Alexey Turchin proposed limiting AI while preserving its ability to help fight aging
Alexey Turchin proposed limiting AI while preserving its ability to help fight aging
On July 30, Alexey Turchin responded to an essay by Émile P. Torres about the future of biological humans. He proposes setting limits on AI capabilities that would allow the technology to help fight aging while keeping it under human control. Turchin identified an intelligence level of about IQ 200 as his personal benchmark. In his view, a level of 300 would accelerate the development of nanotechnology.
Discussions of AI safety usually focus on the upper limit, meaning which capabilities would be too dangerous to give a machine. In his response to Torres, Turchin proposes adding a lower limit: which capabilities must be preserved to search for ways to stop aging. He regards death as the main enemy. AI and nanotechnology would make it possible to work with matter at the molecular level and search for ways to prevent death.
Turchin does not propose removing restrictions. He proposes drawing the boundary so that AI remains powerful enough for aging research while staying limited enough for humans to control it. Eliezer Yudkowsky faced a similar choice: he was willing to accept enormous spending on risky life extension research, but not a risky AGI as the tool for conducting it. Turchin sets a different threshold for acceptable risk.
Turchin’s earlier article on “biouploading” explains why he links this threshold specifically to nanotechnology. In this hypothetical system, living neurons remain the substrate of consciousness, while a digital network transmits signals between them. The author assumes that such a system would require advanced nanotechnology. For Turchin, nanotechnology is part of a project to preserve a person in a biological body.
In “A Pro-Human Manifesto”, Torres argues for preserving Homo sapiens and warns that posthuman intelligence could displace humans. Turchin responds with his own preservation project: develop technologies that extend human life within biological bodies, while keeping machines within a controllable range.
His figure of IQ 200 is a personal benchmark for this boundary. He associates a possible level of 300 with faster progress in nanotechnology. Turchin’s argument about AI limits therefore comes down to a specific choice: which areas of research humanity is willing to preserve in its effort to fight death.