Martine Rothblatt: Growing Unlimited Organs, AI Consciousness, & Digital Personhood by 2030

Peter Diamandis (0:00)

When do you think we might reach longevity escape philosophy?

Martine Rothblatt (0:03)

You know, it's a tough question.

Peter Diamandis (0:06)

You're currently focused on rejuvenating heart, liver, lung, kidney, fundamental organs that we need. But when you said the thymus, celebration went off.

Martine Rothblatt (0:14)

The thymus is highly correlated with every key marker of aging.

Peter Diamandis (0:20)

When do you imagine this will be something that you and I can receive?

Martine Rothblatt (0:25)

Next decade.

Peter Diamandis (0:26)

Long before everybody was talking about this, you were out there writing about digital consciousness. Are we there yet for AI?

Martine Rothblatt (0:33)

I believe we're there now and I believe the current models will take us there. The future is just so amazing that we are lucky enough to be born at this moment of time, right when everything is like bursting into a big bang of consciousness.

Peter Diamandis (0:46)

These are all epic journeys. They're all impossible till you make them possible. How do you decide you're going to dive into one of these areas?

Martine Rothblatt (0:54)

So, is that a technology that can be scaled to billions of people? And if it can, then you're going to change the world.

SPEAKER_3 (1:03)

Now, that's a moonshot, ladies and gentlemen. This episode is brought to you by the Abundance Summit and Link Ventures.

Peter Diamandis (1:13)

Martine, we've known each other now, I think, 45 years.

Martine Rothblatt (1:16)

Okay.

Peter Diamandis (1:17)

I'll take your word for it. Which is pretty, from the early 80s.

The early 80s, we were together at Jerry O'Neill Space Studies Institute, Yes, we were. way before anybody was talking about mining the moon or mass drivers. Jerry was, and we were there.

Martine Rothblatt (1:33)

And now it's mainstream.

Peter Diamandis (1:35)

Now it's happening, real time. When Ray first reconnected us, because we were out of touch for a while, I remember you asked me one question at the very beginning. I don't know if you remember what it was. You said, Peter, who is the greatest entrepreneur alive today?

Martine Rothblatt (1:54)

And you probably said Elon Musk.

Peter Diamandis (1:55)

I did. And you said, yes, that's the right answer.

Martine Rothblatt (1:58)

Yes, that is the right answer. And it's still the right answer all these years later.

Peter Diamandis (2:03)

It is. What he's done is extraordinary.

And I honestly, for our viewers to understand, I don't know anybody else who comes close to rivaling the number of moonshots that Elon's done other than yourself.

Martine Rothblatt (2:18)

Well, I'm a distant second, but it's an honor for you to say that, Peter. I really appreciate that with everybody you know. So it's an honor to be a distant second.

Peter Diamandis (2:29)

Yeah, well.

Martine Rothblatt (2:31)

That's a distant second to like godness. So how can you complain about that?

Peter Diamandis (2:36)

We talk a lot about moonshots on this podcast.

And I want to take a second. I've counted at least 12 that you've been on. There's probably more secretly that I don't know about. But let me take a second and just cover a couple of them. And then we're going to dive into them. Because I think it's important for folks to know the scope of not only your ambitions, but your accomplishments. So early on, helping build or found a number of successful satellite companies, Pan AmSat, Geostar, WorldSpace, Sirius Satellite Radio, now SiriusXM.

On that own, that would be an extraordinary accomplishment. Going from there to turning pulmonary arterial hypertension, PAH, from a death sentence to a manageable disease, and saving your daughter's life in the process, and building now a $28 billion biotech company in the process, extraordinary, and congrats on how United Therapeutics has done. It's been an epic journey.

Martine Rothblatt (3:45)

I appreciate it.

Peter Diamandis (3:47)

Building human organs, basically eliminating the shortage of transplantable organs, and not only just building human organs, but building them, taking multiple different strategies to creating an abundant supply of organs.

And we'll dive into that. Heart, liver, lung, kidneys, thymus. Super excited about the thymus.

Martine Rothblatt (4:13)

We'll talk about that.

Peter Diamandis (4:17)

Building electric helicopters and eVTOLs with beta. Yes. Just carbon-free, energy-efficient transport for the world.

You've worked on defining and supporting digital personhood and AI rights, which is an amazing statement on its own. We'll get into that.

And then working on championing radical life extension. Again, something that we both are passionate and share about. So a few questions on those moonshots. How do you decide what to spend your time on? I mean, these are all epic journeys. They're all impossible till you make them possible. How do you decide you're going to dive into one of these areas?