Kurzweil said he believes that if people can hold on for five, maybe ten years, "we can replace all of these problems" that make them die sooner than they want.

This is a prediction made on 2022-05-26 with a horizon of 'five, maybe 10 years', so the outer horizon is 2032-05-26. The claim is that medical technology will be able to 'replace' (remedy or overcome) all the problems that make people die sooner than they want. True: by 2032-05-26, credible scientific or medical evidence shows that therapies are available that remedy essentially all major causes of premature death (cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurodegeneration, ageing-related decline), so that people who held on to then can avoid dying of these causes. Life expectancy rising faster than one year per year ('longevity escape velocity') would be strong evidence. Mostly true: by the horizon, nearly all the major causes of premature death can be remedied, with only a minor one left. Mixed: roughly half of the major causes of premature death can be remedied by the horizon. Mostly false: there is only incremental progress, such as new drugs or treatments for some conditions and modest gains in life expectancy, but most major causes of premature death still kill people at broadly similar rates. False: at the horizon, the leading causes of premature death remain largely unremedied and mortality and life-expectancy trends show no step change. Anything achieved only after 2032-05-26 counts as mostly false at most.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 'Longevity escape velocity': what the mortality data say about the claim healthnewspapers.com · 20 September 2026

   “The best national mortality data give no sign of it: the most recent analysis finds that gains in life expectancy have been slowing since 1990, not accelerating”

2. E2 Anti-Aging Drugs: What the Evidence Actually Shows curemed.com

   “No medicine anywhere in the world is approved to slow down or treat aging — not a single one, in any country.”

3. E3 Ray Kurzweil: "By the end of this decade, as we go into the 2030s, we're going to achieve a new milest..." AI Prediction Index · April 2024

   “And as we get to the early 2030s, let's say between 2029 and 2035, depending on how diligent you are, you're going to get back a full year.”

4. E4 Kurzweil Scorecard: 147 Predictions Audited to 2026 Parallect · 20 March 2026

   “All providers independently assess this as highly unlikely on his stated timeline, with realistic estimates ranging from 2035 to 2045+”

5. E5 Anti-Aging Drugs: What the Evidence Actually Shows CureMed (curemed.com) · 2 September 2026

   “No medicine anywhere in the world is approved to slow down or treat aging — not a single one, in any country.”

6. E6 Anti-Aging Drugs: What the Evidence Actually Shows CureMed (curemed.com) · 2 September 2026

   “Everything else — senolytics, rapamycin, metformin, NAD+ precursors — is either running on surrogate endpoints or has already missed a primary endpoint.”

7. E7 Kurzweil Scorecard: 147 Predictions Audited to 2026 Parallect (parallect.ai) · 20 March 2026

   “The current rate of life expectancy gain is approximately 4 months per year in developed nations”

8. E8 Anti-Aging Drugs: What the Evidence Actually Shows CureMed (curemed.com) · 2 September 2026

   “Phase 3 SELECT met a hard cardiovascular endpoint in 17,604 people.”

9. E9 U.S. Cancer Mortality Declined 35% Since 1991, AACR Report Shows MedPage Today · 22 September 2026

   “The overall cancer mortality rate in the U.S. declined by 35% between 1991 and 2024, resulting in almost 5 million cancer deaths averted, according to the 2026 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Cancer Progress Report.”

10. E10 U.S. Cancer Mortality Declined 35% Since 1991, AACR Report Shows MedPage Today · 22 September 2026

    “For patients diagnosed between 2016 and 2022, the overall 5-year relative survival rate was 14% for pancreatic cancer and 7% for glioblastoma multiforme, compared with 92% for breast cancer and 98% for prostate cancer.”

11. E11 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (Global Burden of Disease study) · 1 May 2024

    “Life expectancy has returned to pre-pandemic levels in two-thirds of countries and territories.”

12. E12 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (Global Burden of Disease study) · 1 May 2024

    “Half of the top 10 leading causes of early death and disability worldwide are non-communicable diseases.”

The criteria ask whether, by 2032-05-26, therapies existed that remedy essentially all major causes of premature death. All the evidence is dated 2026 or earlier. As of then, life-expectancy gains were slowing, not speeding up (E1), and were about 4 months per year in developed nations (E7). No drug was approved to treat aging (E2, E5), other named candidate therapies were on surrogate endpoints or had missed primary endpoints (E6), and some cancers still had low survival rates (E10). This points to only incremental progress so far, but none of the evidence describes the situation at the 2032 horizon, so it cannot settle the claim.