Why is it so hard to  tell and how can we tell it better? So thank you   so much for joining us and I'm going to ask uh the  other three folks on stage to quickly introduce   themselves starting with Keith. Maybe just who  you are, what you're doing right now, what made   you interested in aging. Bullet round go. Sure. Hi  everyone. I'm Keith Kamo, president and CEO of the   Lifespan Research Institute, which amongst other  activities, uh, focuses on engaging the public in   exactly this topic in addition to doing research.   Um, relevant to this conversation, in my past,   I've also done a lot of R& D for companies like  Disney in the entertainment space. And how I   got interested was probably like most of you, you  know, I saw uh aging family members going through   some issues that I thought that in a modern world  we shouldn't have to go through and I would like   to stop that. Uh hi, I am Zara Stone. I am a  reporter for the San Francisco Standard where I   cover tech, culture, biotech and emerging science.   And I think what got me interested in longevity is   that I don't really look at it as this abstract  thing. I go and speak to people every day who are   experimenting in different ways from a startup  that has peptide Fridays where everyone injects   research use chemicals to um interviewing women  who are flying to the Bahamas for experimental   stem cell treatments in their ovaries and trying  to boost their fertility. And so this is just a   ongoing conversation about what longevity means  to us and what it looks like in our own lives.    I'm Gary Allen. I'm a co-founder of the Alliance  for Longevity Science Arts and Entertainment.    We're connecting Hollywood and the music industry  and the arts at large. With longevity science,   bringing uh creators into labs, introducing  them to what's actually going on to inspire   better understanding and a bigger pallet as to the  type of stories they can tell. myself personally,   I my father was a primary care physician and he  took me on rounds since basically I was a baby   and they used to tell him you can't bring a baby  to the hospital. Um, and I watched his patients   uh over the years just degrade. And I've done so  many nursing home visits uh with him and it was   just the amount of incalculable suffering and  watching what families went through and people   losing their agency was just really uh impacted me  emotionally and I feel driven to really dedicate a   lot of my life force to this area. Thank you  guys. I'm Chris Patil. I'm vice president of   media at BioAge. uh which is a clinical stage  biotechnology company developing therapies for   metabolic disease. You heard from our COO Eric  Morgan this morning and I'm also the uh   host of the podcast translating aging which is a  bio age company podcast that focuses on the people   and companies that are developing therapies to  extend human lifespan available on Apple podcast,   Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. So  let's dig right in. Zara, I want to start I   want you to kick off the conversation. Um, so as I  said in the intro, we're in a field that generates   exciting science, but sometimes hype dominates  the headlines and uh the people doing rigorous,   slow science sometimes struggle to break through.   From your perspective as somebody who's covered   science as a journalist, what makes a story about  science work journalistically? And why do certain   people maybe capture more attention than they  deserve even when they don't represent the   best science? Gotcha. Well, it's not just about  taking your shirt off to get attention. Um, but   I would say one of the challenges with longevity  journalism is that there's kind of two kinds of   public. There's the people I talk to and they just  want to like live better longer and then there's   the people I talk to and they say they want to  live forever. And that's a much tinier cohort   of people, but they really tend to just hijack the  conversation. And the people who kind of shout the

loudest aren't necessarily representative of like  the whole industry, but it is tends to be what you   hear. And that kind of leads to the second issue  that a lot of the science around longevity. Um,   many of the fundamentals that we all know of  like sleep, health, exercise are kind of boring.    I mean, no one's going to read an article saying  sleep more tonight or lift more weights. Like,   these are just stories that don't excite  people. Um, and what we have here really   is a framing problem. So when you think about  some of the companies like Aura or eight sleep   um you know these aren't pushing the longevity  narrative forwards but they are making sleep more   interesting by optimizing them by giving metrics  by letting people really think about how can I   sleep and how can it be I can track I can improve  I can have a score all this kinds of stuff. So   when scientists are, you know, saying, "Hey, sleep  is actually one of the best things for you. " They   should be talking more about when you go to  sleep, you know, how it affects your hormones,   your insulin, you need to be bringing in that kind  of information to make it feel more cutting edge.    Um, which sort of goes along to Brian Johnson and  how he has so much media attention because I mean,   he's just this fantastic showman. Like  he understands what people find funny,   what they find quirky. He will, you know, recently  he live streamed himself doing a magic mushroom   trip. He has posted about his erection tracking  Fitbit. Um, we're constantly getting these kind   of insights in the conversation. And so, he's this  master of narrative. And while his science isn't   always perfect, we're not generally not really  seeing other people in the longevity field step   up. So I would say a lot of scientists typically  will say they want their work to kind of stand for   themselves and I appreciate this and people are  doing really exciting stuff like we've seen here   but a lot of stuff also is still in my studies and  might be five or 10 years out from actually being   actionable and in that interim you have to really  step up and become more of a storyteller because   I would say as a reporter you know we like a story  with protagonists we like stakes we like conflict   ICT and when your potential drug is not really  available yet, we need to know about you, about   your journey. Why are you here? I don't know. Did  you blow up your lab in an early experiment? Um,   which it might sound weird in a way, but again,  it's humanizing you and longevity is all about   how it affects us. And so, I really think we need  more of those stories. Guys, any thoughts? Yeah,   basically agree with everything that Zara said  and you know we're in an interesting moment   right now in the longevity research field. You  know, compared to 10 years ago, there's much more   conversation about it, right? But then there's the  question of is it the right kind of conversation,   etc. What do we want to be putting forth? And  I think the lesson to learn from certain people   is not that we need to overhype, but it's  what are the formats that speak to people right   now. You know, there's this concept that you've  probably heard of called, you know, parasocial   relationship, this parasocial idea, right?   Years ago at um lifespan. io when we launched   uh these videos with Kors Kazak, which were with  these YouTube creators that did animated videos,   they hit like tens of millions of people  and were very successful and that really   worked in the time when people were just curious  about facts, right? But now anyone could just,   you know, ask their AI for facts. people  right now are looking for human stories and   being connected and hearing that journey,  right? So, it's I think even these, you know,   quote unquote boring elements of aging research  can be very exciting if they're positioned as   part of this narrative that, you know, this isn't  something new uh that we're actually doing here.    If you go back to one of the first things ever  written on clay tablets, the epic of Gilgamesh,   this is literally the first story that humanity  was telling itself. and you get to be a part of   it by participating in a crowdsourced clinical  trial or whatever. There are ways to really   speak to the emotions. You know, people generally  don't want to hear your PowerPoint presentation,   especially if it's like an average person off the  street of why they should care about this. So,   how can you speak to the emotionality, the lived  experience of how this we're on the cusp of   something that humanity has been wanting to do  for so long and you could play an instrumental   part in it. And I think that is inspiring. That's  exciting. And there are ways to do that to   embrace that to not run away from that while also  not overhyping. So yeah, I would add that   you know the central aspect of that is arts and  entertainment. Those are the vehicles that have   the most uh resonant emotional impact that really  capture our imaginations and engaging the greatest

storytellers that we have in the world. the people  who are creating uh you know the TV shows that we   love, Hollywood uh blockbusters, writing um you  know music that really captures our imagination   and engaging them with the science and allowing  them to develop a whole a pallet of stories uh is   an incredibly powerful way that not only gives  permission but it allows everybody to imagine   themselves as part of the story because people  can't support something that they can't imagine.    And by having these creators create a realm  that they can imagine where longevity is a part   of their lives is an incredible way to open  this for everybody. I absolutely love that line,   people can't support what they can't imagine. And  I want to drill down into the role of art culture   in advancing this narrative in just a second, but  I want to stay with media for just a second. So,   Zara, I really heard um a lot of what you said and  thought about the way that companies communicate   um and uh scientists within companies or companies  that do biotech and other kinds of science and and   I think we als often run a foul of some of the uh  the failure modes that you outlined there that   we're data driven and not emotion driven. We don't  talk about personal things. Um but I was sort of   thinking like well you know what if you know  suppose just for instance that like your CEO   does not or cannot use a erection Fitbit. Um you  know what you you've you've given us a   call to action. We need to be more human. We need  to uh be more emotional in our appeal per what   Keith said. Tell us how to do it. Like how can we  step up in the way that you would like us to to   make us more journalistically engaging? I mean, I  think being very honest about what's working and   what's not is really helpful. I feel like a lot of  companies will either be super silent about their   data or and you know, maybe slightly fade away  when stuff doesn't go well or just have a big   announcement where I think the idea of progress is  actually still very interesting and the failures   as well. And I think again like people if they  talk about what they did wrong, what they learned,   I think that engages people. Maybe not in a  whole like this company amazing headline way,   but like you're still getting in the news and  you're being talked about and the goal really   is to like have people understand more about you.   I am really going to take that one home. Thank   you so much. So I want to jump back onto the arts  culture thing and just to kind of set the stage.    We've talked about the media mechanisms, the  mechanisms of media attention, but there's sort of   a deeper pattern and I alluded to it in the intro  and Gary was on the verge of starting to   talk about it, but let's set the stage here. Um,  you probably noticed um, as somebody who cares   about longevity that whenever somebody in a movie  or a TV show is after eternal life or rejuvenation   or life extension, there's something seriously the  matter with them. uh Voldemort, Emperor Palpatine,   uh the Whand Utani Corporation, if that's not too  deep of a cut. Um the whale hunters in Avatar 2,   which I know all of you saw. Um so, so and this  has been true since ancient Greece, the story of   Tiffanus. It's now that movie The Substance, I  mean, people who want more life bad, you know,   to put it very simply. So, Gary, what do you think  is culturally responsible for this villain trope   attached to longevity? Well, there's a number  of factors, but you know, bringing it back to   Gilgamesh, it didn't exactly go well. It was a  morality tale where maybe you shouldn't want this.    So, uh, and to that point also, there's a huge  conflation between longevity and immortality. So,   I mean, longevity is really about morbidity  compression. And it's really about health,   but it's very often conflated in entertainment  and popular media as people who want to defy   nature and haha I'm going to outlive the heat  death of the universe, you know, watch me. Um,   and as well there's also a uh there's also a  huge amount of zero someum uh game and the every   vampire tale is I'm going to suck the life out  of you to bring it to me. uh movies like In Time,   um Jupiter Sending, um Altered Carbon, Allesium,  you know, they're all about other you   you're not going to have life uh because I'm  going to take it from you and that's how I'm   going to extend my life. When longevity science  is actually uh it's pro it's positive some you're   actually giving more life. you're giving more life  to everyone and the ability for us to, you know,   collectively give more life to each other. So,  you know, there have been these negative   tropes from time in memorial and one of the  biggest reasons why is because, you know,   since uh probably way before anything was put in a  uniform tablet, people were promising like, I can

cure that, you know, I have the secret elixir.   Uh they probably didn't even know what half the   diseases were, but they had cures for them anyway.   So, there's been a um a like an almost a moral   obligation to warn the public from wanting things  that they should not want from snake oil and   charlatans. But now that we're in a technological  age where we have longevity science and we have,   you know, cellular reprogramming and gene editing  and analytics, it's important to, you know,   introduce the storytellers of today to this new  realm of science and to these new possibilities.    let them understand what the potential uh and the  progress are in these fields. And that's exactly   what uh the Alliance for Longevity Science Arts  and Entertainment is focused on. And we're not   telling them necessarily like you have to write  this or that or write positive stories, but we're   giving them a much bigger pallet. for giving  them uh opportunities to sorry opportunities   to expand their imagination and imagine stories  where you know it and there's some progress like   uh in Star Trek a lot of the characters you know  they're regularly in their hundreds and   they're still uh productive. Um there are some  areas of fiction where like the elves in Lord of   the Rings and whatnot who are immortal and they're  not considered evil. They're well yeah they're not   human. Um and that neither's Mr. Spock.   But the main point is that   you know by understanding that this field is real  that there's actual progress and it's tangible and   it can happen within our lifetimes. There will be  much more incentive for the great storytellers of   our day to communicate authentically, truthfully,  and you know, hopefully find narratives that   explore what happens with this as a reality  in our lives rather than a curse. So, yeah, happy   to build off of what Gary is saying. Again, I I  agree with it. Um, one thing just to add a little   bit of positivity, it's not all bad. Um even if  you go back to Gilgamesh uh it never really was   painted as a bad thing that he was going after  life extension even in books like uh Frankenstein   which is excellent and uh if you haven't read it  it's probably very different than you'd expect   but there's a lot of exaltation of the  scientific process the problem wasn't that Frank   Dr. Frankenstein was trying to do what he did. The  problem was that he abandoned his creation. So,   it's not all bad and I think that it is kind of  changing. You know, like in the 80s there was   the movie Cocoon, if anyone saw that, which is a  fantastic movie. Um, characters like Thor now are   functionally immortal and it's not a problem.   So, I think it is trending uh in the positive   direction, although there's, you know, the uh  the Avatar whale uh case was a little bit   disheartening to me because it was unnecessary  in that movie. they just like tacked that on as   like an additional plot point for no reason. And  I think we uh added James Cameron on Twitter   uh a little bit and said like, "Hey, you know,  we don't need that anymore. Please relax. " But   uh to build off the other point of what Gary was  saying is that um I really feel like the issue is   not with public perception and has never been a  lack of desire for wanting to uh live longer and   healthier. Most people that I engage with and I  go on a lot of different podcasts, you know, with   film related people, video game developers. So,  I have a lot of conversations with people who are   ostensively at the beginning of the conversation  are against longevity. And I've I'm betting a   thousand so far. I've never failed to swing them  over. And the major point to Gary's uh earlier   statements is that it's not the idea of  living longer that people might be against. It's   the idea that it's somehow going to be like at the  expense of someone else or it's only going to be   me and all my friends and loved ones are going to  die. It's or it's only going to be for the rich   and these kind of things. So, I feel like it's  very important as advocates for us to drill down   on what exactly the public perception issues are.   And we'll talk about it later, I believe. But,   you know, I think some there's some data, there's  some polling data, and just at least my anecdotal   evidence is really showing that the issue  doesn't lie with a lack of desire. It's just these   other things. Yeah. And I guess to add to that  as well, we do have all the villains um who want   to live forever, but I would say that also just  indicates how much value people put on longevity.    Like we also get villains robbing banks and you  know, we're not all like capitalism is bad. So,   I just think it ties into this greater need. That  is such a that's such a great perception. And one   of the things that I took away from what what  Gary was saying is that, you know, actually before   there was anything to be done about aging, it was  maybe adaptive to have the lesson be don't listen

to anybody who's trying to go after that. Right?   But now that we're on the cusp of being able to do   something about it, we have to kind of consciously  as a culture shed this old baggage like, "Oh,   that made sense before. It was objectively true  that anyone telling you they could help you   with aging was wrong. " And now that that's not  true anymore, we have to kind of rejigger our   cultural perspective. Just to build off of that  very quickly, there's like a whole arm of like   uh psychology that's related to this called terror  management theory uh from Ernst Becker in the 70s   but it's basically this. It's that when you  are faced with a unchangeable reality like you   have to develop these coping mechanisms and oh  I want to live on through my children or do good   things so my name is on a school. So the point is  that there's a lot there's a whole scholarly field   that is backing up what you just said. So that's  fantastic. Um, this is a great transition actually   to kind of talk about what people understand about  what's really possible. Um, so we we've talked   a little bit about media mechanics. We've talked  about cultural headwinds that are kind of opposing   longevity and and you know, one of the things  that Keith started talking about was the the   public appetite for these things, the public  appetite for longevity therapies. and and   Keith's organization and some allied organizations  have done quite a bit of research about this and   and it's clear from our conversations anyway  to me that the bottleneck isn't in people's desire   um and therefore implicitly they don't believe  it's inappropriate. They do desire these   interventions, right? But that there are  still other bottlenecks in perception and maybe   you could just kind of get the ball rolling  with like what are those bottlenecks in public   perception about longevity? Yeah. So, I think we  we touched on it earlier, but um the major ones   that I see pop up over and over again are things  like uh lack of equity, right? This is only going   to be something for the rich and maybe certain  car, you know, people in the public eye are kind   of leaning into that perception, which can make it  a little bit challenging sometimes. But, you know,   and then there's of course, you know, I'm sure a  lot of us have heard these before, but you know,   people might knee-jerk have, oh, what about  overpopulation? What about my favorite one is,   oh, I'm going to be bored someday. Um, I can't  imagine that. Like my challenge personally   is like, "Oh my god, I don't have enough time  to do all the things I want to do. " Like, um,   but the good news is that doesn't just have to be  an anecdotal conversation. There's data that back   backs up a lot of these things. You know, I'm sure  some of you have heard of concepts in psychology   like the hedonic treadmill, right? You go  back to your baseline. If you win the lottery,   you're really happy for a couple of weeks, then  you go back to baseline. Something bad happens,   you're really depressed, you go back to baseline.   The same is true for boredom. So if you want to   know roughly how bored you're going to be in 40  years, it's roughly how bored you are now. So   the answer to that is don't be boring, right?   So I think a lot of these things are not   kind of real uh concerns and they're being masked  by the feasibility concerns. So, this is a bold   statement that I'm going to make, but I've never  had it be the case in a one-on-one conversation   where I've talked to somebody who was initially  against longevity research. And once they've   gotten to realize that it's potentially feasible  where they haven't immediately jumped to it being   desirable. So, and then all of those other it's  bor what about boredom, what about that, they they   evaporate immediately once the feasibility becomes  clear to them or the potential feasibility. So,   I think that's masking that, right? So I think  this is an important thing for us to sort of   attend to because I think something that might be  affecting our field to some degree is uh a little   bit of a trauma of feeling like we can't talk  about things in a bold way. Like it's got to be,   you know, it's only health span. It's not  lifespan. Don't get me wrong, health span is good,   right? But I feel like that might not be the  actually correct calculation here. I think people   also want to be inspired. They want to hear about  a moonshot and that sort of stuff. So I think we   shouldn't seed that battleground to charlatans.   We can also speak to that inspiring excitement   as long as we're doing it credibly and addressing  these other issues that are the ones that people   are really worried about like the inequity and  it only being for the rich etc. And just to give   one point like um I think the ARP did a poll a  couple of years ago that's very instructive on   this point where uh the first question was without  any qualification about health span or anything.    It was like would you take a pill uh to make you  live 10 years longer. So just like really just   out there and in all of the age cohorts that  answered it was like from 20s up to the 80s.    It was like over 65% to up to 75% for all of the  cohorts. And it got higher as people got older,   which is also interesting. But then what is  more interesting is then there was the follow-up   question of with health span guaranteed and all  this. And it was higher, but only a little bit   higher, which indicates to me that the general  public does kind of understand that when we're   talking about lifespan, it does have this sense  of health span built into it. So I think we can   there's initiatives that we can do to drill on  in onto that in more detail and quantify and

qualify these things. But I think my point here  is that there's data I think that is showing that   the primary issue is not the lack of desire, it's  other things. Yeah. I mean when you're targeting   Zara when you're targeting an article at an  audience you must be thinking about what   they're ready for and how they think about the  subject kind of before they start reading it.    like have you encountered any interesting patterns  in public perceptions around longevity science or   just the longevity kind of good behaviors that you  were talking about before? Um, I mean I think one   of the interesting things is that lots of people  want longevity but don't necessarily know what it   means like is this just sort of wellness 3. 0 like  how has it been rebranded? But I would also say um   I was recently talking to the head of a cryionics  facility um which is you know the whole concept   of when you die we freeze you and hopefully  reanimate you and a lot of people would be like   well I don't want to sign up for that seems  ridiculous but when you talk to him he's doing a   bunch of research into vitrification and how to  store organs and the trickle down effect from   that might be people will become healthier while  they're alive. So, I think there's really like,   you know, the meta narrative of what it means now  and then also potentially in the future. Gary,   do you think arts culture can help interfere  with that meta narrative and move it in the right   direction? Just riff. Absolutely. Uh, look what  happened with um, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?    And you might actually I think the median age of  this crowd is low enough that you might need to   unpack that a little bit. Well, I will. Well, at  that time when it came out, interracial marriage   was illegal in 17 states and it had an enormous  cultural impact. Uh Will and Grace had an enormous   cultural impact. The movie Philadelphia uh in the  realm of AIDS. So yes, I mean arts and culture can   really move the needle uh enormously and  and in a negative way. Uh I don't know how many   people here have seen Reefer Madness. Um, and  what was that? The movie with Tom Hanks with   uh Mazes and Monsters. I mean,  it got everybody terrified of uh roleplayer   games. So, you know, the arts is definitely uh at  the spearhead of, you know, where culture is   moving. But to get back to a point that Zar and  Keith were talking about, you know, with regards   to longevity and do people want longevity? You  know, longevity is the side effect, right? It's   the result, but it's the result of what? It's the  result of not dying from Alzheimer's and not dying   from cancer and not dying from heart disease and  not dying from Parkinson's and the work that you   know the Buck Institute and a lot of the biotechs  who are present today. are working on curing the   diseases of aging. And I think that's something  that everybody can relate to because who wants to,   you know, linger for I think the average now  is 18. 9 years with a chronic disease of aging,   suffering, losing your agency, uh losing your  vitality, your family having to become your your   caretakers, and then you die. So um so ultimately  you know with regard to how at I'll say you know   we're approaching this as well we're introducing  the creators the greatest creative minds in   society to the reality that this new science has  the potential to finally cure these diseases of   aging and longevity is just the dividend. It's  the side effect because you're not going to die   from all these horrible diseases that all of  us will 100% get today if this technology is   not advanced. I actually want everyone to know  what exactly you're doing in that regard. Can   you talk about the thing in January that you told  me about over lunch? Oh yeah. So I mean that's   one of our events. We're doing a lot of uh  collaborations, but one of the things is we're   bringing Hollywood showrunners and directors and  writers and producers to the Buck Institute and   we're going to introduce them to what is longevity  science because a lot of them don't know about,   you know, this realm. uh they'll be able to  tour the labs and talk to the scientists,   realize that the scientists are not evil wizards  who are hellbent on world domination, but they're   actually like humans who are really trying their  best to eliminate human suffering from, you know,   the people who will participate in the tour  as well of all as well as all of us here. Um,   and we're also working on collaborations with  museums and art institutions and a number of other   uh initiatives that we've uh that we've already  started developing. So, thank you. I think that's   so exciting. So, I'm going to make I'm moderator's  prerogative. I'm going to skip our fourth topic,   which is actually with me in the hot seat. So,  I'm not going to ask that question, but I want   to save a little time for questions, but I do want  to do one quick bullet question to the panelist.    It's 10 years from today. What narrative do you  hope the media is telling about longevity? Keith,

you start. Sure. Well, if it's 10 years from  now, I hope it is some astonishing update for   how the crowd of regular people participated just  participated in some crowdsourced decentralized   clinical trial to collectively uh deliver a cure  for Alzheimer's disease or something like that,   which I believe is on the table. that that's  one of the initiatives that we're working on   on Lifespan Research Institute is decentralized  Alzheimer's therapies based on light and sound   and other things like this. So I would love it if  that story in the media is the fruition of this   Gilgamesh arc that we're talking about that like  you know we didn't sit on our hands and wait for   some other institutions to do it for us. We came  together as a society to prioritize this because   it is a deep human good and we accomplished a  meaningful win on that together. That's what   I would like the story to be here. Here um in  10 years I would like the story to be um more   women are having um babies at 50 um and just the  evolution of women's health and funding and how   research is going into that. I think the um panel  earlier today talked a little bit about that and   I think 10 years is maybe a scale where we would  actually see that come to fruition. Yeah. I mean   I would love to see house MD longevity doctor um  where he's helping people curing these stubborn   diseases of aging. And aside from that, he's  also still alive and healthy and maybe even   had his limp cured. Um I I would hope that in,  you know, media in a broad sense today, you know,   if somebody's getting an antibiotic or somebody's  getting CPR or whatever, it's normal. So I   would love to see a normalization of the kind of  technologies that are being developed here and we   could focus more on the human story and all the  other intrigue and interesting dramas that will   still happen no matter whether we cure diseases  of aging or not. So that's fantastic. In 10 years   I hope the media is covering the story that uh  there's been a massive increase in health span   as a result of a small cocktail of drugs all of  which were brought to market by bioge labs. Um,   we're going to close it up on stage  and open it up to audience questions   for a couple of minutes. And I'll defer to  Kristen on how long that's going to last. There's a microphone for you. I'm still wondering  um what societal changes are going to be necessary   once longevity becomes ubiquitous and I think  specifically of people who are impoverished if   they get 40 more years of poverty that's not  necessarily going to be useful to them and so   I wonder what kind of extensions from what we're  looking at here and just making life longer health   span longer but also making societal changes  that allows for people to actually have a nice   um lifestyle. This is hitting me like a ton of  bricks because there's this other term in the   equation, right? There's lifespan, health span,  and then there's what I'm going to call quality of   life span. And right, there's this idea that  um this thing that comes up at cocktail parties   where, you know, people say, "Oh, I wouldn't  you know, you never met my great grandmother,   but she was like sick in bed for 40 years. You  wouldn't why would I want more of that? "   And this question brings into focus like there  there are things about being alive that aren't   necessarily lined up and all perfect just because  you're alive and healthy. There's this. So yeah,   what jump in. Yeah, this is a huge question, very  relevant question. We don't have enough time to go   into all the tributaries here, but obviously  when you talk about something like this, you   we're talking about the one topic in isolation,  right? a lot of different societal changes will   probably need to occur and that intersects also  with a broader issue of AI right now and what   does work look like in the future right so I  definitely think we would need to pair this   with you know more robust retraining programs for  those that are oral to be able to start a second   career all that kind of stuff maybe something  like a guaranteed minimum income at some point   or you know decentralized models for this sort  of thing uh but one point I also want to make   uh just in general is that if you  actually go back to Martin Luther   King in the last thing that he was doing before  his untimely death, the poor people's campaign,   uh he and others were explicitly making the  point that the burdens of an aging so society   are disproportionately borne by women, women,  minorities, and the poor. So don't get me wrong,   we need to try to deliver these therapies  equitably, but there is also something   inherently equity promoting about this work  itself, which I think is important to know.

Yeah, I I'm going totally agree with that. Um,  you know, a lot of things that are, you know,   treatments for HIV and whatnot, I mean, things  that were enormously expensive, things like uh   gene sequencing, the price, even though it might  be limited to people of great means initially,   you know, there is a democratization of it.   there's economies of scale and there will be   an interest in governments to not spend you know  trillions of dollars on elder care when they can   spend a fraction of that and have a vital uh  community. But the other thing is you know just   from an individual perspective you know we all  have a moral center a moral compass. We all have   things that we want to fight for and we believe  in. And the best way to do that is to be healthy   and vital and be able to contribute and lend your  voice as powerfully as possible. So, you know, I   I really feel like having health uh even as a glo  at a global level will allow us to have that much   more resources and vitality to solve all these  other problems, many of which are philosophical,   they're societal, um and you know, and beyond  just technological solutions. So, want to close   us up? Sure. Um, and I mean, I think society, and  you know, this kind of borrows a lot from science   fiction, we could look at potentially people  getting married having like 50-year contracts.    I think when the idea is forever, um, you know,  what marriage looks like is very different. Um,   I think the insurance industry would be upended.   I've heard that it would be a massive hassle for   people in taxes. Um, and I also think that if  we are, you know, living longer or forever,   it will be really good for the climate because  suddenly people will care a whole lot more. I   think that's a great place to end. Sorry to run  a few seconds over time. Thank you all so much.