My plan to live forever was pretty simple. I sat for a painting of myself and then set off on a life of hedonism. It looks like I was not the only guy working on this. Google is pouring money in the quest to defeat death.

Here’s where you really figure out who Bill Maris is: on his bookshelf. There’s a fat text called Molecular Biotechnology: Principles and Applications of Recombinant DNA. There’s a well-read copy of Biotechnology: Applying the Genetic Revolution. And a collection of illustrations by Fritz Kahn, a German physician who was among the first to depict the human body as a machine. Wedged among these is a book that particularly stands out to anyone interested in living to 500. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, published in 2005, is the seminal work by futurist Ray Kurzweil. He famously predicted that in 2045, humankind will have its Terminator moment: The rise of computers will outpace our ability to control them. To keep up, we will radically transform our biology via nanobots and other machines that will enhance our anatomy and our DNA, changing everything about how we live and die.

“It will liberate us from our own limitations,” says Maris, who studied neuroscience at Middlebury College and once worked in a biomedical lab at Duke University. Kurzweil is a friend. Google hired him to help Maris and other Googlers understand a world in which machines surpass human biology. This might be a terrifying, dystopian future to some. To Maris, it’s business.

This is where he hopes to find, and fund, the next generation of companies that will change the world, or possibly save it. “We actually have the tools in the life sciences to achieve anything that you have the audacity to envision,” he says. “I just hope to live long enough not to die.”

Unsurprisingly, I’m skeptical. Since the great leap forward in medicine and diet, particularly for the treatment of infections, life expectancy has crept up slowly. In 1930, the typical white male lived to 62. Today the typical white male lives to 79. That’s a nice increase, but it has been a slow steady increase. It suggest the big increases in health and longevity have been realized.

That’s not to say there’s not some great leaps coming soon. Genetics offers up some opportunities to understand aging. There may be some ways to slow the process and extend lifespan. Cancer treatments, oddly enough, are adding greatly to our understanding of how cells age and die. Some cancer drugs are slowing aging in mice so there may be some quality of life things coming shortly.

Of course, this is being driven by the Boomer generation. Twenty years ago the rush was on to fix baldness and limp noodles. Now the rush is on to fix decrepitude. It’s not just Google pouring money into it. All of the big pharma companies are rushing to find the next big drug and that drug will be to ameliorate the effects of aging. If you were thinking the boomers were about to start dying off, you may be disappointed.

I’m not sure how I feel about living to 500. Men in my family live into their 90’s and in good shape until the end. I don’t recall any of them wishing they had more time, but I have no way of knowing what they thought in their last blinks. I suspect they missed their friends who had all gone before them.

That’s a big part of it. If I was going to live to 500, I don’t want to be the only 500 year old. That could have some advantages, but it would also be lonely. I find talking to someone half my age a chore and that’s decades. Imagine have a few centuries of experience on everyone else. I’d probably be the world’s biggest asshole.