The geopolitical significance of the Tianjin summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Beijing military parade will be debated for some time. But a brief exchange between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping may turn out to be far more consequential. For it pointed to the fascinating idea of transhumanism.
During a live broadcast of the parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, Putin and Xi were overheard talking about the possibility of extending human lifespans. Putin said: “Biotechnology is continuously developing. Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and (you can) even achieve immortality.” Xi replied: “Some predict that in this century, humans may live to 150 years old.”
Later, Putin confirmed to reporters that he and Xi had been reflecting on biotechnology. “Modern means of health improvement, medical means, even surgical ones related to organ replacement, allow humanity to hope that active life will continue differently than it does today.” Immortality has long been a quest of human beings. All mythologies record this temptation in different ways. But the goal is recognised as elusive and that mortality is very much part of life on earth. Immortality is certainly not round the corner, despite significant advances in science and technology. But extending life to longer periods, the transhumanists think, is within reach.
That two of the world’s most entrenched rulers are interested in living longer is hardly surprising. Putin has been in power for a quarter of a century, and under current constitutional arrangements, can remain president of Russia until 2036. Xi, who took over as China’s supreme leader in 2012, has already removed the term limits that constrained his predecessors. Both leaders are convinced that they are men of destiny. So why not take advantage of science and technology in extending their life and reign?
While Russia and China are investing in anti-ageing research, the greatest flow of capital and brainpower into transhumanist technologies is still in Silicon Valley. If Putin and Xi are intrigued by the prospect of longer lives, the Valley’s “tech bros” are obsessed with it.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend, Silicon Valley is pouring billions of dollars into start-ups, research labs, and nonprofits dedicated to longevity. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Peter Thiel are among the most visible champions. Bezos has backed Altos Labs, a biotech company seeking to reprogram cells to reverse ageing. Thiel has invested in multiple anti-ageing ventures and has long argued that “death is a problem to be solved.”
Musk, meanwhile, goes beyond anti-ageing to the fusion of human cognition with machines. His Neuralink project is already experimenting with brain-computer interfaces to help paralysed patients regain function; he insists that humanity must “merge with AI” to remain relevant.
The Valley’s billionaires are not alone. Philosophers and scientists have been building the intellectual scaffolding for transhumanism. Oxford’s Nick Bostrom has defined it as an effort to transform the human condition through the ethical application of science and technology. Its three pillars are super-longevity (radical extension of life), super-intelligence (cognitive enhancement), and super well-being (the elimination of suffering and the expansion of human capability). The transhumanists believe that technological progress is at hand to liberate us from biological constraints. They view ageing, disease, and even death not as destiny, but as engineering challenges that can be solved.
The transhumanist agenda rests on rapid progress in the growing convergence of several scientific frontiers.
One of these is genetic engineering and longevity science. Tools like CRISPR have raised hopes of repairing defective DNA, delaying ageing, and rejuvenating organs. In neuroscience, brain–machine interfaces like Neuralink imagine direct communication between brains and computers, restoring lost capacities and eventually amplifying intelligence.
AI-based cognitive enhancement is another such frontier. Outsourcing parts of human thinking to AI systems could radically expand reasoning and memory. The potential of cryonics and digital consciousness to preserve bodies or “upload” minds into digital systems remains speculative, but is seriously debated in transhumanist circles.
Cybernetics and augmentation tools like prosthetics, exoskeletons, and bionic implants are already advancing rapidly, blurring the line between human and machine. Militaries, unsurprisingly, are among the most interested in building “super-soldiers”.
The social consequences of longevity research could be profound. Slowing ageing and extending healthy lifespans could transform societies, producing older but more active populations. With birth rates collapsing across much of the world, such a development could provide an answer to demographic decline. Instead of shrinking workforces and spiralling welfare costs, societies might see citizens productively engaged well into their second century. These technologies also make it possible to imagine journeys into deep space and the “colonisation” of other celestial bodies.
But transhumanist technologies also risk deepening inequality. Access to radical life extension or cognitive enhancement will not be universal. In societies already scarred by disparities of wealth and power, the prospect of a biologically privileged elite — literally living longer and thinking faster — will raise sharp political and ethical questions. Worse still, the deployment of these technologies could lead to a technological dystopia with its temptations for designer babies and eugenics.
Religious traditions condemn the ambition to “play God”. Immortality through technology appears to mock doctrines that locate eternal life in divine grace. Concepts like “mind-uploading” trash the idea of the human soul. By promising engineered perfection, transhumanism risks eroding what makes us human: Our vulnerability, our limits, even our mortality. For critics, the movement is a secular parody of religion, offering salvation without transcendence.
Beyond this, there is posthumanism — a more radical current that rejects the assumption of human exceptionalism. Posthumanists argue for dissolving the boundaries between humans, animals, machines, and the environment. Where transhumanism seeks to perfect humanity, posthumanism imagines a future beyond it.
Putin and Xi are unlikely to live to 150, let alone achieve immortality. History suggests that political mortality is harder to avoid than the biological one. Political change may interrupt whatever biological extensions new technologies promise. Czar Putin and Emperor Xi can’t delay forever their dates in heaven with Peter the Great and Karl Marx. Their fates might be sealed well before science catches up with their ambitions.
But these technologies and debates are here to stay. Even more consequential is the emerging debate on what it means to be human. India’s spiritual and philosophical traditions are well equipped to engage with these ethical issues.
To be effective, though, India needs to invest a lot more into the emerging technologies underlying the enterprise of transhumanism. The objective can’t be lengthening the lives of our political class or the super-rich but to deploy them for collective good at home and contributing to the global regulation of their safe and ethical use.
The writer is contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express
