Will People Ever Be Able to Upload Their Mind in to a Computer
- The US startup Nectome wants to upload your mind to the cloud
- The 2045 Initiative promises to aid humanity achieve immortality by 2045
- Current evidence suggests that mind uploading is theoretically possible
- The practical and ethical problems of mind uploading
Achieving immortality has long been humanity'southward holy grail. Ever since we first became aware of the fragility of our own existence, we've been looking for means to crook death and prolong our lives indefinitely. Although advancements in medicine have enabled us to significantly increase our lifespan, truthful immortality has remained out of reach. Achieving physical immortality may very well prove to be beyond our capabilities, but what nearly digital immortality?
The US startup Nectome wants to upload your mind to the cloud
A US startup chosen Nectome recently unveiled plans to aid humanity reach digital immortality past preserving the brain – using a revolutionary new embalming technique – and subsequently uploading it to the cloud. The process is called vitrifixation, or Aldehyde-Stabilised Cryopreservation. It involves replacing the claret flow in the brain with embalming chemicals that preserve its neuronal structure in microscopic item, basically by turning information technology into 'frozen drinking glass'. "You can think of what nosotros do equally a fancy form of embalming that preserves not just the outer details simply the inner details," explains Robert McIntyre, a co-founder of Nectome.
There are a couple of caveats, though. The biggest one is that yous tin can't really survive the procedure. Furthermore, in order for it to work, it needs to be performed on a living brain. If the brain has been dead fifty-fifty for a brusque corporeality of time, information technology will become irreparably damaged and the process won't be successful. That means that it would essentially exist a form of suicide, which would make information technology legal only in those US states that allow euthanasia, such as California. Another major downside is that Nectome still isn't even close to developing a method for reviving or uploading the preserved encephalon to the deject.
Notwithstanding, this uncertainty didn't stop people from investing in the idea, with 25 people already having joined the waiting list by paying a $10,000, fully-refundable deposit. Ane of those people is Sam Altman, the chief executive of the successful startup accelerator Y Combinator, which recently welcomed Nectome into its fold. The company managed to raise more than $ane million in funding and then far and was awarded 2 prizes by the Brain Preservation Foundation, as well as a big government grant to collaborate with MIT. Even so, the widespread public criticism that followed the waiting listing proclamation resulted in MIT cutting all ties with Nectome.
The 2045 Initiative promises to help humanity accomplish immortality by 2045
Nectome isn't the only company working on uploading our minds to a calculator. In 2011, the Russian man of affairs and billionaire Dmitry Itskov founded the 2045 Initiative, an system that aims to aid humanity achieve immortality by 2045. "Within the next thirty years, I am going to make sure that we tin all live forever," claims Itskov. "The ultimate goal of my programme is to transfer someone's personality into a completely new trunk".
The 2045 Initiative has laid out its programme in three stages. The first stage involves building a humanoid robot called the Avatar, and a cutting-edge brain-computer interface system. The second stage consists of building a life back up organization for the human brain, and linking it with the Avatar. The tertiary and last stage involves creating an bogus brain that would hold the original individual consciousness.
Current bear witness suggests that mind uploading is theoretically possible
And then, can it really be done? Is it really possible to upload a heed to a computer? The short reply is: yep, theoretically. "All of the evidence seems to say in theory it's possible – it'southward extremely difficult, but information technology'southward possible," says neuroscientist Randal Koene, the scientific director of the 2045 Initiative. The human brain is an incredibly complex organ, consisting of about 86 billion neurons that constantly exchange information with one another. All of the connections between the neurons in a brain are chosen the connectome, and many scientists believe that this connectome actually holds the information that makes united states who we are. And mapping it could potentially permit u.s. to recreate a person's mind.
Our electric current assumption is that all brain activity is computable. If that'due south truthful and the brain does work like a reckoner, and if nosotros could discover a fashion to map that activity, scan the brain at the necessary level of particular, translate the scan in a fashion that would allow united states to reconstruct the brain'south neural network and create a faithful simulation, and if we had enough calculating power to run such a simulation, then nosotros should exist able to recreate the human mind in a reckoner. That'south a lot of ifs, but until we know dissimilar, it remains in the realm of possibility. However, information technology'southward a very remote possibility at this point. "We are pitifully far away from mapping a human connectome," says Dr Ken Hayworth, a neuroscientist at the Janelia Inquiry Campus in Virginia. "To put it in perspective, to image a whole wing brain information technology is going to take us approximately one to 2 years. The thought of mapping a whole human brain with the existing engineering science that we accept today is simply impossible."
The practical and ethical issues of listen uploading
The principal problem is that at that place are so many things virtually the human encephalon we don't know however. We don't know how the mind is created. We don't know what consciousness is or how to measure out information technology, so even if we were able to create a simulation of the homo brain, we wouldn't be able to decide whether that simulation really is witting. We don't even know exactly which brain structures and biomolecules need to be preserved to recreate a person's memory or personality, or if it's even possible.
Many scientists are certain it tin't exist washed. "You cannot lawmaking intuition; yous cannot code aesthetic beauty; you lot cannot lawmaking dear or hate," argues Dr Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke Academy. "There is no manner you will ever see a human brain reduced to a digital medium. Information technology'due south merely impossible to reduce that complication to the kind of algorithmic procedure that you will accept to take to do that."
The whole idea is also rife with ethical issues, and some experts are suggesting that 'Can nosotros exercise information technology?' isn't fifty-fifty the right question to ask. Instead, what we should be asking is 'Should we do it?'. Let's say that we've successfully uploaded a human mind onto a computer. Does that mean that personal identity has also transferred along with memories and that this person is still the same? Or is it a new person with a different identity that just happens to share the same memories? What rights would this digital person have? And if y'all could create one re-create of yourself, why wouldn't you be able to create multiple copies? In that example, which one of those copies would be the 'existent' you? And since you lot wouldn't have a physical trunk anymore and would substantially be reduced to a stream of data, who would that data belong to? Who would own you? How could you prevent major corporations from misusing your data?
Mind uploading is a fascinating concept, simply we're not sure nonetheless whether it'south even possible. Our existing technology and our understanding of the human brain aren't avant-garde enough to answer that question at this time. Fifty-fifty if uploading the man mind onto a calculator eventually turns out to be impossible, the idea is all the same worth pursuing further, because the engineering science Nectome and others are working on could take many other useful applications. For instance, it could facilitate encephalon banking for future inquiry into wellness and disease states, assist us detect new brain disorder drugs, or raise our bones neuroscience circuit mapping.
Source: https://blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com/en/in-a-future-of-mind-uploading-will-you-still-be-you-and-who-will-own-your-mind/
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