Tech Billionaire pays $10k to be killed so he can have his brain uploaded

[ReedeFox]

Tech billionaire Sam Altman has paid $10,000 to be put on a waiting list to undergo a process so his brain can be uploaded online. Unlike the Christmas episode of Black Mirror where Una Chaplin uploads a duplicate of her conciousness and still goes about her normal day, Sam's procedure will involve being killed. Yikes. For once I prefer a Black Mirror outcome!



Sam is one of 25 people on a waiting list at startup company Nectome, which is promising to upload a persons brain to a cloud. Sam will have his mind ‘eternally preserved’ but will have to die in a process similar to assisted suicide. Nectome’s co-founders, Robert McIntyre and Michael McCanna aim to preserve human brains in ‘microscopic detail using a high-tech embalming process’.



Nectome has already won two prizes from the Brain Preservation Foundation, both for preserving animals brains. Nectome says its plan is to connect people with terminal illnesses to a machine in order to pump its mix of scientific embalming chemicals into the big carotid arteries in their necks while they are still alive. Sam told Technology Review he’s pretty sure minds will be digitised in his lifetime. He said:
 

There is a lot of philosophical debate, but to me a simulation is close enough that it’s worth something. And there is a much larger humanitarian aspect to the whole thing. Right now, when a generation of people die, we lose all their collective wisdom. You can transmit knowledge to the next generation, but it’s harder to transmit wisdom, which is learned. Your children have to learn from the same mistakes.That was fine for a while, but we get more powerful every generation. The sheer immense potential of what we can do increases, but the wisdom does not.

 


Technology Review reported that the Nectome team once spent several weeks at an Airbnb in Portland, Oregon, waiting to buy a freshly deceased body. They reported:
 

In February, they obtained the corpse of an elderly woman and were able to begin preserving her brain just 2.5 hours after her death. It was the first demonstration of their technique, called aldehyde-stabilised cryopreservation, on a human brain.Fineas Lupeiu, founder of Aeternitas, a company that arranges for people to donate their bodies to science, confirmed that he provided Nectome with the body. He did not disclose the woman’s age or cause of death, or say how much he charged.

I don't know whether to be amazed or terrified. Although we are now a step closer to being able to live in San Junipero, which can't be a bad thing!

[johncack]

Firkin idiot. Been reading too many cyberpunk novels and Marvel Agents of Shield Season 4.

[FantasticMR]

I like the idea of consciousness transference like that which we've sen in San Junipero but this seems more like a copy of consciousness which would mean the death of you and some digital replicant acting similarly to you but in actuality you are gone and there is something in your place. Not quite the immortality these guys think they are getting.

[ReedeFox]

So you won't have any of your own memories or even be aware of who you were?

[FantasticMR]

So you won't have any of your own memories or even be aware of who you were?

You wouldn't be at all. Your memories would belong to something else and you would cease to exist.

[GrandDuke]

Not at all sure what the brain would contain in actual memories as you would not be there. You are dead! How would these memories and this wisdom be accessed. On a TV screen? Sounds totally fucked up to me. One thing doing it when you are dead but being killed specifically for it? Nutter if you ask me.

[Jester62]

Hi All You Rampant Hentai's.
This Post Provided The Oppertunity For Me To Contact And Chat About This Post To A University Freind Who Happens To Be A Phd Neuroscientist/Researcher.
He States That The Knowledge For Creating New Or Adapting Known Technology To Integrate With The Human Mind/ Which Would Include Consciousnes And The Extracting Memories, Does Not Yet Exist.
To Integrate The Neuro Electro/Chemical Brain State With Tech Requires Miniscule Amounts Of Synaptic Electro Currents That As Yet Cannot Be Produced Even By The Use Of Modern IC's ( Integrated Circuits ).
Just A Heads Up - Consciousness As We Know It Has Not Yet Been Found - In Otherwords The Part Of The Brain For This Activity Is Not Some Specific Part , All Thats Known Is - Consciousness Requires All Of The Brain State Functions.
As For Brain Preservation - It's A Small Step Forward Scientifically - But We Cannot Conclude That The Knowledge Exists Without First Having The Demonstration Of The Claim Made.
Any Way A Great Topic To Post - Top Marks

P/s $10,000 To A Billionare Is Like The " Fluff " That Collects In The Corner Of Your Jeans Pocket,

It Would Mean Nothing To Them.

Regards Jester