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While many tech moguls dream of changing the way we live with new smart devices or social media apps, one Russian internet millionaire is trying to change nothing less than our destiny, by making it possible to upload a human brain to a computer, reports Tristan Quinn. "Within the next 30 years," promises Dmitry Itskov, "I am going to make sure that we can all live forever."
It sounds preposterous, but there is no doubting the seriousness of this softly spoken 35-year-old, who says he left the business world to devote himself to something more useful to humanity. "I'm 100% confident it will happen. Otherwise I wouldn't have started it," he says. It is a breathtaking ambition, but could it actually be done? Itskov doesn't have too much time to find out.
"If there is no immortality technology, I'll be dead in the next 35 years," he laments. Death is inevitable - currently at least - because as we get older the cells that make up our bodies lose their ability to repair themselves, making us vulnerable to cardiovascular disease and other age-related conditions that kill about two-thirds of us.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35786771
Horizon: The Immortalist, produced and directed by Tristan Quinn, will be shown on BBC 2 at 20:00 on Wednesday 16 March 2016 - viewers in the UK can catch up later on the BBC iPlayer
Dmitry Itskov, Founder of 2045 Initiative
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Wednesday March 16 2016, @06:56PM
Unless they're keeping my brain alive in a jar, I'd just as soon skip this. Any sort of "upload" is just going to copy the current state of your mind (assuming that's ever even possible). There would then be two of you -- one immortal computer you, and one original bag of mostly water you -- rather than just one immortal you.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday March 16 2016, @07:51PM
There would then be two of you -- one immortal computer you, and one original bag of mostly water you -- rather than just one immortal you.
And then, a finite amount of time later, there will just be one immortal you.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16 2016, @08:53PM
It depends. If you move pieces over little by little and let both systems do processing, does your conscious also move?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 17 2016, @06:46PM
No. Once you have destroyed all of the physically conscious parts of the original brain the original person is completely gone and no longer experiencing existence.