Company Wants to Resurrect Humans with Artificial Intelligence Within 30 Years

Remember the sci-fi movie Transcendence where the main character dies and his consciousness gets transferred into a computer? It is possible that something like this may soon become a reality; at least, this is what one company claims.

Well, at the moment, such a possibility still belongs to the category of science fiction, but it seems that a start-up called Humai has some ambitious plans for making it happen. The company actually promises to resurrect humans by transferring their consciousness into an artificial body.

In fact, the technology necessary to do something like this doesn’t exist yet, but the company claims to be able to resurrect the first human within 30 years.

How are they going to achieve it? According to the company’s website, the first step will be to “store data of conversational styles, behavioral patterns, thought processes and information about how your body functions from the inside-out” with the help of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology.

Then, “this data will be coded into multiple sensor technologies, which will be built into an artificial body with the brain of a deceased human. Using cloning technology, we will restore the brain as it matures.”

Moreover, Humai CEO Josh Bocanegra has revealed further details of the process in his interview with PopSci, saying that the brain will be frozen after death using cryonics and then stored until there is a technology capable of implanting it into an artificial body.

“The artificial body functions will be controlled with your thoughts by measuring brain waves. As the brain ages, we’ll use nanotechnology to repair and improve cells. Cloning technology is going to help with this too,” he said.

These ideas may sound very promising while in reality there is no solid evidence that one’s consciousness can be ‘downloaded’ from the brain and transferred into a machine, just like a computer file can be copied to another computer via USB. It’s far more complex than that.

Moreover, the claim that the artificial body can be controlled with one’s thoughts is hardly tenable. Even though certain technological advances of the recent years made it possible to control things like robotic limbs and advanced implants via brain waves, there is still no practical ways to control a whole artificial body.

It’s also worth noting that the brain is not the only organ that determines the way we think, feel and behave. In fact, other parts of the body also participate in regulating our behaviors. For example, hormones produced by our glands can actually influence our decisions and actions, not to mention that consciousness does not equal mind or brain. It’s more complex than that. There is also much evidence to suggest that consciousness may not be local at all, and that our body’s might just be ‘consciousness vessels’ and our brains just the receivers of consciousness much like the antennae on your radio.

In any case, even if consciousness uploading becomes feasible one day, it is unlikely that science and technology will be advanced enough to make it happen in 30 years from now, or maybe it already is.. Deep inside some of these black projects that are kept hidden, but that’s a whole nother’ topic altogether. Till then, those who want to live forever will have to accept the idea of the inevitability of death.

What about you, would you like to live forever? We would love to hear your thoughts on this.