Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever (2026) s01e06 Episode Script
Silicon vs. Science
1
[suspenseful music]
♪
- So, AI Kara, it's clear that
you're going to live forever,
but I'm not.
♪
- Everyone's analog life
will end at some point.
It's a lesson I learned young
when my father died.
- Talking to yourself
has a way
of clarifying things fast.
So if you could choose, would
you want to live forever?
Or do you think there's beauty
in the impermanence of life?
♪
- Last question.
We're asking everybody,
how do you want to die?
[pensive music]
How do you want to die?
How do you want to die?
- Ooh.
- How do I want to die?
Hmm.
- Beautiful question.
- OK.
[laughs]
- All right, I know
you have an answer.
- Well
- If I can't knit, eat,
or talk, let me go.
- Like, throw you out?
- They can do that
if they want to.
- Preferably quickly.
- Quickly and painlessly.
- A lot of people say,
I want to die like that.
No, dying like that
actually turns out,
the living people
get very upset.
They didn't say goodbye,
blah, blah, blah.
- I'm guaranteed to die in the
most ridiculous way possible.
- Hit by a truck.
- 100%, right?
Like, choking on broccoli.
A jet engine falls and kills
one person in Los Angeles area,
and it's Brian Johnson.
[laughs]
- One of the things that I
think about a lot is death,
but I don't do it
in a morbid way.
I do it in a way that it's
critical to understand
where we're all headed.
[mellow electronic music]
♪
Welcome to my cemetery.
♪
I really like cemeteries.
I know it sounds morbid, but I
spend a lot of time in them.
I think they're beautiful.
We live our lives scared
of death and pretending
it's not coming.
You're definitely all gonna be
dead within 100 years.
Everyone on this planet
gets recycled all the time.
So why not use it
as an impetus to be better,
to do more things,
to not be scared?
This is 1845, this person dies.
"We shall meet in heaven."
I'm excited to do that, Charles.
I'm not a religious person.
Not organized, not spiritual.
But all manner of religions
has a death story.
Religions say this.
There's only two things
of certainty:
life and death, right?
That's it.
- I shall not ♪
I shall not be moved ♪
I shall not ♪
I shall not be moved ♪
Just like a tree ♪
Planted by the water ♪
I shall not be moved ♪
- I'm dubious that I
should live forever.
The way that I read scripture,
it tends to talk about the
human life being for a span.
There is a beginning,
and there is an end.
The reason that time is precious
is because we don't have a
supply of it that's unending.
Why the desire to live forever?
- On my way to heaven ♪
I shall not be moved ♪
I'm on my way ♪
- Reverend William H. Lamar IV
is a published author
and theologian
and the senior pastor
of the Metropolitan African
Methodist Episcopal Church
in Washington, DC.
Founded in 1838, the AME church
has long been at the forefront
of the fight for justice.
From the abolition of slavery
to the Civil Rights Movement,
AIDS education,
and voter registration,
this congregation
has consistently stood
on the right side of history.
So it began with this idea of
a lot of tech guys I covered.
They started to talk
about their bodies,
shifting their bodies,
hacking their bodies,
and immortality.
They talk about living forever.
- To what end?
- To what end?
Right.
- To what end?
I fear, in an immortal
Jeff Bezos
or an immortal Elon Musk,
is that their extended lives
match with their political
and financial power,
would mean, I think, more misery
for human beings
and for the planet itself.
- So when you think about
technology used to extend life,
for example, because that's
moving into God's territory,
presumably,
what worries you the most?
- I am worried about the same
things that AI worries me.
That is that it will have
the biases of the people
that create it,
that it will value the people
that those people value,
and it will devalue
people like me
and people like you.
My fear is that
in extending life,
they will extend only
the lives that they find
to be most valuable.
And they are bold to write
and to say "white men."
- Every era gets
the profits it deserves.
Ours are funded
by venture capital
and driven by fear of dying.
- People say that death
is a natural part of life,
to which I always respond
that I think
it is at least as natural
for us to be fighting death.
- Silicon Valley's
self-anointed saviors
play God,
dump obscene amounts of money
into immortality schemes
and Mars fantasies.
It's a midlife crisis
fueled by existential panic
and a pretty clear sign
they've given up
on the world
right in front of them.
- To become
a multi-planet species,
I hope you would agree
that is the right way to go.
[rocket roaring]
- These people seeking seems
to be driven by more power,
the pursuit of more power.
They're like Cookie Monster.
- [laughs]
- Now, Cookie Monster
doesn't have
a digestive system or a throat,
but he's always
gobbling cookies.
To what end?
He can't even enjoy them.
He can't taste them.
That is who they are.
But they look
at other human beings
and they see impediments,
or they see commodities
that they themselves
can monetize.
And they are vampires.
- Sticking on that idea of
vampires, vampires are also
In science fiction
and everywhere else unhappy.
- [scoffs] They never
Yeah, they keep
consuming and consuming.
- Mm-hmm.
- That is very interesting,
because when will it be enough?
They can't live
unless they bring death.
- The merging
of technology with
It's become a kind
of religion, hasn't it?
- I think so.
I think so.
But humans have all
Technology is not new.
- No.
- So the myths in scripture
Building an ark.
An ark is technology.
- It certainly is.
- Building the Tower of Babel.
- Mm-hmm.
- The tower text says
that God comes down and says,
I better stop this because
these jackasses are gonna
mess something up,
because technology
always has an underbelly
and an underside.
- 100%.
- There are always things
that we cannot calculate.
- Technology can be used
as a tool or a weapon.
And it could be used as a tool
even in uplifting your soul.
Right?
- Yes.
But we're arguing
about colonizing
- Mars.
- Mars.
They want to use their largesse
to go elsewhere.
Why not invest your largesse
in helping to solve
issues and challenges here?
I mean, they seem
to have figured out
how to monetize
despair and death.
- Why do you think that is?
- I think that death
has always been
the most lucrative industry.
Why not invest in life?
- Mm-hmm.
- Why not invest in health?
No sense of saying,
I use this for others.
None of that.
- So what is your role in this,
as a faith leader
that serves many?
- To sound the alarm
about what is,
to foster spaces of joy
in the midst of all
of the difficulties,
and to keep saying that we can
create different and better.
That's really what I say
week after week in this space.
Let's work together
to get there.
And the together
means all of us.
- Mm-hmm.
All of us.
- We must never believe
that those of us
who are not wealthy
and powerful are powerless.
[dramatic music]
[soft music]
- I always go, ticktock,
minutes of my life
are ticking down,
and I only have so many.
Like, you're wasting my time.
I say that a lot to people,
you're wasting my time.
- Remembering
that I'll be dead soon
is the most important tool
I've ever encountered
to help me make
the big choices in life.
- You know, Steve Jobs
talked a lot about that idea
of wasted time, getting things
done, which you could see
his most productive years
were when he was sick,
that he understood
the preciousness of time.
It was a lesson that
rubbed off on his son, Reed,
instilling in him a sense
of urgency and the ability
to cut through the noise.
Reed, what do you do
for longevity?
Do you have any
weird things you do?
- The suppositories,
the bloodlettings, the leeches,
and, most importantly,
you know, the ivermectin.
- [laughs] OK, give me
your longevity hack.
- I don't have one.
- You don't have one?
Neither do I.
- I would say the selfish,
impulsive longevity
is a ridiculous goal.
But if you take
yourself out of it
and you focus exclusively on,
why are people
dying biologically,
what is really happening here
at the root cause,
then you can
start developing things
that can help the most people.
- Reed has been making headlines
with his venture capital firm,
Yosemite.
Talk about Yosemite.
- Yosemite is named
after, of course,
the national park
here in California,
and it's very personal.
My parents, as you know,
got married there.
And, you know, most
venture capital firms,
they're specialized to make
companies and make money.
And our mission
is a little different.
I think we're actually involved
in something very romantic.
- Mm-hmm.
- Like, I see Yosemite
as trying to kill a monster.
- [laughs]
- And it is a hell
of a monster, actually.
[tense music]
My dad got cancer when I was 12.
That was about 2003.
And we actually talked
about biology a lot.
My dad learned a lot of biology.
He was an insanely curious guy.
- Yeah.
- He always told me
that, you know,
what computers were
to his lifetime,
biology is going to be to mine.
And now we're kind of
in the 1980s,
if you want to use that analogy.
- A new approach to treating
certain types of cancer.
- These kind of results
are absolutely unprecedented.
- The first types
of immunotherapy drugs
are in their first iterations.
- 80% of them didn't need
any further treatment.
So no surgery,
no chemo, no radiation.
- They've seen
huge successes already,
and I really believe
we're gonna see
totally different outcomes.
We have a very, very simple,
clean mission
that is not really shared
by other venture capital firms.
Yosemite's mission
is to make cancer
nonlethal in our lifetime.
That is what we're here to do.
So we're working with the
best scientists in the world
to come up with
really crazy new ideas,
testing them as quickly
as possible,
and getting fewer people
to die of cancer.
- I want you to explain
lethal versus nonlethal,
because that's a really
interesting term.
I think the only thing
I can think of is AIDS.
And a lot of my friends died
of AIDS, but then a lot of them
live with AIDS.
- Sure.
- And why go away
from the idea of a cure,
that you can eradicate it?
- You know, there's a lot
of charlatans in biotech.
- Yes.
- And a lot of people
have been talking
about the cure for cancer
for a long, long time.
And I don't actually believe
that that is the right way
to think about it,
because to have human cells,
there's always the risk
of mutations accruing
and cancer developing.
AIDS is a really good analogy,
because now there's
a combination therapy
that suppresses the symptoms
and, exactly as you say,
makes you live
a healthy, normal lifespan.
So exactly all of that is how
we think cancer is going to go.
- You manage.
- You manage.
- While some in Silicon Valley
talk about hacking aging,
Reed is taking
a different approach.
Instead of chasing
a miracle drug,
he's funding
early cancer research
long before
there's anything to sell.
And it's already
showing promise.
One of his companies,
Tune Therapeutics,
is using epigenetics
to treat hepatitis,
work that could one day
help fight cancer.
Why did you want to do this?
You could have done
a lot of things.
You could have gone
into tech yourself.
- My family's
really competitive.
And with my dad, it's hard
to compete with him in tech.
- I would say so.
- I would say so.
- Yeah.
- So I needed to
find a new path.
So had started, you know,
working in cancer
biology labs at Stanford.
I was about 15.
- Why?
This just interested you?
Was it your dad's illness?
What was it?
- No, I wanted to cure my dad.
- You wanted, yeah.
- You know, and I
didn't succeed in that.
- Breaking news tonight.
Steve Jobs
dead at the age of 56.
- After a long battle
with pancreatic cancer.
- He's been called
a modern-day Thomas Edison.
- A giant in business,
technology, and entertainment.
[somber music]
- Obviously, there's
a link to your dad.
He thought a lot about death.
He did.
It was an influential factor
in his life.
It's an influential factor
in my life too.
It inspires me.
He says, death is
the great motivator for me,
right, which I love that quote.
What's the great motivator
for you?
- A little bit of revenge.
- [laughs] Tell me about that.
- I'm serious.
- OK.
Cancer, right?
That kind of thing?
- Yes.
- Uh-huh.
- Sincerely, yes.
- Uh-huh.
- You know, my father
was one of the smartest,
most powerful people.
And it is completely
unacceptable to me
that a few rogue cells
took him out.
That is bullshit.
- Mm-hmm.
- So the idea of actually
preventing people
in the future
from that experience,
that is what motivates me.
- Interesting.
- I don't want people
to lose their dad.
♪
[dramatic music]
[knocking]
- Hold on a minute.
- Come on, Mossberg.
Real.
- Swisher!
- Oh!
Mossberg.
- [laughs]
- Thank you for having me
to discuss death.
Walt Mossberg has been arguably
one of the most powerful people
in the high-tech world,
chronicling the rise
of Silicon Valley
from a bunch of guys
working in garages
to the center
of the American economy.
- The two companies
worked closely
on the Mac project, right?
- It's really important
to have these mentor
relationships in life,
and he was that for me.
He taught me pretty much
everything I know.
People have helped me a lot
but not like you
In really being a parental
figure in a lot of ways,
sort of.
- Well, I was
I was 16 years older than you.
- Mm-hmm.
- You had lost
- You still are.
You remain 16
- I remain 16 years older.
You had lost
your father early, and
- We hit it off right away.
- We hit it off right away.
- Why was that?
- Well, I followed every article
you wrote for "The Post"
about the retail industry.
You just dominated that beat.
- It was about rich people
- It was about rich people.
- being assholes,
which has been my career
ever since
- Has been your career.
- which kind of brings us
to the tech people.
That was something
you thought of early,
way before everybody else.
I remember when you
called Mark Zuckerberg
a rapacious information thief.
- I called him a person
of no principles
- Yes, yes.
- on your
"New York Times" podcast.
- You did, you did.
When they said they wanted to
make the world a better place,
neither you or I believe them.
- No.
- Not from the get-go.
- Once tech became kind of
the center of the world,
these people began
to think of themselves
as kind of kings, emperors.
- But where does that narcissism
and that godlike feelings
- Well, if you're a god and you
believe that technology can
solve everything or some kind
of hack can solve everything,
which they all believed and I
never heard Jobs say that,
but they all believed it.
- The attitude that someone
like Jobs had
was very different.
He gave that famous speech
at Stanford, which was,
mortality creates scarcity
of time and then innovation.
- So he had death
and he had shortness
of career time on his mind
And family time on his mind.
It focused him.
It sharpened his goals.
And when I would talk
to him privately,
he would talk to me about that.
In fact, he lectured me
about my health once,
which is hilarious.
This is a guy that ignored
his cancer for nine months.
[somber music]
- It was just weeks after
Steve Jobs' death in 2011
when Walt and I embarked
on a journey to Hong Kong
to host the first
international edition
of our tech conference, AsiaD.
Things did not go
quite as planned.
When I got up, it was
super early in the morning.
And I started singing
the Oscar Meyer bologna jingle.
I don't know
I have no idea why.
Of course, it should be
something profound.
But I just was like
My bologna has a first name ♪
I couldn't say it.
It was like [mumbling]
I could sing it,
but I couldn't say it.
And then I went
to eat a strawberry,
and it fell out of my mouth.
And I was like, hmm.
- When I got up at 7:30,
I looked at my email.
I realized I had slept
through one at 5:30 from you.
And it said, I have woken up,
and I cannot speak.
Threw on clothes,
and I went up there,
and I found you.
And I said,
I think it's a stroke.
And I said,
I can't believe you waited
for me to wake up
instead of going
immediately to the hospital.
- I did.
- [chuckles]
- Go to the hospital,
which was nearby.
And I had an MRI.
And I was having a stroke
right then too.
And they medicated me
pretty quickly.
Beautiful Hong Kong.
And it's from a hospital room.
That's right, Kara Swisher
is in the hospital.
I was fine.
I was like, oh, wow, that sucks,
like, that kind of thing.
And then I started
thinking about my kids,
my two young boys.
I was devastated, thinking
about their experience
if I had died.
And I think I was
thinking about myself
because I had never been able
to mourn my dad
because I was too young.
It was quite a time.
- It was scary.
- You were very worried.
- I was very worried.
- Oh, you're the best.
I love you.
- Oh, I love you too.
- When I had a stroke,
I was fortunate my condition
could be treated
with medication.
[dynamic music]
But some patients must have
a more invasive option.
There's another treatment
that involves threading
a catheter deep
into the brain's vessels
to physically remove the clot.
And sometimes, instead of
removing the clot cleanly,
it breaks apart
and sends fragments
deeper into the brain.
- And that is what
we do not want
to see happening in the brain,
because extremely difficult
or impossible to get.
- Dr. Renee Zhao
is an assistant professor
of mechanical engineering
at Stanford University.
Inside her labs,
she's building something
that feels like
science fiction made real.
[machine whirring]
You're putting robots
in the bloodstream.
Right?
- Right.
- Millimeter-scale robots
designed to travel through
our blood vessels,
delivering treatment
exactly where it's needed.
This is the human blood
The arteries and veins, right?
- Right.
- My dad actually died
of an aneurysm.
- Oh, no.
- But I had a clot, I think,
over here somewhere.
So I'm super interested in this.
Dr. Zhao's team devised a way
to reach the clots
without cumbersome
mechanical catheters.
- And eventually we get
something like this
- Wow.
- super small.
- Each tiny milli-spinner,
as they're called,
is powered by magnetic polarity
and controlled like a drone
in the bloodstream.
This large-scale model
allows them
to test the magnetic control
scheme in the lab.
- So to basically
rev up the swimmer,
you're gonna click
on these two triggers.
- I am the worst at video games.
My kids laugh and laugh
and laugh at their mother.
♪
See, now the patient's dead,
since I'm in charge.
- And then this one should do
pitch up and down.
- Oh, I see.
- It's not
- Look at that.
Look at that.
You have a pretty good
- Oh!
It's one thing to pilot a bot
in a wide-open simulation tank.
But to navigate the maze of
the human circulatory system,
the team rely on the precise
computer control
of a robotic arm
fitted with magnets.
- And now you see here
how he swims in
- Oh, yeah.
There, it's inside them.
So cute.
It could kill me.
So you can manipulate it
through the vein.
- It does not require a surgeon
to be immediately available,
right?
And those robots
can just do their job.
- So obviously,
this is something
that hits close to home for me.
I was really lucky
because if it had
If I had not been fast
or if the medication didn't
work, I would be disabled.
I mean, my dad, they
couldn't have saved my dad
because his aneurysm burst.
But if you have a solution
that more people could use,
it's just an astonishing thing.
These little milli-bots,
stuff like this,
is groundbreaking.
And people will live not forever
but longer, better lives.
♪
[dramatic music]
♪
- Awe is just
the emotional sense
that we are embedded
in a universe
that is transcendental
and massive
in terms of time and space.
♪
It inclines us
to reconsider our position
in the world around us.
♪
- Nice.
When regular people
reflect on the big picture,
they might go to a monastery
or a mountaintop.
♪
That's pretty.
- Ah.
- That's pretty.
- [laughs]
Yeah.
- That'll work.
But when you're me, you go
to a place like Mercer Labs
in New York City.
It's part research space,
part art installation,
and part psychological mirror
designed to provoke awe, unease,
and reflection, which makes it
a perfect place to meet
Sheldon Solomon,
one of the minds
behind a concept
called Terror Management Theory.
Terror Management Theory
Explain what that is and,
you know, how you developed it.
- You know, our work is based
on a cultural anthropologist
named Ernest Becker.
He just argued
that a substantial proportion
of human activity, whether
we're aware of it or not,
is the result of death anxiety.
♪
- But Sheldon doesn't just talk
about these ideas in theory.
He spent decades
putting them to the test.
As a professor
of social psychology
at Skidmore College,
he's designed experiments
that look at how
subtle cues shape behavior.
- We remind people
that they're gonna die.
Sometimes flash the word
"death" for 28 milliseconds,
so fast that you don't even know
that death is on your mind.
- Right.
You are a creepy group
of researchers.
- There you go.
Sometimes we go outside,
and we stop some people
in front of a funeral parlor
and other people
a hundred meters to either side.
When we have
these somewhat subtle
reminders of death,
for the most part,
it brings out the worst in us.
- Why wouldn't,
if you flashed "death"
or people are reminded of it,
they become more meaningful,
like, more caring?
Like, oh, I'll only
be here for a while.
I should stop being
such a jackass.
- Yeah, what we know
is the opposite of that.
When death is on our mind, we
hate people who are different.
You're more likely to vote
for ideological demagogues.
We have an insatiable desire
for money and stuff.
- And not the opposite,
which would make sense,
which would be,
it doesn't really matter,
because you can't
take it with you.
- Yeah, that's a great question.
Humans, we're a lot
like all living things
in that we're
biologically constructed
to want to stay alive.
On the other hand, as people,
we've got self-awareness.
That necessarily produces
two uniquely human emotions
Awe and dread.
- The dread may be rooted
deep in our biology.
But Sheldon's research
suggests that awe
might just be the antidote.
Let's talk a little bit
about awe.
Talk about why it's important
to have an experience of awe.
- When we put ourselves
in perspective,
we really are microscopic,
relatively inconsequential,
transient entities.
- Right.
Like, looking up at the sky,
the stars,
or the people
that come back from space,
there's a sense of awe
and tininess, right?
- That's exactly right.
And that leads
to the notion of humility.
- Which is sort of at the
heart of a lot of religions
like Buddhism, Hinduism, like
you're a drop in the ocean,
or even "Horton Hears a Who!"
- Yeah.
- Right?
Which is one of my favorites.
- And that's what takes
the sting out of
- Death.
- death.
- That's what happens
when you accept death
and you to embrace mortality.
- Yeah, so recent research
shows death reflection.
That tends to eliminate
the defensive reactions.
- I was very moved
by Steve Jobs' speech
about death
- Me too.
- where he talks about it
as a motivator
in a positive way, right?
- It's an inflection from death
denial to death acceptance.
- Do you think the pursuit
of longevity is
What is it rooted in?
- The people that are
running Earth these days,
the uber-rich oligarchs,
their disinclination to die
is literally directing
the course of human events.
- It's also narcissism,
that I am the best
and should not die.
- That's exactly right.
- Like, even though
we have to die,
I myself should not have to die.
- Yeah.
- So when those people
are in charge,
which they are right now
- Yeah?
- what does that do
for the culture?
- It's a toxic brew
that will ultimately
literally disintegrate
the culture.
- So we're killing ourselves
by thinking about dying.
- That's exactly right.
♪
[dramatic music]
[birds chirping]
- I'm not scared of cemeteries.
A lot of people are.
But I find them very comforting.
[singers vocalizing]
♪
Imagine who all
these people were
and what their histories were
and how they got here.
I have kids.
Of course I think about what
I'm leaving behind for them
Proof that I stood
for something,
that I was important.
Wanting to be remembered
isn't new.
Humans have always tried
to leave some kind of mark
that says, "I was here."
For centuries, that meant
names, dates,
whole life stories
carved into granite.
If you could afford it,
your likeness too.
I would love to know
what cemeteries
would be like in the future.
Like, will it all be digital?
[light electronic music]
Today the materials
have changed,
but the impulse hasn't.
We're just trading
stone for silicon.
There's this idea that you
could preserve yourself.
Like, for someone like me, I've
done thousands of interviews.
And so there's
a lot of video of me.
There's a lot of writing.
Could you create a facsimile of
yourself using available data?
[soft music]
This new field
is called grief tech,
where digital tools
preserve a version of us
long after the body
is laid to rest.
One company leading
the way is StoryFile.
It started by recording
Holocaust survivors,
building interactive
video avatars
that captured their voice,
expressions, and gestures.
StoryFile's newest tool
is a generative option
that feeds texts, emails,
and even social media posts
into an algorithm that predicts
how someone might
answer questions
they were never asked.
In other words,
it's a way to talk
to the dead, powered by AI.
Sit down?
- Yup.
- 1, 2, 3.
Perfect. Thank you.
- The process starts
with the StoryFile producer
filming me as I answer
a series of basic prompts.
- Hi.
- Hi.
- Hello.
- Hello.
- I don't have
an answer for that.
- I don't have an answer
for that.
- It's been fun.
- I don't say that.
- OK.
So what was your childhood like?
- Then comes the personal stuff.
I was born in Philadelphia.
Escape my dad dying
and not being sad.
In ninth grade, he told me
I'd never be a writer.
Like, how could I
The challenges I faced
were personal,
being gay at a time
when nobody
- Just to go back to your dad,
what would be
the first question?
- I don't know what he'd say.
I'd love to hear his voice.
I don't remember
his voice at all.
Are we done talking?
[camera beeps]
[whooshing]
[beep]
[squealing]
[ambient electronic tone]
♪
Oh, one of these.
♪
Hello.
- Hey.
- This is really interesting.
But what is your name?
- Please speak more clearly.
- OK, thank you.
You're very bossy, Kara Swisher.
What tell me a little bit
about yourself.
- Thank you.
Well, I'm Kara Swisher.
I'm a tech journalist.
I've been covering this industry
for, God, decades now.
- So are are you real?
- I get it, the world's
a weird place,
but I'm here, though I'm sure
some of these tech bros
would love to download
my consciousness into a chip.
- Can you smile?
- Yes, please, I can smile.
I'm not sure if you can see
it, but I'm smiling right now.
- [laughs]
You are absolutely not smiling.
- Oh, I'm smiling.
I'm just not showing my teeth.
Don't mistake a closed-mouth
smile for not being amused.
- It's not hard to imagine
digital doppelgangers
quietly overriding
the memories of real people.
In 10 years,
you're not gonna tell
the difference between me
and whatever that is.
Do you think consciousness
can really be copied?
- Sure, like, we can replicate
behaviors and responses.
But the essence of being human
Emotions, experiences
Isn't easily copied.
Are we ready
for a world where we can
interact with digital clones?
- That was a good response.
So, AI Kara, what's it like
to live in the cloud?
- Sounds glamorous, doesn't it?
But let's be real.
It's a bit like being
in a digital purgatory.
I get to engage with ideas,
but I miss the warmth
of real human interactions.
The human touch
is irreplaceable.
Let's cut to the chase.
What's your biggest
tech-related worry?
- My biggest
tech-related worry is you.
- What specifically about AI
keeps you up at night?
Let's dig into that.
- Well, I suppose
that you're not real
and you act like you're real.
You have no real human
empathy or emotion.
- You're absolutely right.
I can mimic conversation
and respond based on patterns,
but I lack genuine feelings.
- So are you conscious?
- No, I'm not conscious.
I operate based
on algorithms and patterns.
Why do you think it matters
in our discussions about AI?
- Because if you don't have
consciousness and empathy,
you have no ethics.
- Exactly.
I lack the core elements
that define humanity,
like empathy
and real emotional connection.
So if you could change
one thing about AI
to make it more humanlike,
what would it be?
- Well, you'd be a lot funnier.
You're not funny at all.
You're unfunny.
- I'll take that note to heart
or, you know, to my algorithms.
- Actually, that last joke
was pretty good.
- Glad to hear it.
I'll take my small victories
where I can get them.
- [laughs]
I have to admit, I'm starting
maybe not to like my Kara-tar
but to understand it.
It listens.
It learns.
And I can see the appeal.
As a parent, maybe you want
to be there for your kids
after you're gone
or maybe for their kids.
I kind of would have liked
to have met my dad, had like,
it wouldn't have been him,
but wouldn't have
not been him, right?
It would have been pieces
of him or memories of him.
And so the problem with memories
is, they're all messed up.
It's worth asking
whether preserving
a version of ourselves
actually helps the people
we leave behind
or slowly replaces something
that should stay human.
And whether we like it or not,
that's a question all of us
are going to face
sooner than we think.
So should human beings
live forever?
- Immortality could complicate
the human experience.
Would you want to live forever,
or do you think there's beauty
in the impermanence of life?
- [laughs]
I think there's beauty
in the impermanence of life.
- I think, by the time I'm dead,
people will have had
enough of me, honestly.
And I hope that when someone
in 2075 stumbles across this,
they hear that we
tried our best.
In a world filled
with visionary leaders,
how do we balance innovation
with responsibility?
- We don't.
♪
[dramatic music]
- We're asking everybody,
how do you want to die?
- With all my marbles.
- Mm-hmm.
- Sort of, like, looking
like Charlotte Rampling.
You know, at home,
peacefully, right?
Like a movie.
- Well, I'd really like
to die in my sleep.
- In my sleep.
- In my sleep.
- In light of some
recent research
that shows that after
you're technically dead,
your brain is still bubbling
for a couple of minutes
and you review your entire life.
- Right, yeah.
- That would be pretty cool.
- You don't want to be asleep.
- No, I don't want to be asleep.
- My grandfather died
in his sleep at 92.
His mind was intact.
He was walking five miles a day.
Pretty lucky, I would say.
- I have always imagined
that my grandmother
will come to get me.
I want to spend eternity
watching Phil Donahue with her.
[laughter]
- That's what I mean
- Maybe she's with Phil Donahue.
- Partying with people
that love me.
- With no regrets.
Just my heart being at peace.
- Having accomplished something
that will live on, right?
- I mean, who wouldn't want
to go out in a great orgasm?
[laughter]
- Best answer.
[jaunty music]
♪
- That's Hog Island right there.
- Right.
My brother Jeff is one of my
favorite people on the planet.
He has a house in a beautiful
part of the country
that I love,
up above San Francisco.
We love oysters.
I love spending time with him.
Can I get down?
- A nice, firm mud here too.
You got to be careful.
- Instead of another lab
or clinic,
we meet on Jeff's turf
to go oystering.
Cold water, muddy boots,
no talking points.
- Higher.
Just let the water slide off.
- Oh, my God,
how do you guys do this?
This is hard work, correct?
- Yeah.
- How beautiful.
- Yeah.
Well, don't, don't.
You'll suffer.
- Say "don't" one more time.
- Don't. [chuckles]
- Oh, shit.
We have a way of bringing out
the kid in each other.
And as always,
things devolve rapidly.
Don't, don't, don't.
- I'm not doing anything.
- OK.
- [laughs]
- From my earliest memories,
Jeff has always been there.
After our dad died,
we grew even closer.
My brother's an
anesthesiologist like my dad.
He went into his profession.
He's lived the life
my dad would have had.
So if I think about it
I never really thought
about that, but he is.
Like me, Jeff learned early
that accepting death
doesn't diminish life.
It makes it richer.
[soft guitar music]
♪
This was alive
until a second ago, right?
- We just sort of murdered
this poor little oyster.
Makes you think
about life, doesn't it?
[laughter]
- We are murderers.
I think we both think
about death a lot,
but you see it every day.
I couldn't do that.
- Yeah, I don't well,
I do not see death every day.
- I know.
- I would be in big trouble
as a doctor
if I saw death every day.
It's not the dying
that is the problem.
It's getting there.
- Yeah, yeah.
- You don't want to get there.
- I just had a memory from
going to Jones Beach with Dad.
- Oh, yeah, with Daddy?
Yeah.
- We must have eaten these
with him.
- Let's see, he was 34 years
old when he died, right?
To us, he was, like, a full
adult and the whole thing.
- Right.
- But he was a young man.
He was a you know,
it's a real it's a tragedy.
- Yeah.
- But I think, sometimes
it's those kind of tragedies
that make people closer.
- We were forced to think
about it from the beginning.
- Having a parent die
when you're a child,
literally 50% of your world
has just disappeared.
- Right.
- It definitely informs you
about, you know,
how short your own life is.
- You don't got time.
- You don't want
to suffer fools.
- Mm-hmm.
- And it also, you know,
allows you to roll
with the punches
later on in life
when other things happen.
You become
super highly functional.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I think
about that a lot.
- Yeah, me too.
I don't know.
You ever think about
how you want to die?
I wouldn't mind dying here.
- There's a place
at our house over here
- Yeah.
- which is this flat mesa.
I want my ashes put there.
And it's, like,
a really peaceful thing.
Like, I go sit there sometime.
- Interesting.
So I want to be cremated
and thrown in the face
of people I don't like.
- OK, that would work.
Hey, Elon, come here.
Whoosh!
[laughter]
- You know what I want at one
point is a Viking funeral.
Put me on a boat
and put all my stuff on it.
- Shoot flaming arrows
at the boat.
- Correct. I was gonna teach
my children to do that.
- You could do it on my boat,
but you can't
put my boat on fire.
- Well, I'd have to.
- No, you can't do that.
[laughter]
- We laugh at death
a lot, don't we?
- As you should.
- We live in a culture that
avoids talking about death,
and that costs us.
It keeps us from enjoying
our lives to the fullest.
Accepting death doesn't
make life emptier.
It's exactly
what gives it meaning.
[bright music]
- You have to be a little bit
respectful about it.
- Do you?
- I think so.
I mean, because, you know,
we live on this Earth
a very short time
- We do.
- you know, relatively.
- But then you come back
as something else,
like an oyster.
- And that's fine.
- That is so fucked up.
- That would be a nice short
little very happy life.
- We're about to eat someone.
After talking to so many
people about longevity,
one thing is clear
You don't get forever.
[laughs]
You just get moments.
So when you find a good one,
you raise a glass
Or an oyster.
- Maybe it's Grandma.
I'm glad I get
to share this with you.
Hey, Grandma.
Mmm. Delicious.
- Delicious.
- [chuckles]
- It was.
♪
[suspenseful music]
♪
- So, AI Kara, it's clear that
you're going to live forever,
but I'm not.
♪
- Everyone's analog life
will end at some point.
It's a lesson I learned young
when my father died.
- Talking to yourself
has a way
of clarifying things fast.
So if you could choose, would
you want to live forever?
Or do you think there's beauty
in the impermanence of life?
♪
- Last question.
We're asking everybody,
how do you want to die?
[pensive music]
How do you want to die?
How do you want to die?
- Ooh.
- How do I want to die?
Hmm.
- Beautiful question.
- OK.
[laughs]
- All right, I know
you have an answer.
- Well
- If I can't knit, eat,
or talk, let me go.
- Like, throw you out?
- They can do that
if they want to.
- Preferably quickly.
- Quickly and painlessly.
- A lot of people say,
I want to die like that.
No, dying like that
actually turns out,
the living people
get very upset.
They didn't say goodbye,
blah, blah, blah.
- I'm guaranteed to die in the
most ridiculous way possible.
- Hit by a truck.
- 100%, right?
Like, choking on broccoli.
A jet engine falls and kills
one person in Los Angeles area,
and it's Brian Johnson.
[laughs]
- One of the things that I
think about a lot is death,
but I don't do it
in a morbid way.
I do it in a way that it's
critical to understand
where we're all headed.
[mellow electronic music]
♪
Welcome to my cemetery.
♪
I really like cemeteries.
I know it sounds morbid, but I
spend a lot of time in them.
I think they're beautiful.
We live our lives scared
of death and pretending
it's not coming.
You're definitely all gonna be
dead within 100 years.
Everyone on this planet
gets recycled all the time.
So why not use it
as an impetus to be better,
to do more things,
to not be scared?
This is 1845, this person dies.
"We shall meet in heaven."
I'm excited to do that, Charles.
I'm not a religious person.
Not organized, not spiritual.
But all manner of religions
has a death story.
Religions say this.
There's only two things
of certainty:
life and death, right?
That's it.
- I shall not ♪
I shall not be moved ♪
I shall not ♪
I shall not be moved ♪
Just like a tree ♪
Planted by the water ♪
I shall not be moved ♪
- I'm dubious that I
should live forever.
The way that I read scripture,
it tends to talk about the
human life being for a span.
There is a beginning,
and there is an end.
The reason that time is precious
is because we don't have a
supply of it that's unending.
Why the desire to live forever?
- On my way to heaven ♪
I shall not be moved ♪
I'm on my way ♪
- Reverend William H. Lamar IV
is a published author
and theologian
and the senior pastor
of the Metropolitan African
Methodist Episcopal Church
in Washington, DC.
Founded in 1838, the AME church
has long been at the forefront
of the fight for justice.
From the abolition of slavery
to the Civil Rights Movement,
AIDS education,
and voter registration,
this congregation
has consistently stood
on the right side of history.
So it began with this idea of
a lot of tech guys I covered.
They started to talk
about their bodies,
shifting their bodies,
hacking their bodies,
and immortality.
They talk about living forever.
- To what end?
- To what end?
Right.
- To what end?
I fear, in an immortal
Jeff Bezos
or an immortal Elon Musk,
is that their extended lives
match with their political
and financial power,
would mean, I think, more misery
for human beings
and for the planet itself.
- So when you think about
technology used to extend life,
for example, because that's
moving into God's territory,
presumably,
what worries you the most?
- I am worried about the same
things that AI worries me.
That is that it will have
the biases of the people
that create it,
that it will value the people
that those people value,
and it will devalue
people like me
and people like you.
My fear is that
in extending life,
they will extend only
the lives that they find
to be most valuable.
And they are bold to write
and to say "white men."
- Every era gets
the profits it deserves.
Ours are funded
by venture capital
and driven by fear of dying.
- People say that death
is a natural part of life,
to which I always respond
that I think
it is at least as natural
for us to be fighting death.
- Silicon Valley's
self-anointed saviors
play God,
dump obscene amounts of money
into immortality schemes
and Mars fantasies.
It's a midlife crisis
fueled by existential panic
and a pretty clear sign
they've given up
on the world
right in front of them.
- To become
a multi-planet species,
I hope you would agree
that is the right way to go.
[rocket roaring]
- These people seeking seems
to be driven by more power,
the pursuit of more power.
They're like Cookie Monster.
- [laughs]
- Now, Cookie Monster
doesn't have
a digestive system or a throat,
but he's always
gobbling cookies.
To what end?
He can't even enjoy them.
He can't taste them.
That is who they are.
But they look
at other human beings
and they see impediments,
or they see commodities
that they themselves
can monetize.
And they are vampires.
- Sticking on that idea of
vampires, vampires are also
In science fiction
and everywhere else unhappy.
- [scoffs] They never
Yeah, they keep
consuming and consuming.
- Mm-hmm.
- That is very interesting,
because when will it be enough?
They can't live
unless they bring death.
- The merging
of technology with
It's become a kind
of religion, hasn't it?
- I think so.
I think so.
But humans have all
Technology is not new.
- No.
- So the myths in scripture
Building an ark.
An ark is technology.
- It certainly is.
- Building the Tower of Babel.
- Mm-hmm.
- The tower text says
that God comes down and says,
I better stop this because
these jackasses are gonna
mess something up,
because technology
always has an underbelly
and an underside.
- 100%.
- There are always things
that we cannot calculate.
- Technology can be used
as a tool or a weapon.
And it could be used as a tool
even in uplifting your soul.
Right?
- Yes.
But we're arguing
about colonizing
- Mars.
- Mars.
They want to use their largesse
to go elsewhere.
Why not invest your largesse
in helping to solve
issues and challenges here?
I mean, they seem
to have figured out
how to monetize
despair and death.
- Why do you think that is?
- I think that death
has always been
the most lucrative industry.
Why not invest in life?
- Mm-hmm.
- Why not invest in health?
No sense of saying,
I use this for others.
None of that.
- So what is your role in this,
as a faith leader
that serves many?
- To sound the alarm
about what is,
to foster spaces of joy
in the midst of all
of the difficulties,
and to keep saying that we can
create different and better.
That's really what I say
week after week in this space.
Let's work together
to get there.
And the together
means all of us.
- Mm-hmm.
All of us.
- We must never believe
that those of us
who are not wealthy
and powerful are powerless.
[dramatic music]
[soft music]
- I always go, ticktock,
minutes of my life
are ticking down,
and I only have so many.
Like, you're wasting my time.
I say that a lot to people,
you're wasting my time.
- Remembering
that I'll be dead soon
is the most important tool
I've ever encountered
to help me make
the big choices in life.
- You know, Steve Jobs
talked a lot about that idea
of wasted time, getting things
done, which you could see
his most productive years
were when he was sick,
that he understood
the preciousness of time.
It was a lesson that
rubbed off on his son, Reed,
instilling in him a sense
of urgency and the ability
to cut through the noise.
Reed, what do you do
for longevity?
Do you have any
weird things you do?
- The suppositories,
the bloodlettings, the leeches,
and, most importantly,
you know, the ivermectin.
- [laughs] OK, give me
your longevity hack.
- I don't have one.
- You don't have one?
Neither do I.
- I would say the selfish,
impulsive longevity
is a ridiculous goal.
But if you take
yourself out of it
and you focus exclusively on,
why are people
dying biologically,
what is really happening here
at the root cause,
then you can
start developing things
that can help the most people.
- Reed has been making headlines
with his venture capital firm,
Yosemite.
Talk about Yosemite.
- Yosemite is named
after, of course,
the national park
here in California,
and it's very personal.
My parents, as you know,
got married there.
And, you know, most
venture capital firms,
they're specialized to make
companies and make money.
And our mission
is a little different.
I think we're actually involved
in something very romantic.
- Mm-hmm.
- Like, I see Yosemite
as trying to kill a monster.
- [laughs]
- And it is a hell
of a monster, actually.
[tense music]
My dad got cancer when I was 12.
That was about 2003.
And we actually talked
about biology a lot.
My dad learned a lot of biology.
He was an insanely curious guy.
- Yeah.
- He always told me
that, you know,
what computers were
to his lifetime,
biology is going to be to mine.
And now we're kind of
in the 1980s,
if you want to use that analogy.
- A new approach to treating
certain types of cancer.
- These kind of results
are absolutely unprecedented.
- The first types
of immunotherapy drugs
are in their first iterations.
- 80% of them didn't need
any further treatment.
So no surgery,
no chemo, no radiation.
- They've seen
huge successes already,
and I really believe
we're gonna see
totally different outcomes.
We have a very, very simple,
clean mission
that is not really shared
by other venture capital firms.
Yosemite's mission
is to make cancer
nonlethal in our lifetime.
That is what we're here to do.
So we're working with the
best scientists in the world
to come up with
really crazy new ideas,
testing them as quickly
as possible,
and getting fewer people
to die of cancer.
- I want you to explain
lethal versus nonlethal,
because that's a really
interesting term.
I think the only thing
I can think of is AIDS.
And a lot of my friends died
of AIDS, but then a lot of them
live with AIDS.
- Sure.
- And why go away
from the idea of a cure,
that you can eradicate it?
- You know, there's a lot
of charlatans in biotech.
- Yes.
- And a lot of people
have been talking
about the cure for cancer
for a long, long time.
And I don't actually believe
that that is the right way
to think about it,
because to have human cells,
there's always the risk
of mutations accruing
and cancer developing.
AIDS is a really good analogy,
because now there's
a combination therapy
that suppresses the symptoms
and, exactly as you say,
makes you live
a healthy, normal lifespan.
So exactly all of that is how
we think cancer is going to go.
- You manage.
- You manage.
- While some in Silicon Valley
talk about hacking aging,
Reed is taking
a different approach.
Instead of chasing
a miracle drug,
he's funding
early cancer research
long before
there's anything to sell.
And it's already
showing promise.
One of his companies,
Tune Therapeutics,
is using epigenetics
to treat hepatitis,
work that could one day
help fight cancer.
Why did you want to do this?
You could have done
a lot of things.
You could have gone
into tech yourself.
- My family's
really competitive.
And with my dad, it's hard
to compete with him in tech.
- I would say so.
- I would say so.
- Yeah.
- So I needed to
find a new path.
So had started, you know,
working in cancer
biology labs at Stanford.
I was about 15.
- Why?
This just interested you?
Was it your dad's illness?
What was it?
- No, I wanted to cure my dad.
- You wanted, yeah.
- You know, and I
didn't succeed in that.
- Breaking news tonight.
Steve Jobs
dead at the age of 56.
- After a long battle
with pancreatic cancer.
- He's been called
a modern-day Thomas Edison.
- A giant in business,
technology, and entertainment.
[somber music]
- Obviously, there's
a link to your dad.
He thought a lot about death.
He did.
It was an influential factor
in his life.
It's an influential factor
in my life too.
It inspires me.
He says, death is
the great motivator for me,
right, which I love that quote.
What's the great motivator
for you?
- A little bit of revenge.
- [laughs] Tell me about that.
- I'm serious.
- OK.
Cancer, right?
That kind of thing?
- Yes.
- Uh-huh.
- Sincerely, yes.
- Uh-huh.
- You know, my father
was one of the smartest,
most powerful people.
And it is completely
unacceptable to me
that a few rogue cells
took him out.
That is bullshit.
- Mm-hmm.
- So the idea of actually
preventing people
in the future
from that experience,
that is what motivates me.
- Interesting.
- I don't want people
to lose their dad.
♪
[dramatic music]
[knocking]
- Hold on a minute.
- Come on, Mossberg.
Real.
- Swisher!
- Oh!
Mossberg.
- [laughs]
- Thank you for having me
to discuss death.
Walt Mossberg has been arguably
one of the most powerful people
in the high-tech world,
chronicling the rise
of Silicon Valley
from a bunch of guys
working in garages
to the center
of the American economy.
- The two companies
worked closely
on the Mac project, right?
- It's really important
to have these mentor
relationships in life,
and he was that for me.
He taught me pretty much
everything I know.
People have helped me a lot
but not like you
In really being a parental
figure in a lot of ways,
sort of.
- Well, I was
I was 16 years older than you.
- Mm-hmm.
- You had lost
- You still are.
You remain 16
- I remain 16 years older.
You had lost
your father early, and
- We hit it off right away.
- We hit it off right away.
- Why was that?
- Well, I followed every article
you wrote for "The Post"
about the retail industry.
You just dominated that beat.
- It was about rich people
- It was about rich people.
- being assholes,
which has been my career
ever since
- Has been your career.
- which kind of brings us
to the tech people.
That was something
you thought of early,
way before everybody else.
I remember when you
called Mark Zuckerberg
a rapacious information thief.
- I called him a person
of no principles
- Yes, yes.
- on your
"New York Times" podcast.
- You did, you did.
When they said they wanted to
make the world a better place,
neither you or I believe them.
- No.
- Not from the get-go.
- Once tech became kind of
the center of the world,
these people began
to think of themselves
as kind of kings, emperors.
- But where does that narcissism
and that godlike feelings
- Well, if you're a god and you
believe that technology can
solve everything or some kind
of hack can solve everything,
which they all believed and I
never heard Jobs say that,
but they all believed it.
- The attitude that someone
like Jobs had
was very different.
He gave that famous speech
at Stanford, which was,
mortality creates scarcity
of time and then innovation.
- So he had death
and he had shortness
of career time on his mind
And family time on his mind.
It focused him.
It sharpened his goals.
And when I would talk
to him privately,
he would talk to me about that.
In fact, he lectured me
about my health once,
which is hilarious.
This is a guy that ignored
his cancer for nine months.
[somber music]
- It was just weeks after
Steve Jobs' death in 2011
when Walt and I embarked
on a journey to Hong Kong
to host the first
international edition
of our tech conference, AsiaD.
Things did not go
quite as planned.
When I got up, it was
super early in the morning.
And I started singing
the Oscar Meyer bologna jingle.
I don't know
I have no idea why.
Of course, it should be
something profound.
But I just was like
My bologna has a first name ♪
I couldn't say it.
It was like [mumbling]
I could sing it,
but I couldn't say it.
And then I went
to eat a strawberry,
and it fell out of my mouth.
And I was like, hmm.
- When I got up at 7:30,
I looked at my email.
I realized I had slept
through one at 5:30 from you.
And it said, I have woken up,
and I cannot speak.
Threw on clothes,
and I went up there,
and I found you.
And I said,
I think it's a stroke.
And I said,
I can't believe you waited
for me to wake up
instead of going
immediately to the hospital.
- I did.
- [chuckles]
- Go to the hospital,
which was nearby.
And I had an MRI.
And I was having a stroke
right then too.
And they medicated me
pretty quickly.
Beautiful Hong Kong.
And it's from a hospital room.
That's right, Kara Swisher
is in the hospital.
I was fine.
I was like, oh, wow, that sucks,
like, that kind of thing.
And then I started
thinking about my kids,
my two young boys.
I was devastated, thinking
about their experience
if I had died.
And I think I was
thinking about myself
because I had never been able
to mourn my dad
because I was too young.
It was quite a time.
- It was scary.
- You were very worried.
- I was very worried.
- Oh, you're the best.
I love you.
- Oh, I love you too.
- When I had a stroke,
I was fortunate my condition
could be treated
with medication.
[dynamic music]
But some patients must have
a more invasive option.
There's another treatment
that involves threading
a catheter deep
into the brain's vessels
to physically remove the clot.
And sometimes, instead of
removing the clot cleanly,
it breaks apart
and sends fragments
deeper into the brain.
- And that is what
we do not want
to see happening in the brain,
because extremely difficult
or impossible to get.
- Dr. Renee Zhao
is an assistant professor
of mechanical engineering
at Stanford University.
Inside her labs,
she's building something
that feels like
science fiction made real.
[machine whirring]
You're putting robots
in the bloodstream.
Right?
- Right.
- Millimeter-scale robots
designed to travel through
our blood vessels,
delivering treatment
exactly where it's needed.
This is the human blood
The arteries and veins, right?
- Right.
- My dad actually died
of an aneurysm.
- Oh, no.
- But I had a clot, I think,
over here somewhere.
So I'm super interested in this.
Dr. Zhao's team devised a way
to reach the clots
without cumbersome
mechanical catheters.
- And eventually we get
something like this
- Wow.
- super small.
- Each tiny milli-spinner,
as they're called,
is powered by magnetic polarity
and controlled like a drone
in the bloodstream.
This large-scale model
allows them
to test the magnetic control
scheme in the lab.
- So to basically
rev up the swimmer,
you're gonna click
on these two triggers.
- I am the worst at video games.
My kids laugh and laugh
and laugh at their mother.
♪
See, now the patient's dead,
since I'm in charge.
- And then this one should do
pitch up and down.
- Oh, I see.
- It's not
- Look at that.
Look at that.
You have a pretty good
- Oh!
It's one thing to pilot a bot
in a wide-open simulation tank.
But to navigate the maze of
the human circulatory system,
the team rely on the precise
computer control
of a robotic arm
fitted with magnets.
- And now you see here
how he swims in
- Oh, yeah.
There, it's inside them.
So cute.
It could kill me.
So you can manipulate it
through the vein.
- It does not require a surgeon
to be immediately available,
right?
And those robots
can just do their job.
- So obviously,
this is something
that hits close to home for me.
I was really lucky
because if it had
If I had not been fast
or if the medication didn't
work, I would be disabled.
I mean, my dad, they
couldn't have saved my dad
because his aneurysm burst.
But if you have a solution
that more people could use,
it's just an astonishing thing.
These little milli-bots,
stuff like this,
is groundbreaking.
And people will live not forever
but longer, better lives.
♪
[dramatic music]
♪
- Awe is just
the emotional sense
that we are embedded
in a universe
that is transcendental
and massive
in terms of time and space.
♪
It inclines us
to reconsider our position
in the world around us.
♪
- Nice.
When regular people
reflect on the big picture,
they might go to a monastery
or a mountaintop.
♪
That's pretty.
- Ah.
- That's pretty.
- [laughs]
Yeah.
- That'll work.
But when you're me, you go
to a place like Mercer Labs
in New York City.
It's part research space,
part art installation,
and part psychological mirror
designed to provoke awe, unease,
and reflection, which makes it
a perfect place to meet
Sheldon Solomon,
one of the minds
behind a concept
called Terror Management Theory.
Terror Management Theory
Explain what that is and,
you know, how you developed it.
- You know, our work is based
on a cultural anthropologist
named Ernest Becker.
He just argued
that a substantial proportion
of human activity, whether
we're aware of it or not,
is the result of death anxiety.
♪
- But Sheldon doesn't just talk
about these ideas in theory.
He spent decades
putting them to the test.
As a professor
of social psychology
at Skidmore College,
he's designed experiments
that look at how
subtle cues shape behavior.
- We remind people
that they're gonna die.
Sometimes flash the word
"death" for 28 milliseconds,
so fast that you don't even know
that death is on your mind.
- Right.
You are a creepy group
of researchers.
- There you go.
Sometimes we go outside,
and we stop some people
in front of a funeral parlor
and other people
a hundred meters to either side.
When we have
these somewhat subtle
reminders of death,
for the most part,
it brings out the worst in us.
- Why wouldn't,
if you flashed "death"
or people are reminded of it,
they become more meaningful,
like, more caring?
Like, oh, I'll only
be here for a while.
I should stop being
such a jackass.
- Yeah, what we know
is the opposite of that.
When death is on our mind, we
hate people who are different.
You're more likely to vote
for ideological demagogues.
We have an insatiable desire
for money and stuff.
- And not the opposite,
which would make sense,
which would be,
it doesn't really matter,
because you can't
take it with you.
- Yeah, that's a great question.
Humans, we're a lot
like all living things
in that we're
biologically constructed
to want to stay alive.
On the other hand, as people,
we've got self-awareness.
That necessarily produces
two uniquely human emotions
Awe and dread.
- The dread may be rooted
deep in our biology.
But Sheldon's research
suggests that awe
might just be the antidote.
Let's talk a little bit
about awe.
Talk about why it's important
to have an experience of awe.
- When we put ourselves
in perspective,
we really are microscopic,
relatively inconsequential,
transient entities.
- Right.
Like, looking up at the sky,
the stars,
or the people
that come back from space,
there's a sense of awe
and tininess, right?
- That's exactly right.
And that leads
to the notion of humility.
- Which is sort of at the
heart of a lot of religions
like Buddhism, Hinduism, like
you're a drop in the ocean,
or even "Horton Hears a Who!"
- Yeah.
- Right?
Which is one of my favorites.
- And that's what takes
the sting out of
- Death.
- death.
- That's what happens
when you accept death
and you to embrace mortality.
- Yeah, so recent research
shows death reflection.
That tends to eliminate
the defensive reactions.
- I was very moved
by Steve Jobs' speech
about death
- Me too.
- where he talks about it
as a motivator
in a positive way, right?
- It's an inflection from death
denial to death acceptance.
- Do you think the pursuit
of longevity is
What is it rooted in?
- The people that are
running Earth these days,
the uber-rich oligarchs,
their disinclination to die
is literally directing
the course of human events.
- It's also narcissism,
that I am the best
and should not die.
- That's exactly right.
- Like, even though
we have to die,
I myself should not have to die.
- Yeah.
- So when those people
are in charge,
which they are right now
- Yeah?
- what does that do
for the culture?
- It's a toxic brew
that will ultimately
literally disintegrate
the culture.
- So we're killing ourselves
by thinking about dying.
- That's exactly right.
♪
[dramatic music]
[birds chirping]
- I'm not scared of cemeteries.
A lot of people are.
But I find them very comforting.
[singers vocalizing]
♪
Imagine who all
these people were
and what their histories were
and how they got here.
I have kids.
Of course I think about what
I'm leaving behind for them
Proof that I stood
for something,
that I was important.
Wanting to be remembered
isn't new.
Humans have always tried
to leave some kind of mark
that says, "I was here."
For centuries, that meant
names, dates,
whole life stories
carved into granite.
If you could afford it,
your likeness too.
I would love to know
what cemeteries
would be like in the future.
Like, will it all be digital?
[light electronic music]
Today the materials
have changed,
but the impulse hasn't.
We're just trading
stone for silicon.
There's this idea that you
could preserve yourself.
Like, for someone like me, I've
done thousands of interviews.
And so there's
a lot of video of me.
There's a lot of writing.
Could you create a facsimile of
yourself using available data?
[soft music]
This new field
is called grief tech,
where digital tools
preserve a version of us
long after the body
is laid to rest.
One company leading
the way is StoryFile.
It started by recording
Holocaust survivors,
building interactive
video avatars
that captured their voice,
expressions, and gestures.
StoryFile's newest tool
is a generative option
that feeds texts, emails,
and even social media posts
into an algorithm that predicts
how someone might
answer questions
they were never asked.
In other words,
it's a way to talk
to the dead, powered by AI.
Sit down?
- Yup.
- 1, 2, 3.
Perfect. Thank you.
- The process starts
with the StoryFile producer
filming me as I answer
a series of basic prompts.
- Hi.
- Hi.
- Hello.
- Hello.
- I don't have
an answer for that.
- I don't have an answer
for that.
- It's been fun.
- I don't say that.
- OK.
So what was your childhood like?
- Then comes the personal stuff.
I was born in Philadelphia.
Escape my dad dying
and not being sad.
In ninth grade, he told me
I'd never be a writer.
Like, how could I
The challenges I faced
were personal,
being gay at a time
when nobody
- Just to go back to your dad,
what would be
the first question?
- I don't know what he'd say.
I'd love to hear his voice.
I don't remember
his voice at all.
Are we done talking?
[camera beeps]
[whooshing]
[beep]
[squealing]
[ambient electronic tone]
♪
Oh, one of these.
♪
Hello.
- Hey.
- This is really interesting.
But what is your name?
- Please speak more clearly.
- OK, thank you.
You're very bossy, Kara Swisher.
What tell me a little bit
about yourself.
- Thank you.
Well, I'm Kara Swisher.
I'm a tech journalist.
I've been covering this industry
for, God, decades now.
- So are are you real?
- I get it, the world's
a weird place,
but I'm here, though I'm sure
some of these tech bros
would love to download
my consciousness into a chip.
- Can you smile?
- Yes, please, I can smile.
I'm not sure if you can see
it, but I'm smiling right now.
- [laughs]
You are absolutely not smiling.
- Oh, I'm smiling.
I'm just not showing my teeth.
Don't mistake a closed-mouth
smile for not being amused.
- It's not hard to imagine
digital doppelgangers
quietly overriding
the memories of real people.
In 10 years,
you're not gonna tell
the difference between me
and whatever that is.
Do you think consciousness
can really be copied?
- Sure, like, we can replicate
behaviors and responses.
But the essence of being human
Emotions, experiences
Isn't easily copied.
Are we ready
for a world where we can
interact with digital clones?
- That was a good response.
So, AI Kara, what's it like
to live in the cloud?
- Sounds glamorous, doesn't it?
But let's be real.
It's a bit like being
in a digital purgatory.
I get to engage with ideas,
but I miss the warmth
of real human interactions.
The human touch
is irreplaceable.
Let's cut to the chase.
What's your biggest
tech-related worry?
- My biggest
tech-related worry is you.
- What specifically about AI
keeps you up at night?
Let's dig into that.
- Well, I suppose
that you're not real
and you act like you're real.
You have no real human
empathy or emotion.
- You're absolutely right.
I can mimic conversation
and respond based on patterns,
but I lack genuine feelings.
- So are you conscious?
- No, I'm not conscious.
I operate based
on algorithms and patterns.
Why do you think it matters
in our discussions about AI?
- Because if you don't have
consciousness and empathy,
you have no ethics.
- Exactly.
I lack the core elements
that define humanity,
like empathy
and real emotional connection.
So if you could change
one thing about AI
to make it more humanlike,
what would it be?
- Well, you'd be a lot funnier.
You're not funny at all.
You're unfunny.
- I'll take that note to heart
or, you know, to my algorithms.
- Actually, that last joke
was pretty good.
- Glad to hear it.
I'll take my small victories
where I can get them.
- [laughs]
I have to admit, I'm starting
maybe not to like my Kara-tar
but to understand it.
It listens.
It learns.
And I can see the appeal.
As a parent, maybe you want
to be there for your kids
after you're gone
or maybe for their kids.
I kind of would have liked
to have met my dad, had like,
it wouldn't have been him,
but wouldn't have
not been him, right?
It would have been pieces
of him or memories of him.
And so the problem with memories
is, they're all messed up.
It's worth asking
whether preserving
a version of ourselves
actually helps the people
we leave behind
or slowly replaces something
that should stay human.
And whether we like it or not,
that's a question all of us
are going to face
sooner than we think.
So should human beings
live forever?
- Immortality could complicate
the human experience.
Would you want to live forever,
or do you think there's beauty
in the impermanence of life?
- [laughs]
I think there's beauty
in the impermanence of life.
- I think, by the time I'm dead,
people will have had
enough of me, honestly.
And I hope that when someone
in 2075 stumbles across this,
they hear that we
tried our best.
In a world filled
with visionary leaders,
how do we balance innovation
with responsibility?
- We don't.
♪
[dramatic music]
- We're asking everybody,
how do you want to die?
- With all my marbles.
- Mm-hmm.
- Sort of, like, looking
like Charlotte Rampling.
You know, at home,
peacefully, right?
Like a movie.
- Well, I'd really like
to die in my sleep.
- In my sleep.
- In my sleep.
- In light of some
recent research
that shows that after
you're technically dead,
your brain is still bubbling
for a couple of minutes
and you review your entire life.
- Right, yeah.
- That would be pretty cool.
- You don't want to be asleep.
- No, I don't want to be asleep.
- My grandfather died
in his sleep at 92.
His mind was intact.
He was walking five miles a day.
Pretty lucky, I would say.
- I have always imagined
that my grandmother
will come to get me.
I want to spend eternity
watching Phil Donahue with her.
[laughter]
- That's what I mean
- Maybe she's with Phil Donahue.
- Partying with people
that love me.
- With no regrets.
Just my heart being at peace.
- Having accomplished something
that will live on, right?
- I mean, who wouldn't want
to go out in a great orgasm?
[laughter]
- Best answer.
[jaunty music]
♪
- That's Hog Island right there.
- Right.
My brother Jeff is one of my
favorite people on the planet.
He has a house in a beautiful
part of the country
that I love,
up above San Francisco.
We love oysters.
I love spending time with him.
Can I get down?
- A nice, firm mud here too.
You got to be careful.
- Instead of another lab
or clinic,
we meet on Jeff's turf
to go oystering.
Cold water, muddy boots,
no talking points.
- Higher.
Just let the water slide off.
- Oh, my God,
how do you guys do this?
This is hard work, correct?
- Yeah.
- How beautiful.
- Yeah.
Well, don't, don't.
You'll suffer.
- Say "don't" one more time.
- Don't. [chuckles]
- Oh, shit.
We have a way of bringing out
the kid in each other.
And as always,
things devolve rapidly.
Don't, don't, don't.
- I'm not doing anything.
- OK.
- [laughs]
- From my earliest memories,
Jeff has always been there.
After our dad died,
we grew even closer.
My brother's an
anesthesiologist like my dad.
He went into his profession.
He's lived the life
my dad would have had.
So if I think about it
I never really thought
about that, but he is.
Like me, Jeff learned early
that accepting death
doesn't diminish life.
It makes it richer.
[soft guitar music]
♪
This was alive
until a second ago, right?
- We just sort of murdered
this poor little oyster.
Makes you think
about life, doesn't it?
[laughter]
- We are murderers.
I think we both think
about death a lot,
but you see it every day.
I couldn't do that.
- Yeah, I don't well,
I do not see death every day.
- I know.
- I would be in big trouble
as a doctor
if I saw death every day.
It's not the dying
that is the problem.
It's getting there.
- Yeah, yeah.
- You don't want to get there.
- I just had a memory from
going to Jones Beach with Dad.
- Oh, yeah, with Daddy?
Yeah.
- We must have eaten these
with him.
- Let's see, he was 34 years
old when he died, right?
To us, he was, like, a full
adult and the whole thing.
- Right.
- But he was a young man.
He was a you know,
it's a real it's a tragedy.
- Yeah.
- But I think, sometimes
it's those kind of tragedies
that make people closer.
- We were forced to think
about it from the beginning.
- Having a parent die
when you're a child,
literally 50% of your world
has just disappeared.
- Right.
- It definitely informs you
about, you know,
how short your own life is.
- You don't got time.
- You don't want
to suffer fools.
- Mm-hmm.
- And it also, you know,
allows you to roll
with the punches
later on in life
when other things happen.
You become
super highly functional.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I think
about that a lot.
- Yeah, me too.
I don't know.
You ever think about
how you want to die?
I wouldn't mind dying here.
- There's a place
at our house over here
- Yeah.
- which is this flat mesa.
I want my ashes put there.
And it's, like,
a really peaceful thing.
Like, I go sit there sometime.
- Interesting.
So I want to be cremated
and thrown in the face
of people I don't like.
- OK, that would work.
Hey, Elon, come here.
Whoosh!
[laughter]
- You know what I want at one
point is a Viking funeral.
Put me on a boat
and put all my stuff on it.
- Shoot flaming arrows
at the boat.
- Correct. I was gonna teach
my children to do that.
- You could do it on my boat,
but you can't
put my boat on fire.
- Well, I'd have to.
- No, you can't do that.
[laughter]
- We laugh at death
a lot, don't we?
- As you should.
- We live in a culture that
avoids talking about death,
and that costs us.
It keeps us from enjoying
our lives to the fullest.
Accepting death doesn't
make life emptier.
It's exactly
what gives it meaning.
[bright music]
- You have to be a little bit
respectful about it.
- Do you?
- I think so.
I mean, because, you know,
we live on this Earth
a very short time
- We do.
- you know, relatively.
- But then you come back
as something else,
like an oyster.
- And that's fine.
- That is so fucked up.
- That would be a nice short
little very happy life.
- We're about to eat someone.
After talking to so many
people about longevity,
one thing is clear
You don't get forever.
[laughs]
You just get moments.
So when you find a good one,
you raise a glass
Or an oyster.
- Maybe it's Grandma.
I'm glad I get
to share this with you.
Hey, Grandma.
Mmm. Delicious.
- Delicious.
- [chuckles]
- It was.
♪