Will AI cure aging?

July 26, 2023

AI will cure aging. 

This prediction is not only bold, but also implies that aging is a "disease" that we must eradicate. This may be a heresy for those subscribed to the cultural notion that aging is part of a "natural" order, and that everything natural is "good". 

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems will cure aging by helping humans detect early signs of the genetic code errors that lead to aging, and by helping humans rewrite and replace our genetic code. Everything is information. AI will help us process and generate the information needed to cure and eradicate aging. 

What is aging? 

There are countless ways of conceptualizing aging. Fundamentally, aging is the accumulation of genetic  errors that over time lead to cumulative cell damage (wear and tear) that is left un-repaired. The errors and damages combined lead to overall health decline over time. 

Currently, aging is a death sentence. If we don't die of trauma or disease, we eventually die of advanced age. As cells lose functionality, organs break down, the body can no longer sustain normal functionality, and we die. 

Aging is a chronic disease. 

Even if you escape all trauma and disease, and live an otherwise healthy and productive life, the "natural" aging process will gradually wear and tear you down to death. Aging thus can (and should) be seen as a chronic disease that we must strive to cure and eradicate. 

While aging is considered "natural" and is currently viewed as an "inevitable" part of life, there is nothing natural about accepting diseases and leaving them without cure. There is no reason to accept aging as destiny. Aging can be eliminated just like so many other "natural" deadly diseases that we have cured and eradicated in history.  

Everything is information. Aging is not an exception.

A new consensus is building in the scientific community. Everything is information. The most fundamental nature of reality can be a bit of information that interacts with another bit of information. Over time, the process accumulates bit by bit into the reality that exists today. 

The difference between living and non-living things is the information in the genetic code. Living things are coded to metabolize energy by interacting with their environment in an evolutionary trial and error process that leads to cellular formation, cellular growth, and cellular replication. This process of growth and replication ultimately leads to aging. In the process of copying and replicating cells, random and causal errors accumulate in the genetic code. Over times, the errors compound and wreck the entire organism. Aging is thus an information management problem. 

Ignorance is not destiny.

For millennia, our primitive ancestors accepted aging as a form of "natural" fate or inevitable destiny. There is no need to settle for that traditional and deadly convention. There is no "fate". There is no destiny. Quantum mechanics show us that we are part of a probabilistic universe in continuous expansion and creation. Living and non-living things react to the past to create the future. The present is the brief illusion between past realities and future probabilities. 

So far in human history (i.e. in the past), we have not figured out yet how to cure aging. History shows, however, that past ignorance is never an obstacle to future knowledge. In fact, the opposite holds true. Information keeps increasing with the passage of time. Time, itself, may be a measure of information accumulation in the universe. In any event, increased information leads to increase knowledge when we use the scientific method to acquire knowledge by measuring observations derived from trial and error experimentation. 

Knowing our knowledge-generating track record, it is easy to predict that humanity will sooner or later crack the genetic code on aging. It's just a matter of time like age itself. It's easy to predict that AI will be the technology (tool and method) getting us there, to help us find the cure to aging. 

Where there is AI, there is hope

There is hope on the horizon. Each year we get closer to knowing more about the aging process, and its genetic code root causes. New generations of computational biologists assisted by AI systems will crack the aging code.

AI will help computational biologists develop technologies (tools and methods) to detect early genetic code errors, and correct them before they accumulate as the aging disease in the body. We will slow down and reverse aging by reading, repairing, and rewriting genetic code. We will develop microcellular repair technologies to repair microcellular wear and tear. 

The Hallmarks of Aging

Scientists have identified several hallmarks of aging that represent fundamental biological mechanisms associated with the aging process. Initially, nine (9) hallmarks of aging were proposed by researchers in a 2013 publication in the journal "Cell." Since then, three additional hallmarks have been proposed.

The 12 hallmarks of aging include: genomic instability, epigenetic alterations, cellular senescence, altered intercellular communication, deregulated nutrient-sensing, disabled macroautophagy, mitochondrial dysfunction, telomere attrition, loss of proteostasis, stem cell exhaustion, dysbiosis, and chronic inflammation. 

Aging begins with genetic code errors during cell replication. 

Over time, the genetic code or electromagnetic programming that regulates cellular formation, growth, and replication is damaged. Some damages are caused by environmental factors and get copied or carried forward in the cell replication process. Other damages or errors may occur randomly, as mutations, in the cell replication process. 

Your body cells are constantly replicating themselves. Today, you are a replica or photocopy of what you were a few days or weeks ago. Part of the problem is that if your cells suffer genetic damage today, the copies of your cells tomorrow or next week will replicate the damages and errors. For example, wrinkly skin cells damaged by ultraviolet (UV) radiation are replicated as wrinkly cells damaged by UV. 

Cellular replication is like photocopying a book. If the pages get damaged or become stained or otherwise non-legible, the copies turn out damaged, stained, or non-legible also. If you are an adult older than 30, once you damage your skin DNA by sunbathing at the beach, the next copies of your skin will be sunbathed damaged as well. 

Damaged cell replication creates a time sensitive domino effect that we recognize as aging. Cells begin to deteriorate by wear and tear, and are left unrepaired. The lack of repairs accumulate leading to decreases of normal cellular functions and increases in cellular malfunctions, leading to energy loss, the onset of disease, overall health decline, and ultimately death. 

The first hallmark of aging is genetic instability due to DNA mutations and damages. Telomere attrition, which is the chromosomes losing their protective barriers, increases over time leaving chromosomes unprotected to further damage. Epigenetic changes (alterations in the "on" and "off" signals or gene expressions enabling or disabling functions) begin to occur messing signaling systems and nutrient sensoring within cells. Malfunctioning or altered intercellular communication leads to cellular miscommunication. Cells stop splitting (cellular senescence) and pile up. Deregulated nutrient sensing messes up the energy metabolic system leading to disabled macroauthophagy, inhibiting the body's ability to "clean the house" by recycling or disposing of by eating defective cells, and also leading to mitoochondrial dysfunction, inhibiting the ability of mitochondria (cellular organelles responsible for producing energy) to produce energy. Loss of proteostasis, which is the ability to maintain protein homeostasis within cells occurs, leading to the accumulation of damaged or misfolded proteins. Stem cell exhaustion sets in, diminishing the body's capacity to produce stem cells, which are are responsible for tissue regeneration and repair. Dysbiosis, which is an imbalance in gut microbial and bacterial content begins increases. All these genetic, metabolic, and functional damages lead to chronic inflammation where cells keep sending distress signals for repair and the immune system responds with white inflammatory cells that cause inflammation, but do not cure or repair anything due to misinformation and lack of stem cell resources.

All the hallmarks of aging above are interconnected and influence each other. Understanding these biological mechanisms is crucial for developing interventions and strategies to promote healthy aging and address age-related diseases. Researchers continue to study the complexities of aging to improve our understanding of the process and identify potential interventions to enhance the quality of life for older individuals.

Everything is information

As it is today, aging is the terrible price that organisms pay for not dying young. Humans were naive and ignorant before, paying tribute to the nature and accepting the universe as deterministic and controlled by supernatural fate. Scientific progress, which is nothing other than observation, measurement, and experimentation has been allowing humanity to discover and develop ways to beat the shackles of nature. 

Humans grow old and die due to ignorance. AI and advances in computational biology will change this. Everything is information. AI will help us find and generate the information needed to beat aging. You bet.

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