I sat down with Johnson at an occasion for individuals excited by longevity in Berkeley, California, in late April. We spoke on the sidelines after lunch (convention plastic-lidded container meal for me; what gave the impression to be a plastic-free, compostable field of hen and greens for him), and he sat with an impeccable posture, his expression impartial.
Earlier that morning, Johnson, in worn trainers and the type of hoodie that’s nearly definitely deceptively costly, had advised the viewers about what he noticed as the top of humanity. Particularly, he was frightened about AI—that we face an “occasion horizon,” some extent at which superintelligent AI escapes human understanding and management. He had come to Berkeley to influence people who find themselves excited by longevity to focus their efforts on AI.
It’s this specific concern that in the end underpins his Don’t Die mission. First, people should embrace the Don’t Die ideology. Then we should guarantee AI is aligned with preserving human existence. Had been it not for AI, he says, he wouldn’t be doing any of his anti-death actions and regimens. “I’m satisfied that we’re at an existential second as a species,” says Johnson, who was raised Mormon however has since left the church. Fixing getting old will take a long time, he says—we’ll survive that lengthy provided that we guarantee that AI is aligned with human survival.
The next Q&A has been flippantly edited for size and readability.
Why are you creating a brand new faith?
We’re on this new section the place [because of advances in AI] we’re attempting to reimagine what it means to be human. It requires creativeness and creativity and open-mindedness, and that’s a giant ask. Approaching that dialog as a neighborhood, or a way of life, doesn’t carry sufficient weight or energy. Religions have confirmed, over the previous a number of thousand years, to be essentially the most efficacious kind to arrange human efforts. It’s only a tried-and-true methodology.
How do you go about founding a brand new faith?
It’s query. Should you have a look at historic [examples], Buddha went by way of his personal self-exploratory course of and got here up with a framework. And Muhammad had a narrative. Jesus had an origin story … You would possibly even say Satoshi [Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of bitcoin] is like [the founder of] a modern-day faith, [launched] with the white paper. Adam Smith launched capitalism together with his ebook. The query is: What’s a modern-day faith, and the way does it persuade? It’s an open query for me. I don’t know but.