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Longevity Escape Velocity is closer than you think!

A good friend sent me a DM and said: ‘Mate, you need to help me unhate my view of the future.’

This was my answer: “If you can live to 2035, you might live forever.”

Big statement – in fact, they don’t come much bigger. This would be the most transformative thing that has happened to our species. I meant what I said.

It’s called Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV). This is a term that will start to permeate media and modern AI culture.

Definition: Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) is the idea that if we have enough technology, life expectancy can increase faster than time itself. Essentially, each year lived will add more than a year to your lifespan. Once we reach LEV, aging simply becomes a managed condition, not an inevitable decline. It’s a tipping point where aging becomes just another solvable problem. And we are very close.

We’re on the brink of flipping the script on human longevity, turning science fiction into science reality. We might just be the first immortal generation.

If this sounds kind of insane – here are some things worth remembering:

In agrarian society, people frequently died from broken arms and legs. Life expectancy was somewhere in our low 40s. And for 199,900 or so years, this number didn’t change. Yet, in the past 100 years, life expectancy has increased by 25 years. And this is accelerating. As I write this, life expectancy is increasing by 4.8 months every 12 months.

Key breakthroughs in biotechnology, regenerative medicine, and AI will facilitate this Longevity Escape Velocity.

When will this occur?

The rapid pace of technological innovation means we might see LEV sooner than we think. Legendary futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts we could hit LEV by 2035. He sees the exponential growth in technology as our ticket to immortality. Another biomedical gerontologist, Aubrey de Grey, agrees with this assessment.

Technologies to make it possible

Artificial Intelligence:
Function: AI’s advanced algorithms and machine learning capabilities can crunch massive datasets, uncovering the secrets of aging. Finding connections and solutions no human could ever uncover.
Impact: AI will supercharge drug discovery, personalize treatments, and optimize healthcare, making it possible to extend and enhance life like never before.

CRISPR:
Function: This gene-editing marvel lets us tweak DNA with precision, potentially fixing the genetic hiccups that cause aging and age-related diseases. We could even use it to reverse the aging process and change our physical disposition; height, eye color, you name it.
Impact: CRISPR could spawn therapies that halt or even reverse genetic damage from aging, paving the way for longer, healthier lives.

Nanotechnology:
Function: By manipulating matter at the molecular level, nanotechnology can repair cellular damage from the inside out. This has already occurred. Researchers have already developed nanorobots that kill cancer cells in mice while leaving healthy cells untouched.
Impact: Picture tiny machines patrolling your body, fixing damage, delivering drugs, and keeping you in peak condition—like having a personal medical team at a microscopic level. Not once you get sick, but on an ongoing basis to avoid illness.

Regenerative Medicine:
Function: Stem cell therapy and tissue engineering are at the heart of regenerative medicine.
Impact: These technologies can regenerate damaged tissues and organs, effectively rolling back the clock on aging.

Massive Implications

As lifespans extend, we’ll need to rethink societal structures. Careers, retirement, and relationships will evolve, adapting to a world where living beyond 100 is the norm, not the exception. A world of infinite lifespans has incomprehensible social implications.
LEV brings ethical dilemmas—who will have access to life-extending tech?

How do we ensure fairness? We must tackle these questions head-on to avoid a future where longevity is a privilege, not a right. We could invent a new problem—Lifespan Inequality. Which we must remember already exists as wealth is a key predictor of how long someone lives today.

The economic landscape will shift dramatically. Healthcare systems, insurance models, and economies will need to adapt to a population that stays healthy and active well into old age. How will people fund an infinite future instead of retirement? Will we work forever? Or will we achieve collective abundance with the same technology?

Embracing LEV means preparing for a future where longevity is not just a dream but a reality within our grasp. It might just offset low birth rates and totally redefine our species. But the social tsunami will be a wild ride.

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Keep Thinking,

Steve.

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Marshall McLuhan famously coined the phrase “the medium is the message” in his 1964 book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. What this means is that the message morphs to suit the medium – creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium doesn’t just distribute the message – it shapes it.

First the internet, then social media and now AI are creating a rapid change to how and what we communicate. In doing so, it is changing the world, radically.

Media technologies like AI extend human senses and alter our relationship with the world, affecting cognition and social organisation, and the economy more broadly.

A new AI Zeitgeist is emerging – Below I’ve summarised a few ideas I’m talking to client about which are now shaping the world. I’m not suggesting I like some of these realities, but here we are.

Feel free to add yours to the comments below.

Reality Distortion

Welcome to the age of Reality Distortion. We consume snippets of people’s lives on Instagram, just a few curated minutes from their 24-hour day, and mistake it for their entire existence. Our feeds, brimming with exotic vacations and sports cars, make our daily grind seem dull. The truth gets twisted.

Enhanced by filters, these snapshots look better than reality, while images of war injuries and LinkedIn promotions add to the chaos. We scroll through these highlight and lowlight reels, confusing them with the real world. They warp our perceptions, distorting our reality.

Now, toss AI into the mix. We’re stepping into a realm where we can’t trust any picture, video, or audio. Did it really happen? We can’t be sure. If you think social media has messed with our reality, get ready. AI is about to crank it up to overdrive.

Trading Attention

The most valuable resource in the modern economy is ‘Attention’ itself.

The most valuable firms (Big Tech) are predicated on garnering more of people’s time – which is now a more limited resource than content is. The world’s 20 biggest tech companies are worth over $20 trillion in total. To put this in perspective, this is nearly 18% of the stock market value globally. They all essentially sell the most scarce resource there is – time. Add to this that every person is now the CEO of their own personal media corporation, and generating cut-through & attention has to be at the top of the list for any company searching for growth.

Hook-onomics

The ultimate challenge is stopping the scroll.

The average TikTok and YouTube short video now gets just 1.5 seconds of view time, down from 6 seconds two years ago. It sounds counter-intuitive, but grabbing attention trumps the message initially. The game plan? Hook first, message later. Once engagement is secured, you can reverse in your message and credentials.

The relentless flood of content has forever altered the playing field. In this landscape, mastering the art of the hook isn’t just strategy—it’s survival.

Rapid Obsolescence

Creative executions in the market are becoming obsolete faster than ever.

Australians now spend an average of 5.5 hours a day glued to their smartphones. Ideas, memes, and trends flash in and out of existence in the blink of an eye. The smartest strategy? Jump on trends early, review weekly, and ditch what’s not working—sunk costs be damned. It’s about adopting low-cost, high-volume tactics to keep pace with the relentless churn.

In this hyper-fast environment, longitudinal assessment of ideas means it’ll be over before you get to market… we have little choice but to act.

Back Channel Reality

Extreme views breed fear, silencing genuine thoughts. Social media divides us into rival factions, turning any divergent idea into a battleground. A simple proposal, or worse, a mistake, sparks a relentless social media pile-on.

We don’t just filter our images; we filter our thoughts to appease algorithms and avoid ‘being canceled’, maybe a job loss. Our true opinions retreat to back channels—direct messages and whispered conversations over coffee. Social media, once empowering, now traps us into either ‘protection or promotion mode’ with every post.

Public discourse is stifled, and authenticity is a rare commodity. The real dialogue happens in the shadows, far from the curated feeds and echo chambers.

Dichotomy Economy

We are seeing a split into a 2-speed economy. We’re all residents of the newly formed global country I call ‘Extremistan’. The things that work best are on opposite ends of the extreme – premium price or super cheap… Full service (Apple) and no service (Amazon). In politics, it’s the extreme left or extreme right getting all the attention.

We can even see this socio-politically. Sadly, the middle class is being eroded as we see the rich increase their share of wealth. The top 0.1% of Americans now own 14% of all wealth, while the majority of people struggle with the cost of housing and living generally. This means that the best response from corporations is to have product and service offers which pays homage to this economic reality – stay on the edges. Don’t get lost in the middle ground – which is where ideas brands and go to die.

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Got an event coming up? Get me into to discuss what’s next with AI. I’ll blow your collective minds … I promise. Message Steve Sammartino

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Cult of the CEO

People are buying into the corporate storybook more than at any time in history. The irrational share prices of Tesla and Nvidia are classic examples of the power of the narrative. People are gravitating to companies (and people inside them) which tell a story of a better future… and seem to be leaning into what is next.

Often these stories are not backed up by reality or delivering against that promise, and yet the cycle continues. Musk promised to be on Mars by 2022 and have over 1 million robo-taxis on the road by 2019. Seems our memories are starting to match the short form media environment.

Recently Jensen Huang has said we’ll have humanoid robots in our houses doing the dishes by the end of this decade. We’ll see.

Pragmatism > Purity

To utilize modern marketing methods, brands and companies need to choose pragmatism over purity. This might involve straddling a balance between traditional corporate positioning and something outside of how you’d usually communicate.

It might seem like pandering to the market in the hunt for attention, and it is. It will feel risky. However, we ought to remember that most customers won’t remember how they found you once they understand your capability and expertise.

We ought to choose practicality over purity.

Where to now?

While we don’t get to chose the world we live in, but we get to choose how we respond. We can embrace these new realities for economic advantage, or we can fight to change and shape it. The best course of action is most often following what you believe in. This might mean economics matter more than liking the game you’re playing, and to others it might mean fighting to fix all that is wrong. Choose wisely.

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Keep Thinking,

Steve.

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Let’s be honest: Amazon Prime isn’t exactly known for must-watch movies or binge-worthy series when it comes to original content. Sure, I can name a few: Upload was amazing, and Fleabag was great too. But Netflix is the streaming service we all have. It’s a pretty easy decision to make, with access to over 20,000 titles at the small cost of somewhere between $15-20 a month in most markets. To continue its growth trajectory and market penetration, Netflix has added a cheaper, ad-supported version (about half the price).

And this is where Amazon Prime will pounce.

Every tech company worth its salt is developing its own Generative AI tools. Microsoft has ChatGPT, Google has Gemini, Meta has Meta AI, Apple has Apple Intelligence, and Amazon has Claude via a multi-billion dollar investment in Anthropic. Netflix, however, has little other than its recommendation engine. And while that’s good, it won’t be enough to win the streaming wars.

When it comes to streaming, image recognition AI will be the killer app.

Image Recognition Commerce

AI Image Recognition Commerce (IRC) will be the next big iteration in retail.

Here’s how it is going to go: Within the next year or so, you’re going to watch a show on Amazon Prime. Let’s say they do Geek Girl instead of Netflix. Teenagers will literally be watching Geek Girl and be able to pause at any point during the show. They’ll be able to click on any part of the screen—what a character is wearing, a gadget, a beauty product, anything—and buy that thing, with one click, on Amazon. It’ll be a frictionless transaction.

AI image recognition is now so good, Amazon will simply run their model through every show they have available on Prime. It’ll be able to map every product, brand, and detail on what is in that program or movie, and match it to their warehouse and logistics system. This will start an entirely new retail typology. Some of you may even remember this as an early internet promise. Well, that time has finally arrived.

With new movies and series, this would be purposely built into the production and costing model. Forget product placement; this will be Vision Commerce.

Amazon is the only tech company that can do this. Even if the others like Disney+, Apple+, and even Netflix all have image recognition, none of them have the logistic back end to execute this idea.

Remember they know who’s watching (the TV, tablet, and smartphone watches you too), they have your credit card on file, your address, they know your size—everything.

This capability will induce Hollywood and TV production companies to choose Amazon over Netflix and others as their preferred streaming launch platform. Why? Because Amazon can say: “Oh, by the way, you can make a 30% commission on everything people buy while watching your show.”

It will be more profitable to work with Amazon—other streamers will need to pay more for content, and yet deliver less financial reward back to content providers.

Here’s my prediction: a few years from now, we’ll be talking about Prime the way we talk about Netflix today.

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Keep Thinking,

Steve.

Sorry humans – Turns out A.I. is creative too!

Artificial Creativity

Within the decade, ‘someone’ will create an album entirely with AI which will be a global super hit. And I’m talking about multiple songs, all of which will be among the most downloaded on Spotify for months. The album will have incredible music videos the likes of which no one has ever seen creatively. And this album will create a media sensation where pundits explore this new reality with amazement. Though, this shouldn’t surprise anyone, given we’ve already had a super hit which was an AI Fake Drake just over a year ago.

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But when this happens, it’ll be just like the moment ChatGPT-3 exploded, and every news reporter across the globe got it to write the intro for the story on ChatGPT itself

The pieces of the AI music puzzle are already here for the non-musically inclined. We can get ChatGPT to write lyrics in any style and prompt it with topics and keywords to include in them. We can get DALL-E to create album covers and titles. We can get Sora to create videos via prompt, and we can get Udio to put any type of music underneath the lyrics that have been created.

I recently did a little experiment to create a song using the exact tools above… Key life hack… Practice what you preach, experiment with the tools.

I was pretty buzzed when I first saw Udio, the AI song-making tool. And this time I thought, I’m actually going to do that just for fun, for me. But as you are well aware, it’s like there are thousands of new AI tools every other day, and I thought it’d probably be another one of those ideas that never actually happen. Which then inspired me to take the idea of ideas that never happen and actually do it. So I created a fake band, a fake album name, and created a song.

Band Name: Trading Electrons
Album Name: Files of Ideas That Will Never Happen
Debut Single: Electrons in the Void

For the first song, I got ChatGPT to write some lyrics. I gave it the following prompt:

“Create lyrics for a song. The song will be in the form of Industrial Cyber-punk (I chose that because I think it suits the technology) – something like Nine Inch Nails. Make the lyrics about all the ideas we have but never get around to doing. Make it feel like a modern tech version of an anti-corporate protest song. Make it clear in the lyrics that despite all the tools at our disposal and the digital deluge of possibilities, it isn’t worth pursuing, it’s all a hoax and just to embrace nothingness. We are still part of a machine – we are just atoms. We have no control. Make it less than 100 words.”

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Ideas float, like cyber smog, None will happen, life’s a cog

Stop the dreaming, it’s all a scam, Fade to black, slam the sham

This song’s a glitch, a digital ghost, Another boast, another toast

Belongs in chats, not in code, Evaporates, crashes the node

Makers grind, they’re the machine, Don’t be that drone, stay unseen

Overpromise, never deliver, Just molecules, data slivers

We’re electrons in the void, It’s not our fault, we’re just annoyed

Life’s a glitch, dreams corrupt, Let it crash, don’t disrupt

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To be honest, I really dig the lyrics.

I was a bit stunned actually. Then I took these into Udio and got it to create the music. I asked it to make the singer’s voice a little like Trent Reznor – and to feel like it could be for a soundtrack of a cyberpunk sci-fi movie.

The musical style prompts were as follows: cyberpunk, industrial – other influences can include; Rock, Industrial & noise, Post-industrial, Industrial rock, Industrial metal, Industrial, Metal, Post-punk. Make it fast-paced with electric guitar sounds as though they are running through computers.

You can listen to it here:

I also created an Album Cover using Dalle for my fake AI Band using this prompt:

“You are an album music artist and this is your brief create your album cover for this: brand name ‘Trading electrons’ Album name: files of ideas that will never happen”

This is what I got.

I even asked LumaLabs to create a 5 second visual for the song with the prompt: Ideas float like cyber smog – Below.

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This is some feedback I got from a client on my  my Keynote on AI  – 

“It was best keynote I have seen in 20 years – it was that insightful.”

It’s a revolution – Get me in – Don’t miss out!  

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Business Implications

Writing (literally) this music was free and simple. These tools aren’t going to get a little better, they are going to be better than you can possibly imagine, fast. Maybe I should start creating the entire album?

Of course, this leads to many questions:

• Is this my song?
• Did I write it?
• Who owns it?
• Can I make money from it?
• Will others get similar songs from similar prompts?
• What does this mean for music and the industry?
• Will we create our own music or will AI just create what we like for us?

I feel like there are a thousand more questions like this, and I can’t see us having the answers any time soon.

Many people said that when AI arrives, humans will do the creative stuff.

Here’s a revised thought: AI will be able to do everything we can do.

But maybe we’ll value human creativity more, not because it’s better, but because a human did it.

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Keep Thinking,

Steve.

Historically, we have watched advertisements, with AI, they now watch us.

Attention Merchants

The attention merchants of the modern economy – Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Alphabet (Google), Microsoft (LinkedIn), Bytedance (TikTok), Apple, and Amazon have built a corporate economy worth over US$11 trillion dollars. This is just under 50% of US GDP.

Globally, people average 6 hours and 58 minutes of screen time per day. Which is over 52 days per year. If you lived to 80, that would be about 9 years of your life staring at a screen. Crazy, huh?

Sure, lots of this time is productive work, being informed, and being entertained. But the reason they want us there on the little screen is mostly to serve us advertising. All this time to entice us to buy things we don’t need, to impress people we don’t know.

If you think advertising has infiltrated the modern mind – then buckle up for things to go next level when we add AI to the equation.

Watched by Loving Machines

What comes will be hyper-personalized – Some will call it utilitarian, others invasive.

Advertising in an AI world won’t just serve up a message to the right target market – it will become one size fits one. The primary weapon in its arsenal will be ‘observing their audience’. But I’m not just talking about decoding the target audience’s age, location, and income, or even tracking their browsing – I’m talking about literally watching them. The key focus will be ‘Emotional Detection’. Read here an ability to commercially leverage our core momentary vulnerabilities. Real-time sentiment targeting.

Our screens will know if you’re sad, happy, angry, disgusted, ashamed, guilty, embarrassed, excited, anxious, jealous, lonely, bored, frustrated, elated, or content… you name it.

It’ll know all of this via multi-modal methods. Not just by what we type and swipe, where we go, what we do, and what we buy…. but also through hearing our tone of voice as we speak to the AI’s, watching micro-gestures in our facial expressions. Every human moment will be on record and analyzed by the world’s best psychoanalyst.

For You Page 2.0

In the future, advertising will often feature you. You’ve had a tough week, you’re feeling sad, the AI observes your emotional state and serves you up an advert of yourself, in a future state of happiness. Which of course will be a consequence of buying whatever it is they happen to be selling. For me, it might be a long-overdue surf trip in some tropical location!

Maybe you’ve been feeling lonely and the AI serves up a message from Kim Kardashian speaking to you by name, with knowledge of what you’re going through. She has a really personal chat with you – an actual live interaction in her exact voice which is like she’s a long-lost friend. After you chat for a few minutes, she invites you to a personalized shopping spree with her. She then literally joins you in a virtual world to spend money on clothing which will feel so real, that you won’t be able to tell the difference, and neither will your dopamine detector.

If you thought the age of the influencer was coming to an end, we are in reality just getting started.

And if you think this won’t happen, that it’s all too much of an intrusion, then just remember what freedoms and privacy we already gave up in the digital era.

With the offer of all-knowing AI at our disposal, to do any task for us, for free… Then a price will be paid, and I can’t help but think it will be like what’s happened in the last two decades…

It’ll just run deeper into our souls.

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Keep Thinking,

Steve

Kids imaginary friends are now all too real…

We build what we imagine

In technology, we build what we imagine: the horseless carriage, fixed-wing aircraft, humanoid robots… and kids often have imaginary friends. But now, they don’t have to just live inside one’s head; we can make them real.

I was recently listening to one of my favourite podcasts with Kevin Roose, who built an entire cohort of imaginary AI friends. He creates a bunch of different personalities, gives them names, backstories, jobs, and makes up ‘how they met.’ He even introduces these AI friends to each other to form an imaginary friend group.

Anyone can do this on Kindroid – which is a generative Personal AI that allows anyone to build an aligned companion. Let’s call them your AI friends with lifelike memory, intelligence, appearances, voices, and personalities. Give it a try; it really is lifelike.

Societal Impact

Beyond the tech, I’m interested in what this means for society. There are a tremendous amount of potential upsides with technology like this. It could assist young people suffering from loneliness and provide much-needed connection for our older cohort who live by themselves.

They could also be incredibly useful for things like mock job interviews, negotiation practice, or even teaching teenage boys how to act appropriately in simulated dating scenarios.

Imaginary Downsides?

Of course, you’ve already thought of the downsides of AI friends. Given that the end-user designs the AI friend, there is really no limit to the negative wormholes people might go down. Just imagine the worst behaviour we’ve seen on social media and multiply that by 100. It might further isolate the lonely. I’m also not sure that people interacting in a fake environment will be a net good for our discourse in the real world. Would you ever talk to an AI? Email me and let me know!

One thing I know for sure is that this will become commonplace, and we are about to enter a brave new world.

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Keep Thinking,

Steve.

PS – You can listen to me every other week on the Futuristic Podcast.

It’s easier than you think…

I’ll start with the good news.

You’re already one.

I am not mincing my words here: expertise is available to anyone who invests the time and experiments with the tools. As I have written, LLMs and generative AI are as easy to use as speaking or typing. However, the real hack isn’t about learning the vagaries of AI, but about learning how to apply your skills to it. To add what you know, think, and imagine to the AI tech stack. This is where the value will be created, and it is available to everyone right now.

The AI experts that win will be those who utilise it in their industry realm in a way other people are not. And they will be rewarded economically for doing so.

Unlock the Brain Power

We’ve just been given the world’s most powerful brain, but most people are being a tad lazy, using it as a grey matter outsourcing tool. Replacing our cognitive effort with its effort. Doing what we did yesterday, with a little more efficiency and polish.

We can do better.Technology History Repeats

We see the same patterns in tech over again. The overriding theme is this:

Early adopters always win.

They invent new opportunities to grow their business and go on new career trajectories.

We saw this with social media. When it arrived we all become the CEO of our personal media corporation. Some jumped at it, and some resisted. And guess what, those who resisted, eventually, reluctantly, came on board anyway. The jumpers won.

And yes, it was confronting to share your ideas on such a public stage. To learn and fail live in front of an audience. But it was worth it for those that did. The most successful utilisations of social media were where people added their insight and ideas to the new forums.

That moment is here again with AI.

*Get me to speak at your company & we’ll literally build an AI for your firm live… it’s crazy – email me for more info…

Don’t Wait

The final layer of technological abstraction is being removed. This is the era of natural language processing – where we literally talk to and train AI systems.

We all have an opportunity for radical reinvention of ourselves and our businesses.

But I already know what will happen. The same thing that happened last time….. Most people will just do what they did yesterday, and rue the fact they didn’t get on the wagon earlier.

I’m hoping my readers will instead be those that do.

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Keep Thinking,

Steve.