A little more about post-aging possibilities from Aubrey de Grey, this time from Matthew Burgess at Factor. The gerontologist believes non-biological devices (implants and such) will enable longevity in a radical way in the future, as hardware continues to shrink, though even someone with his progressive vision thinks these developments aren’t just around the bend. An excerpt:

“The miniaturisation of technologies will eventually result in them dominating medical treatments, enabling us to live longer, leading researcher Aubrey de Grey has said.

He said that in the long term non-biological solutions, which have already played a minor role in the medical world, will significantly influence medical treatments.

However before this he believes there will be biological solutions that will make us healthier and as a side effect make us live longer.

de Grey, who is working to end ageing and is looking at how this can be achieved with the SENS Research Foundation, told Factor: ‘The whole area of what you might call non-biological solutions to medical problems is an area that should certainly never be neglected and has already played a minor role in today’s medical world with things like cochlear implants or for that matter just glasses.

‘So the question then is will this increase? I believe it will, in fact I believe that in the very long term it is quite likely that non-biological solutions will dominate medicine simply because they can and they are more versatile.

‘But I think that is going to be a long time coming. It is going to be driven largely by miniaturisation I think. It may very well be that software improvements to do with artificial intelligence for example will play a roll there.'”