The Immortalists

Immortalism is the new frontier of Silicon Valley. By harnessing technology to “cure” aging and investing in cutting-edge—and often controversial—research, today’s billionaires, from Elon Musk and Peter Thiel to Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman, are financing a new quest for eternal life: one they not only engineer, but also own and control.

There are entrepreneurs who regard humans as appliances to be fixed, and machines to be upgraded, transhumanists who want to upload consciousness to the cloud; and biohackers flogging AI-powered wellness apps. It’s a wild west of experimentation and outlandish ideologies, with the so-called science of immortalism carrying profound and dubious implications for all our social, ethical and political futures.

Award-winning journalist Aleks Krotoski journeys from the cult fringes to the technological heartlands, meeting the moguls, effective altruists, investors and inventors who are disrupting death. This razor-sharp, powerful, and at times chilling investigation explores what it truly means to be human, asking: who really wants to live forever?