What is Share of Life and why is it changing how we measure brands?
I was asked that in an interview. My subconscious reaction was to answer no. The interviewer gave me reasons to look at it from another angle. I answered yes, then. Then I hesitated again, and I was left wondering, “I don’t know.”
The question seems scientific, but it’s actually philosophical, psychological, and anthropologically human. This type of question triggers a flurry of many others.
Ever since we became aware of our own mortality, we have tried to prolong life, delay aging, and find some way to conquer time. We have sought answers in religion, philosophy, medicine, science, technology, and now, in artificial intelligence.
But science forces us to begin with a rather basic truth. We don’t know how to live forever . And there’s no evidence that human immortality is near. What we are beginning to understand, however, is that aging is not a completely fixed destiny. It’s a complex biological process that, at least in part, can be modified.
The oldest fantasy
Immortality is not a contemporary obsession.
The ancients sought fountains of youth, elixirs, and ageless gods. Emperors longed to prolong their lives. Explorers searched for places where time seemed to stand still. Artists tried to survive through their art.
Today we have replaced the elixir with biotechnology, the myth with clinical trials, and the religious promise with technological possibility.
The question, with some nuances, remains the same: Can we conquer death?
But perhaps we’re framing the problem incorrectly. It’s not just about living longer. It’s about knowing what it means to live better, for how long, and for what purpose.
Living longer is not the same as living better
Humanity has made extraordinary progress. Life expectancy has increased thanks to hygiene, vaccines, nutrition, medicine, and the reduction of infant mortality.
But extending average lifespan is one thing, and radically expanding the maximum limit of human life is another.
Jeanne Calment, who died at 122 in 1997, remains the oldest documented person. The fact that no one has surpassed that record since suggests that there may be a biological limit that is difficult to cross.
Science can help more people live to old age. That doesn’t necessarily mean it can turn the human body into an indefinitely renewable machine.
Longevity is not a linear race. It is a constant negotiation between repair and damage, regeneration and wear, adaptation and loss.
The body as a system
For a long time we imagined aging as a form of oxidation; the body wears down and, over the years, stops working.
Today we know that the process is more complex. Aging involves multiple interconnected changes:
- Cumulative DNA damage.
- Mitochondrial deterioration.
- Loss of protein quality.
- Chronic inflammation.
- Reduction of stem cells.
- Metabolic disorders.
- Epigenetic changes.
- Accumulation of senescent cells.
- Reduced tissue repair capacity.
The problem isn’t that there’s a single defective part. The problem is that the entire system changes at the same time.
We can repair one component and alter another. We can eliminate damaged cells and disrupt processes necessary for healing. We can reprogram a cell and risk it losing its identity or developing into a tumor.
Biology doesn’t work like an app that we update with a click.
The promise of reprogramming
One of the most fascinating lines of research is cell reprogramming. Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese medical researcher who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2012, along with John Gurdon, “for the discovery that adult cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.”
The discovery of Yamanaka factors showed that certain adult cells can be returned to a pluripotent-like state. The great hope is that partial and controlled reprogramming can rejuvenate tissues without erasing their original function.
Improvements have been observed in some tissues and biological markers of age in animals. Applications for regenerating the optic nerve and treating degenerative diseases are also being investigated.
But every profound promise carries a profound risk. Excessive reprogramming can lead to:
- Loss of cellular identity.
- Tissue disorganization.
- Tumor growth.
- Different effects between organs.
- Results that are difficult to control.
Biology doesn’t just ask if something can be done. It asks what consequences appear afterward, in which cells, for how long, and with what side effects.
The boundary of the cells
Recent research has explored a disturbing possibility: even if we could correct many aging processes, the mutations that accumulate in cells could set a fundamental limit.
Some mathematical models place potential human lifespan, under very favorable scenarios, in a range of approximately 146 to 194 years. The result does not prove that these ages are attainable or that an exact barrier exists, but it does suggest that repairing one process is not enough to eliminate all the others.
Tissues that do not renew themselves easily, such as some brain and heart cells, could become biological bottlenecks.
The idea is important because it dismantles a common fantasy: that finding a single cure for aging is enough.
Perhaps there is no master key. Perhaps the human body is such an interdependent system that every victory opens a new front.
More health, not eternity
Serious research on longevity is not solely focused on achieving very long lives. It seeks to increase years of independence, mental clarity, and well-being.
It is the difference between lifespan and healthspan.
- Lifespan: total lifespan.
- Healthspan: length of life lived in good health.
The difference between the two can be decisive. We don’t simply want to add years of dependency, pain, and decline. We want to delay the onset of disease and shorten the period of frailty at the end of life.
This idea changes the conversation. The question is no longer “how do we live 200 years?” but becomes:
How can we help more people reach old age while maintaining their autonomy, curiosity, and ability to participate in the world?
That goal is less spectacular than immortality. It is also much more urgent.
The mirage of quick fixes
Contemporary culture tends to turn any scientific advance into a market promise.
Supplements, experimental therapies, private clinics, and programs promising to rejuvenate the body appear before the evidence has caught up with the advertising.
But the most solid results remain less striking:
- Regular physical activity.
- I get enough sleep.
- Balanced diet.
- No smoking.
- Caloric moderation.
- Social relationships.
- Prevention and medical follow-up.
- Life purpose.
Science doesn’t usually make headlines when it confirms something we already know. However, just because a recommendation is well-known doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant.
Longevity will likely not be the result of a single miracle pill. It will be the combination of prevention, healthy habits, precision medicine, cellular regeneration, and treatments capable of correcting specific damage.
Artificial intelligence enters the quest for longevity
Artificial intelligence can accelerate this research in several ways:
- Analyzing huge volumes of biological data.
- Identifying patterns in age-related diseases.
- Designing candidate molecules.
- Simulating interactions between genes and proteins.
- Personalizing treatments.
- Detecting early signs of deterioration.
- Helping to design clinical trials.
But AI doesn’t eliminate the complexity of biology. It can find correlations that humans don’t see. It can’t automatically turn a correlation into a safe therapy.
Here a parallel emerges with current debates on artificial intelligence:
The speed of discovery is not the same as the speed of understanding.
A model can propose thousands of molecules. The human body will still need time to demonstrate what happens when those molecules enter a real organism.
Computational acceleration cannot replace clinical prudence.
The paradox of immortality
Even if we managed to stop aging, we would not have achieved immortality.
They would still exist:
- Accidents.
- Infectious diseases.
- Natural disasters.
- Wars.
- Violence.
- Human errors.
- Technological failures.
- Environmental changes.
Absolute immortality is more of a mathematical than a medical concept. To live eternally, it wouldn’t be enough to simply not age. One would have to avoid all other forms of death for an infinite amount of time.
That is why it is more accurate to speak of extreme longevity , prolonged survival, or partial rejuvenation.
Words matter. Calling a therapy that adds ten healthy years “immortality” creates unrealistic expectations and conflates a medical improvement with a metaphysical victory.
Who will be able to live longer?
Every advance in longevity also raises a political question.
If therapies capable of delaying aging are expensive, life will become a new form of inequality.
The gap won’t just be between those with more money and those with less. It could become a time gap:
- Some people will live longer in good health.
- Others will retain their current life expectancy.
- A small group will be able to access experimental therapies sooner.
- Pension and employment systems will face unprecedented pressures.
- The distribution of wealth could become even more concentrated.
Longevity is not just a matter of laboratory research. It is a matter of justice.
If we manage to extend life, we will have to decide who can access it, who pays, how it is regulated, and what effects it has on future generations.
A long-lived society will have to rethink:
- Retirement.
- Education.
- Professional careers.
- The house.
- The care.
- Power transmission.
- The relationship between generations.
Living longer would change much more than medicine.
The value of finitude
Death is not merely a biological boundary. It also structures our perception of time.
We know that time is finite, and that’s why we choose. We prioritize. We love. We create. We put things off and regret not having done them sooner.
Finitude does not make life worthless. In many ways, it makes value possible.
This does not mean romanticizing suffering or accepting preventable diseases. Delaying decline and extending healthy years is a profoundly human aspiration.
But perhaps we should distinguish between:
- To cure a disease.
- Delay aging.
- Rejuvenate a tissue.
- To live two hundred years.
- Never die.
Each of those phrases describes a different project.
The desire to live eternally can be a way of not accepting death. The desire to live better for a longer time is a way of cherishing life.
A new architecture of life
Longevity, like artificial intelligence, will be a technology that will force us to redefine ourselves.
If AI questions what it means to think, longevity questions what it means to live a full life.
If we lived 150 years, would we still organize our existence in the same stages?
- Education up to age 25.
- I work until I’m 65.
- Retirement afterwards.
- A single career path.
- A single life project.
- A single identity.
Probably not.
A longer life would require more flexible lives: multiple professions, multiple periods of learning, new forms of relating, and a less linear understanding of age.
The future of longevity will not depend solely on how much time we can add, but on how we are able to give meaning to that additional time .
The million-dollar question
Can we live forever?
The current scientific answer is cautious: we don’t know how to do it, and there is no therapy that can make a person immortal. The human record remains at 122 years, and the most advanced research still faces enormous hurdles in terms of safety, efficacy, and accessibility.
It would seem that with so many advances, the question of whether we can live forever is no longer at the top of the list, but rather what we want to do with the years we already have.
Science can help us live longer. Medicine can help us live better. Technology can expand our capabilities. But none of these can replace purpose, connection, curiosity, and responsibility.
We don’t need to promise eternity to defend the future.
We need to build a longer life without forgetting that its value is not in lasting indefinitely, but in being truly present while it lasts.
And I still don’t know what to answer.
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