The miniaturisation of technologies will eventually result in them dominating medical treatments, enabling us to live longer. In the long term non-biological solutions, which have already played a minor role in the medical world, will significantly influence 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.”