May 1, 2025

By Jamie Towey

This past week witnessed a technological marvel that, if you blinked, you may have missed. On April 27, a man named Brad Smith posted a nine-minute video to X and YouTube where he (or rather, an AI recreation of his voice) describes how a Neuralink brain implant has transformed his life. You see, Brad has ALS. The loving husband and father of three can’t use his hands, feet, or much of anything, really; he can’t even speak. But his mind works – perhaps the most painful aspect of this disease.

The Neuralink implant and its associated software now allow him to type and use a computer to communicate with others – all by thinking. Delicate whisps of gold-coated polyimide thread surgically embedded into Brad’s brain tissue measure his brain’s electronic activity which, with some honing on Brad’s part, manipulate his MacBook’s cursor. For the first time in years, he can emotionally engage with his wife and children beyond smiling and blinking.

Watch the video. It’s poignant and inspiring.

What’s wrong with all this?

I have lost a much-loved relative to ALS and have seen friends and family members succumb to other vicious diseases. I’m all for cures and therapies.

So why can’t I join the chorus in a full-throated call to go full-steam ahead?

“The purpose of Neuralink [is] to be symbiotic with AI.” – Elon Musk, founder of Neuralink

“The Singularity will allow us to transcend these limitations of our biological bodies and brains. We will gain power over our fates. Our mortality will be in our own hands. We will be able to live as long as we want.” – Ray Kurzweil, inventor, futurist, Google executive

“We believe Artificial Intelligence is our alchemy, our Philosopher’s Stone – we are literally making sand think.” – Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist, billionaire

“Intelligence, magic intelligence in the sky. I think that’s what we’re about.” – Sam Altman, CEO, Open AI

“Don’t die.” – Bryan Johnson, entrepreneur and CEO, Blueprint

That… them. That’s why. Set aside the fact that Musk, Kurzweil, Andreessen, Altman, Johnson, and so many other leading figures of the transhumanist movement have massive financial stakes in manifesting their predictions into reality; these are profound challenges to the dignity of the human person. Despite what these men say, we aren’t embodied minds – we’re much more than that.

The importance of intent

When I see Brad Smith’s story, I wrestle with the clear, obvious good that Brad and his family have experienced, and the broader goals espoused by Neuralink and all its competitors, to merge and even replace humans with machines (their words, not mine). I refuse to cede the rhetorical ground to utilitarian thinkers like Kurzweil by settling for reductive debates about whether the good outweighs the bad – it’s more principled than that. Does intent matter?

One April, long ago, (512 years, to be exact), Ponce de Leon landed in Florida in search of the Fountain of Youth, a mythological spring that grants eternal life to whoever drinks or bathes in it. Whether de Leon truly sought this spring is increasingly doubted; but the image of the Fountain of Youth has captivated Western culture since. Of course, it simply is a continuation of humanity raging against death, raging against mortality and the dying light. From the story of the tower of Babel where we sought to “make a name for ourselves” by building into the heavens, to Silicon Valley’s lockstep pledge to upload our consciousness to the cloud (whatever that means), humans have consistently searched for ways to overcome mortality.

And this impulse frequently brings about good. The story of modern medicine is one of finding solutions to humanity’s endemic problems. Infections begat penicillin; diseases begat vaccines; cancer begat chemotherapy; and so on. Are these AI machinations simply a continuation of these advances and an “upward spiral” of growth and abundance like Marc Andreessen boldly proclaims? Or, like so many utopias, is this destined to end in strife?

I don’t know. I am still grappling with these questions.

Achieving immortality

But one thing is for sure. Neuralink was not conceived of by scientists in a lab looking to alleviate human suffering. It was conceived of by a man who wants to redefine what it means to be human. The goal is not to cure ALS, it’s to achieve immortality. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Either Brad Smith and the two other Neuralink clinical trial patients are the faces of modern medicine and wild success stories for Big Tech’s foray into medicine, or they’re great marketing material – steppingstones for the company’s larger ambitions. One or the other, not both – the intent tells you which.

The longer I have spent listening to and interacting with the elderly in my role at Aging with Dignity, the more I side with the sages of the ages: memento mori – remember that you will die. Acknowledging our mortality is perhaps the key to understanding who we are and what our purpose is. Yet the gospel preached by these TESCREALists (uh, don’t ask… that’s what they call themselves) stakes an opposite conclusion: the key to meaning is escaping mortality. As Bryan Johnson was quoted above, “don’t die.”

They want to become one with the cloud. I think their heads are in the clouds.

Instead, let’s look to Brad Smith for inspiration. He concludes his video by stating that ALS has not diminished him; in fact, it’s made him a better husband, father, and follower of God. “ALS really sucks… but the big picture is that I am happy… Life is good.” That’s a man we can learn from.

(The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Aging with Dignity and/or its Board of Directors.)