- 2 days ago
Millions of dollars in treatments, supplements, and scans. Immortality through AI. Bryan Johnson’s longevity script has everything—except an ending. WIRED Global Editorial Director Katie Drummond goes deep with the American entrepreneur and futurist on a quest to live forever.
Director: Efrat Kashai
Director of Photography: Grant Bell
Editor: Louis Lalire
Host: Katie Drummond
Guest: Bryan Johnson
Line Producer: Jamie Rasmussen
Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark
Camera Operator: Shay Eberle-Gunst; Brooke Mueller
Sound Mixer: Justin Fox
Production Assistant: Lauren Boucher; Abigayle Devine
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo
Assistant Editor: Fynn Lithgow
Director: Efrat Kashai
Director of Photography: Grant Bell
Editor: Louis Lalire
Host: Katie Drummond
Guest: Bryan Johnson
Line Producer: Jamie Rasmussen
Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark
Camera Operator: Shay Eberle-Gunst; Brooke Mueller
Sound Mixer: Justin Fox
Production Assistant: Lauren Boucher; Abigayle Devine
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo
Assistant Editor: Fynn Lithgow
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00True or false, you, Brian Johnson, the man sitting across from me, one day, at some point, as of yet undefined in the future, you will die.
00:13False.
00:14Tell me more.
00:15Death has always been inevitable, and so we have made all these preparations, like we talk about immortality, professional achievement, we talk about a life after death, and so there are the ways that we've dealt with it up to this point.
00:35And now, we have this real possibility of extending our lifespans to some unknown horizon, so that's extension, but we also have the ability to begin moving ourself to computational systems.
00:48So, currently, in a very crude form, I have a Brian AI that has digested everything I've ever said.
00:55You do currently have this?
00:57I do.
00:58Okay.
00:58Yeah, and so, as the technology gets better and it gets trained on more of my thoughts, it's only going to improve.
01:04I think all of us are in a time and place where we will be immortal to some degree.
01:12Now, whether it's in this body, whether it's in some kind of computational arrangement, whether it's both or a combination of both, I think we've reached that point as a civilization.
01:23And the reason I ask that, I mean, maybe it's obvious, but I'm trying to sort of understand from what premise you are beginning, right?
01:29Because you talk a lot about living a healthier life, extending the human lifespan.
01:33What I was curious about is sort of how far you see that possibly going and sort of whether you accept the notion for yourself that at some point, you, Brian, your biological material, right?
01:47Everything that makes you, you, will be buried, will be cremated.
01:52There will be a will.
01:54There will be an estate plan, right?
01:56That all of those things that go into the way we plan for death, like, are those things that you contemplate and that you plan for or not?
02:03Do you have a will?
02:04I do.
02:05Yeah.
02:05Good.
02:05I have a will and I've made all the practical decisions on if I'm in a comatose state, what are my instructions?
02:13So I have gone through all those preparations.
02:16The future is always present.
02:18It's just a question if you can see it or not.
02:20And I think this moment is probably the biggest test of trying to piece together what is really happening with the speed at which AI is improving.
02:28And what does that mean for how it's going to change everything we understand about reality?
02:34And many people are poking at this, like trying to make their predictions and organize the world to the best they can.
02:39And I'm basically saying that we are headed towards this event horizon where AI is now improving at a certain speed.
02:46In a few years' time, we probably can't see past that point.
02:51We don't know what happens.
02:53And as technology gets better and better, the most prized asset is going to be existence.
03:01That immortality, as we thought about it before through accomplishment or through offspring or any other or the afterlife, will be devalued relative to existing.
03:13And that's my fundamental bet on the future is that's where we're headed.
03:15Let me ask you this.
03:17If there was a world where, let's say in five years, you could upload Brian into an AI, right?
03:25An AI Brian is pretty much as good as Brian Brian.
03:29Does Brian Brian eat the cheeseburger?
03:32Yeah.
03:33You know what I mean?
03:33Like, does some of this, does sort of this, you know, it is, from everything I can tell, it is every waking minute of your life.
03:40And it is every sleeping minute of your life sort of committed to this one singular goal, right?
03:46That is your entire existence.
03:49Yeah.
03:50Have you contemplated whether or not that would change?
03:54Yeah.
03:54I mean, okay, so let's think about your question in a different way.
03:57I could say about people today that most people spend every waking moment pursuing wealth.
04:05The time they're not spending pursuing wealth, they're pursuing some sort of status or prestige, you know, socially signaling to their community, their tribe of some power or something to that effect.
04:19Now, I could certainly say that and say that's a malaise that has everybody locked in to a singular game that is consuming all of their resources and all their attention.
04:29And what I'm saying is, I'm devoting every second of my existence to existence.
04:35When you die, inevitably, that's how it has been, it makes sense to pursue power and status.
04:44That makes sense.
04:45When you give birth to super intelligence and now you can start extending lifespans to some unknown horizon, 200 years, 1,000 years, 10,000 years, we don't know.
04:55Millions of years, we don't know.
04:56When that happens, the entire game of humanity shifts from that singular focus on wealth accumulation and status and prestige to existence.
05:07Now, embedded in existence, we may still play games of power, prestige, status, etc., but it will be conditioned that that existence itself is the highest virtue.
05:17That's the shift that's starting to happen right now.
05:20So let me pivot over then to the conversation about your existence.
05:23So, you know, you've talked at length, you talk a great deal, you are very much out there in the public eye talking about a day in the life of Brian.
05:32Walk us through a day in the life right now.
05:34I know that the protocol changes, that you're adapting it, modifying it.
05:38What does it look like today?
05:39Take us through a typical day for you.
05:41It may be helpful to have the backdrop that what I do is I'm saying that existence is the highest virtue, and if you accept that premise, then I say, on a given day, I want to identify every single thing that could kill me or make me die, and then I want to identify every single thing that could help me make me live.
05:58And so, let's just say I live in California, and the life expectancy is around 79 years.
06:05So if I behave like a typical human, I probably have a life expectancy to 79 years of age.
06:11Now, if I identify things that could potentially shorten that, like smoking, drinking, breathing bad air, drinking toxic water, you're not getting exercise, et cetera, then if I think of good things that could extend my life even further to, you know, currently the cap is like 120, I can say, well, I'm going to eat healthy foods and exercise.
06:28And so, my daily protocol is basically trying to identify, at a molecular level, every single thing that either extends or shortens life.
06:39So, I mean, I'm laughing because your daily protocol, I will be honest, it's much more elaborate than eating well and exercising.
06:45With just eating well and exercising, like you'd have a pretty chill time.
06:47Yeah.
06:48You're not necessarily having like the chillest time.
06:50Yeah.
06:50Tell us a little bit about that.
06:51Okay, cool.
06:52So, my every day begins the night before.
06:55Okay.
06:56So, I have built my entire existence around sleep.
07:00I mean, I like that.
07:01Love to sleep.
07:02Yeah.
07:02Do you?
07:02How well do you sleep?
07:04Well, we're going to get to that.
07:05Tell me how many hours a night you sleep.
07:07Eight hours and 34 minutes is my 12-month average.
07:10My sleep profile is that of an early 20-something.
07:13I've worked very hard at this.
07:14So, it's eight hours and 34 minutes.
07:16I get over four hours of restorative sleep.
07:18That's deep sleep and REM where the body cleans itself and repairs and rebuilds.
07:22I'm up less than one time per night on average.
07:24I go to bed within two to three minutes.
07:27I have my head hitting the pillow and I have 94% sleep efficiency.
07:32So, once I lay down and my stress score during the night, typically most people's sleep signals
07:37like a rocky chart of a stock market, you know, and mine is just flat.
07:41Like my consciousness is at peace.
07:44And so, those are the stats you want to see for a perfect night's sleep.
07:47But to do that, you can't just show up and just say, I'm going to put my head on the pillow and fall asleep.
07:52You kind of have to build your whole life system around that.
07:54So, my day begins the night before when I go to sleep.
07:57And then I wake up around 4.30 or 5.
07:59And then I'll do, for the next four hours, I will have a series of measurements and therapies.
08:06I get out of bed.
08:08I try to within one minute of a waking.
08:10Within one minute.
08:11Yeah.
08:11I try to avoid the 10 more minutes or pull the phone up and start scrolling.
08:16I get up.
08:17I will get light in my eyes within a few minutes of waking.
08:21So, I wake up before the sun.
08:22So, it's 10,000 lux light in my eye for a few minutes.
08:25I'll take my inner ear temperature.
08:27I measure my temperature every single day.
08:30One thing we've noticed is, as I've done this for the past four years,
08:33my body temperature has dropped almost 4 degrees Fahrenheit.
08:37A massive drop.
08:38So, now it's around 94 degrees Fahrenheit each morning.
08:41That's down from 98.7.
08:43So, there's good evidence that species with a lower basal temperature live longer.
08:47I will then put a serum on my hair.
08:51Or my scalp.
08:51Rub my scalp with a silicone scrubber for hair growth.
08:53I'll take a quick shower.
08:56And then I'll come downstairs.
08:58I have a morning drink.
09:00I will eat something.
09:02I'll work out for an hour.
09:03I'll do red light therapy.
09:04I'll then do hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
09:07Then some sauna.
09:09Then I'll rinse off.
09:10And then I'm ready for work.
09:11Okay.
09:12So, that is quite a regimen.
09:14And then you stop eating at...
09:17Around noon.
09:18Around noon.
09:19Yeah.
09:19And then, like, also in the morning, I'll typically do, like, a few tests.
09:22Like, today, I did three tests.
09:25There's so much to this protocol.
09:26There's sort of so much data that you've accumulated really quickly, like rapid fire.
09:31Not to put you on the spot, but I am.
09:33Ask me a couple really quick questions about myself.
09:35Yeah.
09:36And then tell me how I'm...
09:37How am I doing in the Brian Johnson universe?
09:39Great.
09:39Go.
09:39What is your resting heart rate?
09:4248 beats per minute.
09:43That's fantastic.
09:44What is your most recent inflammation, your body inflammation blood test result?
09:49Your HR, HSCRP?
09:51Brian, I have no idea.
09:52What is your blood glucose level?
09:54A good one.
09:56A good one?
09:56Okay.
09:56Okay.
09:57Good.
09:58How many continuous push-ups can you do?
10:01Probably like 10.
10:02Okay.
10:02If you stood on one foot and closed your eye, how long could you stay standing?
10:08A minute.
10:09A minute?
10:10Yes, a minute.
10:11That's very good.
10:12Oh, yeah.
10:13Okay, good.
10:14Try me.
10:14Okay.
10:15It's on right now.
10:15Okay, very good.
10:16What is the length of your telomeres?
10:20I don't know.
10:21Okay.
10:22What are your omega levels?
10:24I don't know.
10:25Okay.
10:26These are very involved levels.
10:27Yeah.
10:28What is your speed of aging?
10:31Well, according to the skin test I took earlier, Brian, it was 1.9.
10:36Yeah.
10:38So, tell me speed of age.
10:39Okay, so I didn't learn very much.
10:41I think what I learned is that there's a lot more to this than do you drink, do you smoke,
10:48do you exercise, do you sleep enough?
10:50Yeah.
10:50That's what I thought you were going to ask me.
10:51Yeah.
10:52I do not know the length of my telomeres.
10:53Yeah.
10:54But apparently that's something someone can find out.
10:56Yeah.
10:56So, the reason I ask you those questions is because I can pose a question, like, how's
11:00your sleep?
11:01Yeah.
11:01And you can give me a generic answer, like, I sleep great, or I feel great.
11:04But if you look at the actual data of your telomere length, it tells me the story of your
11:10overall health.
11:11The same with your blood glucose levels, the same with your speed of aging.
11:14These are readouts of your biology that just say, this is me in raw form.
11:20There's no storytelling.
11:21There's no subjective assessment.
11:22It's just the data.
11:23You were in a Netflix documentary earlier this year.
11:26You talked a lot sort of about your history in that documentary, right?
11:30You were a successful entrepreneur.
11:31You felt like you weren't living your healthiest life.
11:33You parted ways with Mormonism.
11:35You were Mormon for a very, very long time.
11:37You got divorced, right?
11:38You went through all of these seismic life changes.
11:41And a lot of people make major changes to their lives, right?
11:44They hit a wall with stress or in a marriage or with their religion, right?
11:48Exceedingly few people, very, very, very, very, very few people go as far as you have.
11:55What is it that pushed you past the point that the vast majority of people would go?
12:00I'm really motivated by having read various biographies of history and people throughout
12:06time and place.
12:07In their moment, they were able to identify the most far-ranging ambition identifiable.
12:15You couldn't have sequenced the genome in the year 1800.
12:19The technology wasn't present.
12:20You could have had that ambition in the early 90s.
12:23And someone did.
12:25And they actually sequenced the genome.
12:26And so, in any given time point, a new emergent possibility is present, then there's two questions
12:35that arise.
12:36One is, what is it?
12:37And two is, will somebody do it?
12:41And in the year 2021 was the first time in human history where a person could say, we are
12:51the first generation who will die and not be ridiculed.
12:54And it just became possible.
12:58And I saw that and I thought, this is a moment.
13:01Like, this, when it comes together where you see it and you can do something about it.
13:05And so, I wanted to try to capture what this moment is.
13:08Now, if you talk to people who know me, if you ask my husband, right?
13:13Poor guy.
13:14They would say that I'm a very controlled person, right?
13:17Like, I wake up at the same time every day.
13:19I do the same exercise.
13:21I tend to eat a lot of very similar foods.
13:23Like, there's a lot of routine and structure to my life.
13:26I will say, when I read about you, when I watch, you know, videos about you, when I hear about the way you live,
13:33I, as a very controlled person, am astounded at how controlled your life is.
13:39Have you always been that way?
13:40Well, like, when you think back 20 years ago, 30 years ago, six years ago,
13:46was control always something that was a defining characteristic?
13:50I suppose it's the difference between being called a germaphobe and being germ aware and how people label your methodical building of life systems as control.
14:02And I would reframe it and say, you're actually a really smart engineer, that you realize that the metabolic cost of you having to make these decisions every single day spur of the moment is so expensive to you that you are wise and say, you know what?
14:17It's not worth it.
14:18I'm just going to systematize this so that my brain can then be allocated towards other higher level thinking.
14:23So I would applaud your systems and say, like, you actually are very clever in the way you've structured your life.
14:29And so I kind of view it the same way that why would I fight these daily miscellaneous, ultimately irrelevant decisions on a moment to moment basis when they can just be automated?
14:40And I'd rather spend my scarce brain capacity thinking of higher level things about the future of the human race, for example, than I would like, what am I going to have for breakfast?
14:49And so I think historically, I've very much thought like an engineer my entire life.
14:53You take a given system, you dissect its parts, you reassemble it into some kind of constructive and positive manner.
15:00But I'd say like what I do now is definitely beyond what I did before.
15:04But what I'm trying to demonstrate is Brian Johnson in 2025 is a normal dude in 2030.
15:12It's just like our-
15:13In five years.
15:14In five years.
15:15That the apparatus around us, that things will just be automated.
15:19Health will be so much more automated than we have, than we are now, that the weirdness of who I am or what I am will be forgotten.
15:27They'll, people will remember in that context.
15:29But when they look at me, they'll just be like, oh yeah, like he just was ahead of the time.
15:34I was getting ready for this interview.
15:35I was reading, sort of reading up on you.
15:37And in 2023, I was, I was leading the newsroom at Vice and we actually published a story on you.
15:42And you talked in that story about your body image from decades ago.
15:46You talked about how hard it was at that time to control yourself around food at night, right?
15:52You talked about how you now often go to bed hungry, that you have learned to find joy in that.
15:58And in reading that, and just in very good faith, I'm being very transparent with you here.
16:01Or if I stripped your name out of that and I just looked at a bulleted list of those comments, you know, that sounds a lot like me 20 years ago with a very serious eating disorder.
16:13I mean, there was a period in my life where I was very sick and I was very controlled and everything that went into my mouth, right?
16:20And it wasn't about the number on the scale.
16:22It wasn't about how I looked.
16:23It was about being able to systematize and control my environment.
16:28And, you know, I am not a doctor.
16:31I'm not a psychiatrist.
16:32I think if you were to ask some doctors and psychiatrists, and I'm sure this, this criticism has been leveled before, these comments have been made before, they would say, well, that sounds like disordered behavior.
16:41That sounds like an eating disorder.
16:43Yeah.
16:44Does that resonate with you?
16:46I mean, how do you respond to that?
16:47And I think particularly when we're talking not just about you, but about you as a public figure advocating for a certain approach to health, do you have concerns about sort of what you are advocating for and sort of what you are doing and how that might be adopted by sort of the population writ large?
17:05Yeah, most people I know in America have an eating disorder.
17:12I rarely meet somebody who doesn't find themselves late in the evening powerless to stop themselves from eating the ice cream or the cookies or the chips or, you know, whatever else they find in the pantry.
17:24That is probably the most universal experience shared among Americans in this moment.
17:29And it probably has to do a combination of it's culturally acceptable.
17:32Our foods were scientifically methodically built to be addictive.
17:35You just pull up an app and it like delivers to your house real time, whatever you want.
17:39So I would say it's really more of a widespread societal problem that we have an addiction problem with food, our phones and our entertainment, our scrolling, it's everywhere.
17:51And so certainly I don't know if my addiction is more excessive than other people's addictions or if it just weighted more towards food versus the phone.
17:59But I'd say I'm probably pretty average on a population level addiction scale.
18:05And so you have sort of taken that, I guess, what used to manifest in one way, which is sort of like an inability to control what you were eating when you were eating it.
18:14And you have adopted a new way of approaching it, which is saying, I eat these things at these times and I sort of eliminate the variables.
18:23I take the choice out of it.
18:24And that is how I am going to manage this part of my health.
18:28Yeah, exactly.
18:29And I guess more broadly, it's kind of a cultural commentary where I'm saying the most powerful forces in all of society, corporations, are pointing their power at getting you to be addicted to their thing.
18:43Whether it's scrolling their app, whether it's eating their food, whether it's watching their show, all their science, all their technology, all their intelligence is pointed at you and trying to get you to be addicted.
18:53And what I was saying is, when you are addicted to anything, it reduces your freedom and your agency.
19:00They ultimately have you in a bind.
19:03I don't want to be addicted to anything.
19:06I want to have agency and freedom over my existence as much as possible.
19:11And so, that's what I'm trying to build.
19:12And so, I realize that people on the outside looking in, they do take that approach and say, he's working through his childhood trauma.
19:20He's working through a food addiction.
19:22I'm open to all those explanations.
19:24Like, I would be the first person to be self-deprecating and be like, this guy's got issues, unquestionably.
19:32Also, in my interactions with others, it is a very common phenomena that humans struggle in modern society.
19:38And I'm trying to offer an antidote that I didn't have anybody, not a single person in my life, advocating for me that I take care of my health.
19:48Nobody.
19:49It was work harder.
19:50Like, I'm so proud of you for achieving this.
19:51It's like, didn't matter if I was ragged or depressed or overweight, like, the direction went elsewhere except for Brian.
19:57Can I be a positive influence in your life and encourage you to go to bed on time and get some exercise?
20:02So, I'm really trying to play that role in society where I'm saying, look, this is a mess.
20:06We are all a mess.
20:08And can we be honest about the situation?
20:10Even those who are accusing me of being addicted and having a food eating disorder or whatever the problem, they themselves are equally shackled with addictions.
20:19You're addicted to longevity.
20:21Yeah, there's probably no way of actually getting over addiction other than controlling where your addiction is pointed.
20:27I would agree with that.
20:28I want to ask you about your fame.
20:33You were sort of just talking about population-wide health.
20:37And I think that one of the observations that I have made as a journalist in the last several months since President Trump was elected and inaugurated in late January is that, to me, with notoriety, with fame comes a degree of responsibility, right?
20:50Responsibility for what you say, how you say it, when you speak up, when you choose not to.
20:55I want to ask you about Maha.
20:57I want to ask you about RFK Jr.
21:00When President Trump won the election, you congratulated him on social media, as did so many very high-profile business leaders.
21:06You were photographed with RFK Jr., Maha as sort of the tagline in the photo.
21:12I'm really curious for your assessment at this point in time of RFK Jr. and the Trump administration vis-a-vis American health.
21:20If I had to guess, and I'll let you answer the question in a minute, you know, I would suspect that there's a lot there that someone in your position would like, right?
21:29The idea of, you know, stripping additives out of food, you know, we have also seen massive cuts at federal health agencies.
21:37We have seen already, you know, grants with regards to cutting-edge research, mRNA vaccines being a very early target.
21:44We've seen a lot of sort of the very promising sort of bleeding-edge medical research that you have been able to adopt in your own life, you know, really on the chopping block in this administration.
21:57I would really appreciate your assessment of the Trump administration and RFK Jr. as it pertains to public health, which is, you know, in many ways the sort of premise of your entire operation here, right?
22:12Which is really sort of educating the public about how to live a healthier life.
22:15Yeah.
22:16How do you rate the administration so far?
22:18Yeah.
22:19I mean, RFK is certainly not a status quo person.
22:24I think you can say that, yeah.
22:25And I think I would say that the status quo in the U.S. is not working.
22:32If you look at the data around the health of our citizenry, it's embarrassingly bad.
22:38We spend 1.8 times our peer countries in healthcare, $13,000 per person versus like $6,000 or so, the other developed countries.
22:48So we spend more and we get less.
22:50And so whether RFK is the solution or not, what we're doing is not working.
22:57I'm open to change.
22:58I'm open to a variety of possibilities.
23:01It's not to say that everything he's doing is correct, but I do support the idea that we definitely need to change because what we're doing now is not working.
23:09Do you worry about medical research being delayed, right, by years or decades if it is curtailed right now?
23:19Yeah.
23:19I'm not, in these kinds of circumstances, I'm not apprehensive of change.
23:26Science always finds a way forward and progress always finds a way forward.
23:31And so oftentimes when one path is discontinued, everybody thinks it's an end of something.
23:36But actually that change produces a new path that people didn't anticipate.
23:41So, no, I support the creative destruction.
23:44I think it could have some positive outcomes.
23:46Clearly there could be some drawbacks.
23:47Like when you break things like this, it goes both ways.
23:51It's not like a clean win or loss.
23:53But I'm generally in favor of new ideas or a new approach because, I mean, I think what would be cool is if we as a country said, we want to be number one in the entire world for life expectancy.
24:04That is a very clear goal.
24:07And then once you back into it and you look at all the practical things that determine that, but that to me would be like something we all can say we agree.
24:14Like living long, healthy lives and not long health spans would be an admirable goal for an entire country.
24:21So I would like more unification on this that we actually have a big goal to work towards versus now it's like trying to find the evildoers and knocking them out, which is fine.
24:29But also we don't really have a positive goal.
24:32Who are the evildoers that we're knocking out?
24:34I mean, for example, like you see the red dye.
24:38A lot of the ingredients we have in this country are not used because they promote health.
24:42They're used because they create addiction or they're low cost.
24:45And so I think there's a lot of it's there's an acceptance of selling death.
24:50And we just say that's capitalism.
24:52What else are we going to do?
24:54What is a life well lived for Brian Johnson?
24:59Not dying.
25:00People evaluate my life and they say, bro, so busy trying to not die.
25:08He ain't living.
25:09They do say that.
25:10And then next they say, I wish he would get hit by a bus.
25:13Like they they're so upset.
25:14Have not seen them say that.
25:16I believe it.
25:16It's like, lol, can't wait till he gets hit by a bus.
25:20But they're so upset for a variety of reasons, whether they can't make the change themselves, whether they feel like they've been wronged, whether they don't have the willpower.
25:29And I get it.
25:29I've been there.
25:30So I don't this is not I'm not blaming them.
25:32But they go through this this response where they're having to reconcile that they are not the person they want to be and someone else is doing something they're not.
25:42And so they're going through some kind of reconciliation process.
25:45Then they go through the other five stages of grief.
25:47And so I understand why people have such a strong reaction to me.
25:53I get it.
25:53I've been there before.
25:55And it's a very helpless feeling.
25:57Brian, thank you for your time.
26:00I'm really glad you came.
26:01It's nice to be hanging out with you.
26:02It's nice to be hanging out with you.
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