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It looks like Sam Altman is giving Bryan Johnson a run for his money, and while the infamous biohacker is trying to live forever by injecting his son's plasma and taking 'epic' doses of magic mushrooms, Altman is taking a different route.
The OpenAI overlord has recently been in the news due to AI being injected into the U.S. military, which has led many to believe we're one step closer to those fears that artificial intelligence is going to wipe out the human race.
If the worst comes to the worst, that shouldn't matter too much for Sam Altman because he plans to live forever as a machine. Even if we do achieve Johnson's ambitious hopes of cracking immortality by 2039, do you really want to live forever as an ever-sagging bag of meat? Altman might've already cracked that problem in what feels like a more tech-savvy version of those rumors Walt Disney's frozen head is beneath Disneyland.
Doing the rounds again on X, we're reminded that Altman intends to have his brain digitized in a procedure that is also sure to kill him.
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Back in 2018, Altman was among 25 people who paid $10,000 to be put on a waiting list for a startup called Nectome. According to cofounder Robert McIntyre, the idea is that Nectome will preserve our brains in 'microscopic detail' via a high-tech embalming process that uploads your brain into a computer and lets you live forever. For anyone who's played the Fallout games or watched the Amazon series of the same name, just think of Robert House.
At the time, MIT Technology Review explained how a chemical solution can supposedly preserve tissue for hundreds or potentially thousands of years, and when the technology is eventually there, your bricked brain can be scanned and uploaded into a computer.
The biggest stumbling block is that the brain needs to be fresh, meaning Nectome's early plan was to focus on those who are afflicted with terminal illnesses and connect them to a heart-lung machine that would pump them full of said embalming chemicals. The key part here is to preserve the tiny connections between our brain cells that are known as the connectome.
McIntyre reiterated that the procedure is 100% fatal, adding: "That is why we are uniquely situated among the Y Combinator companies."
He compared his work to physician-assisted suicide, but failed to note that it was only legal in five U.S. states at the time. Although there are currently 11 U.S. jurisdictions that offer physician-assisted suicide, it's not exactly a lot.
McIntyre went on to explain: "Our mission is to preserve your brain well enough to keep all its memories intact: from that great chapter of your favorite book to the feeling of cold winter air, baking an apple pie, or having dinner with your friends and family.
“We believe that within the current century it will be feasible to digitize this information and use it to recreate your consciousness.”
For those who still aren't convinced, a 2025 New Scientist report confirmed that a team of German scientists had brought back slices of frozen mouse brain after a week by using a complex method of rewarming. Of course, a slice of mouse brain is a lot different to putting Sam Altman's whole brain in a tank for centuries, with it still being unclear what the long-term effects would be even if we can pull off the miracle of reanimation.
Responding to the idea of an immortal Altman, one person wrote: "One clumsy janitor with a mop in the server room and goodbye, Sam."
Another added: "If your idea of immortality starts with 'this procedure will probably kill me', you may have already failed the first usability test
A third solemnly warned: "People chasing immortality often forget to live first."
Even though things have gone pretty quiet on the Netcome front, it still seems to be actively working on its mission.
Still, with Altman currently boasting a net worth of $3.3 billion, he can more than afford the $10,000 to be on Nectome's waiting list.
