- 4/16/2025
#ai #mindupload
Mind uploading and digital immortality explore the potential of AI technology to enable humans to live forever by transferring consciousness to machines. This concept raises profound questions about the future of humanity, identity, and ethics. Discover the groundbreaking possibilities and challenges of achieving eternal life through artificial intelligence and digital consciousness.
#ai #mindupload
#MindUploading
#DigitalImmortality
#LiveForever
#AIandHumanity
#ArtificialIntelligence
#FutureTech
#AIRevolution
#Transhumanism
#Singularity
#ScienceFuture
#BrainToAI
#UploadYourMind
#NextGenAI
#TechPhilosophy
#AI2025
#DigitalAfterlife
#TechNews
#ImmortalityThroughAI
#HumanConsciousness
#Neurotech
Mind uploading and digital immortality explore the potential of AI technology to enable humans to live forever by transferring consciousness to machines. This concept raises profound questions about the future of humanity, identity, and ethics. Discover the groundbreaking possibilities and challenges of achieving eternal life through artificial intelligence and digital consciousness.
#ai #mindupload
#MindUploading
#DigitalImmortality
#LiveForever
#AIandHumanity
#ArtificialIntelligence
#FutureTech
#AIRevolution
#Transhumanism
#Singularity
#ScienceFuture
#BrainToAI
#UploadYourMind
#NextGenAI
#TechPhilosophy
#AI2025
#DigitalAfterlife
#TechNews
#ImmortalityThroughAI
#HumanConsciousness
#Neurotech
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TechTranscript
00:00We are living in the creepiest times the humanity has ever seen.
00:04Period.
00:05Technology has thrown us into the most uncharted territories,
00:09and our decision-making is now molded by the powerful AI.
00:12The only known species that were able to reverse its own life cycle and keep on infinitely
00:17is the Turritopsis dorni, sometimes known as the immortal jellyfish.
00:21But invertebrates are not the ones causing us to consider our own death.
00:25It is no sort of spiritual epiphany.
00:28The real opportunities of artificial intelligence and the great question,
00:31can technology offer the solution for immortality, therefore allowing us life after death?
00:37This is generating some existential crises right now.
00:40Scarily, the big question has a yes or sort of answer.
00:49Though the technology to come rather quite close to it currently exists,
00:52digital eternal life is obviously not the same as physical immortality.
00:57Even more frightening is the fact that the first person to encounter digital immortality
01:01most likely already was born.
01:03Alright, Noel Gallagher most likely had artificial intelligence not in mind when he penned
01:08Live Forever.
01:09Maybe!
01:11But our current digital footprint might be the secret to keeping present in the life of our
01:15loved ones, even after we pass death.
01:18Combining our social media posts, Instagram photos, videos, voice recordings, and so on,
01:22will produce an artificial intelligence anthropomorphic cyborg version of ourselves
01:27that replicates our subtleties, twists of phrase, facial expressions, and so on.
01:31Maybe even our actual ideas.
01:32Science fiction and fantasy no longer define this as the stuff to dream of.
01:37Based on several sources, this is a rather realistic possibility that might start very soon.
01:42Those pushing this technological advancement would contend that by creating digital copies
01:47or extensions of ourselves, so preserving our history and identity,
01:51and enabling us to live and interact even long after our physical death.
01:56Audio and visual cloning would thus help us to keep this heritage.
02:00But the moral questions about the consequences of creating and using these digital clones
02:04cannot be disregarded such,
02:06When we die, who exactly owns our digital footprint?
02:09How can we control future use of our data?
02:12Will we finally have to mention in our wills details about our digital immortality?
02:16And naturally, is it essential to do something only because we can?
02:21Imagine for a moment, in 2060, a director dreams of creating a Hollywood blockbuster
02:25with Tom Hanks, one of the most venerable actors of all time.
02:29The narrative, however, requires a 30-year-old Hanks, but the actual actor disappeared many years ago.
02:35The answer is, just make use of the next best thing.
02:3830-year-old digital Tom Hanks driven by artificial intelligence.
02:41And that is already under progress.
02:43I'm not referring to hologram performances like to ABBA, Michael Jackson, or Tupac.
02:48We have already seen several deepfake videos, including Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman,
02:52as well as a remarkably convincing Bruce Willis,
02:55appear in a Russian advertising for mobile phone carrier Megafon.
02:59Late Robin Williams seemed to foresee the approaching problems of artificial intelligence,
03:04acting legally to fiercely guard his image from being used in media companies.
03:08Many more stars might be doing the same, should any one of us not in the limelight worry.
03:13What moral ramifications then follow from digital immortality?
03:18Concerned about the future of artificial intelligence are Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and others quite rightfully.
03:24Ethical questions persist even as we travel farther into the unknown seas of artificial intelligence.
03:31Though it's great to imagine that, like our old friend the immortal jellyfish, we might one day live indefinitely,
03:37we have to keep in mind that we are redefining what it means to be human in addition to using fascinating technology.
03:43We have to think about the need of justice and privacy when creating digital copies of ourselves.
03:49Who has access to these technologies counts, but so does how and by whom they are applied.
03:54After all, only we know how to really portray who we are, it's one thing to sound and look like us.
04:00What is to stop others from changing or altering our digital personas after we are gone without unambiguous laws?
04:06When considering our present level of artificial intelligence, the well-known comment from Ferris Bueller usually occurs to me.
04:13Life flows really fast. Look around once in a while, else you might miss it.
04:18Though life does fly by, artificial intelligence seems to be moving even faster.
04:23Indeed, digital immortality is a fascinating idea,
04:26but we might find ourselves with far less control over what happens to our digital selves following death
04:31unless artificial intelligence slows pace soon.
04:34And that bothers me greatly as well.
04:36All right, so although our mind is caught in mortal machines formed of flesh,
04:46we live in an eternal universe controlled just by physical rules.
04:50Specifically, what will we be uploading?
04:52First, of course, defining the mind is challenging.
04:55Most people agree that your consciousness and intelligence taken together enable you to dream, see, and imagine.
05:01Mind uploading is a theoretical idea whereby our inner experience is replicated and sent to a machine to generate simulation of consciousness.
05:10Three presumptions guide this idea.
05:12First, your cognition is in line with the biology and architecture of your brain.
05:16Physicalism holds that the brain can reveal all there is to know about the mind, so restricting our discussions to natural laws.
05:23Second, one day we will have a complete knowledge of the brain and the means to copy all its components, so building a digital clone of the mind.
05:32Third, computer programs imply that the mind is something that can be computed as they can regulate your mental state.
05:39Though it requires a lot of code, there is no physical attribute in the brain, including consciousness, that cannot be sufficiently replicated.
05:47Though still hotly debated, scientists and intellectuals put forward these presumptions.
05:52Given the several unresolved basic issues, it is challenging to address the topic without triggering emotional reactions.
05:59Whatever your view, any debate on mind uploading starts with the brain.
06:03Given its most complex known biological construction, the brain merits its own video.
06:08The brain consists in roughly 100 billion neurons that interact via a million-billion connections, sending hundreds of impulses each second to produce quadrillion events every moment of your life.
06:19And it's not only neurons.
06:21Each of the billions of supporting and immune cells of various kinds has a particular role.
06:26Larger scale, the brain is split into sections with particular purposes ranging from controlling respiration and heartbeat to coordinating movement and involuntary responses.
06:35Our memories and skills to plan, think, imagine, hope, and dream are found in more evolved areas like the neocortex or outermost layer of the brain.
06:44It is currently uncertain where exactly the U component of the brain is found.
06:48Although locations like the precuneus cortex have a significant influence on human awareness,
06:53several areas work together to finish tasks none could have done by themselves.
06:57The building components of the brain are very sophisticated.
07:00Neurons are more than just information processing transmission wires.
07:05Having receptors for hundreds of chemical signals, the synapses which transmit impulses from one neuron to another are sensitive to outside stimuli.
07:13Although our basic understanding of their mechanisms is clear-cut and we can somewhat predict their activity on a limited scale,
07:19the brain is more than just nerve signals.
07:22Additionally crucial are hormones like histamine, which promotes learning, and serotonin, which affects our mood.
07:28Furthermore, influencing the brain are other components of our bodies, including gut flora and the neurons in the heart.
07:35As we learn more, what looks to be a quite complicated system gets more challenging.
07:40We would need a model or a scan we could replicate in our virtual world to upload this jumble of cells, meat, and molecules onto a computer.
07:47Sadly, fMRI scanners and other scanning devices lack advanced capability to attempt this.
07:54Still another strategy seems bright.
07:56We can create a precise map of all the cells and connections by breaking a brain into small pieces and scanning them under high-quality electron microscopes.
08:062019 saw researchers effectively map a cubic millimeter of a mouse brain the size of a large grain of sand.
08:13It featured 4 kilometers of neural fibers, 1 billion synapses, and 100,000 neurons.
08:19There are 25,000 components to the brain fragment.
08:22Operating continuously for 5 months, 5 electron microscopes captured over 100 million images.
08:28Over 3 months, the images were turned into a 3D model.
08:31The final dataset needed 2 million gigabytes of cloud storage.
08:35Easily mentioned, millions of repetitions of the process would be required to scan a whole human brain.
08:41Worse even, we could have to map even smaller building elements like billions of underlying proteins or perhaps individual molecules responsible for all the observed biological activities in order to faithfully replicate the brain.
08:55So essentially, more data could result from this than from all the combined storage capacity on Earth.
09:00Transposing the brain's static design into something active presents the primary difficulty.
09:05We would still need rules and principles to bring this stationary structure to life, energizing the circuitry with different chemical bonding laws of electrodynamics to generate a dynamic, active organism that thinks, sees, and acts from one microsecond to the next, even if we could scan down to the synapse level.
09:21Actually, we have no idea whether it's feasible.
09:25We doubt whether our technology could create real brains.
09:28The character of the situation determines everything.
09:31Do we have a lot of work to do, yet it is controllable?
09:34Is the brain and mind simply too complicated to understand?
09:38Human awareness at least could be more than the total of already unidentified brain areas.
09:43This would complicate matters more than we could manage with decent scans.
09:47A decent conscience cake cannot be created with a list of ingredients alone.
09:51Right now, we have clear scientific findings and a strong basis for our final goal.
09:55But the road to actual simulation is uncertain and calls for much imagination and research.
10:01People have not been very good historically at projecting the pace of development.
10:05At best, it will be enough to finish the work and point out the right responses.
10:10Not every cell down to the last atom is something we might need to replicate.
10:14Rather, the components might be reduced into probability models able to replicate brain activity in a more under-control manner.
10:20To upload the human mind, we really do not know how well we should understand our brain and consciousness.
10:25Still, science is real and worth looking into.
10:29At least, at least, we will learn a lot about ourselves and produce several fresh innovations.
10:34Mind uploading could be feasible given the fast-advancing computer technology of today.
10:38Huge, horrible, and amazing are the consequences for mankind and our fate in this planet.
10:43Functional immortality would follow from a successful mind upload.
10:47Your presence could remain as long as a duplicate is preserved somewhere safe and not erased or destroyed.
10:53In fact, your mind could also be contaminated in many different ways if your scan comes out tainted.
10:59You can wind up in relentless pain, paranoia, or recurrent psychotic episodes.
11:04Whether this synthetic mind is really you begs fresh questions about morality.
11:08Right now, we'll assume the digital mind thinks it's you.
11:11What changes in your perspective of life depending on mind uploading?
11:14Knowing that death isn't the end would make one feel more safe.
11:17Alternatively, would you be more wary, trying to prevent passing death before your mind uploaded?
11:22Alternatively, would you grow more careless knowing that your thoughts might be uploaded before you die?
11:28Mind uploading begs basic problems about our awareness, feeling of identity, and what it is to be human.
11:34Would your uploaded self be a copy of your memories and characteristics, or indeed you?
11:39Alternatively, would you start to act more carelessly knowing that your mind could be uploaded before death?
11:45Mind uploading begs basic problems about our awareness, feeling of identity, and what it is to be human.
11:51Would your uploaded self be really you, or merely a copy of your personality and memories?
11:57Furthermore, mind uploading has ethical consequences of great extent.
12:01Who could use this technology?
12:03Will it be only for a small number of people or open to everyone?
12:06How will society handle the prospect of always digital life?
12:10Regarding the hazards, what?
12:12A system breakdown might lead to unimaginable suffering, locking the psyche into a state of perpetual agony or lunacy.
12:18Mind uploading begs issues about the nature of life and the soul.
12:22Should human awareness be digitized?
12:24Does this mean the soul is only a complex series of algorithms?
12:28Or is there something more the code cannot adequately depict?
12:32This idea would subvert intellectual and theological traditions.
12:36While some would see it as a dangerous overreach and attempt to play God,
12:39others could consider it as a method of immortality.
12:42The social effects are likewise really profound.
12:45A society in which mind uploading is feasible would produce a new kind of inequality,
12:50between those who can pay to live forever and those who cannot.
12:53It might also lead to a loss of what it means to be human when people start to resemble machines,
12:58hence possibly losing empathy, compassion, and other qualities unique to us.
13:02If people could live endlessly, would relationships lose significance?
13:06Would the fear of death, which drives much human ambition and creativity, be lessened or eliminated?
13:12These are not only speculative queries regarding the far future.
13:15As artificial intelligence, neurology, and computers advance, mind uploading is growing practical.
13:21It invites us to really consider our values in life, what it is to be human, and how we wish to shape our future.
13:27Ralph Waldo Emerson had a flash insight on July 13, 1833, while touring the Jardin des Plantes in Paris's Cabinet of Natural History.
13:42Examining the museum's collection, butterflies, hunks of amber and marble, carved seashells,
13:47he was impressed by the interdependence of nature and human place in it.
13:51Along with the transcendentalists, the experience motivated him to write the uses of natural history
13:57and to express a philosophy that placed naturalism at the core of intellectual life in a technologically chaotic age,
14:04therefore guiding him to a new spiritual belief system.
14:07Emerson believed that everyone may become a definier and mapmaker of the latitudes and longitudes of our condition,
14:14discovering agency, uniqueness, and wonder in a mechanized society by scientific study of the natural world.
14:21During those years, America was bursting with ideas, and everything seemed to be happening quicker.
14:27Factories and sugar mills grew like dandelions.
14:30Steamships hurried to and from American ports.
14:32Trains tore across the continent.
14:34The telegraph connected people together like never before.
14:37The first image was created, irreversibly altering mankind's view of itself.
14:42The country was feeling excitement, anxiety, and terror.
14:46Emerson's vision in Paris was not a rejection of change,
14:49but rather a means of redefining human potential as the Earth seemed to spin off its axis.
14:54Examining Emerson's response to the scientific rebirth of the 19th century will help us to better understand
15:00the major technical revolution of the 20th century, that of artificial intelligence.
15:05Artificial intelligence has long troubled the informational seas we sail in even before its current developments.
15:11Early disturbances came from the ranking algorithms that define the modern web.
15:16That is, the opaque code telling Google which results to show you,
15:20and that organizes and personalizes your feeds on social platforms like Facebook and Instagram
15:25by slurping data about you to decide what to spit back out.
15:29Imagine the same internet infrastructure, but with programs that interact with a veneer of authority
15:34on any topic, the capacity to create sophisticated original text, audio, and video,
15:40and the capacity to convincingly impersonate people such that people would not know what is real.
15:46Every encounter should help these self-teaching artificial intelligence models to get better.
15:51Sometimes they create, manipulate, and have hallucinations.
15:54One cannot predict what or why they will do.
15:56Should Google's search engine be the contemporary Library of Alexandria,
16:00the next artificial intelligence will be volatile profit.
16:04Almost every field and industry will benefit from the fast-evolving generative artificial intelligence.
16:08Alphabet, which owns Google, Amazon, Meta, which owns Facebook, and Microsoft are all vying to include artificial intelligence into current products,
16:16including maps, email, social networks, and photo software.
16:20The technocultural standards and behaviors that have engulfed us across the internet,
16:24smartphone, and social web revolutions call for major change.
16:27Too many people have let these technologies to pass by them.
16:31Correcting current errors would be wise, and we should also foresee and actively shape
16:36what the far more radical technologies that are already under development would mean for our lives
16:41and how they would transform our society.
16:44Companies who want to make money from this new technology are already learning the cliches required to discount the rival ideas.
16:51Though these are as shallow as they are abstract,
16:54they will use appealing language like human enhancement and human-centered artificial intelligence.
16:59The internet, the personal computer, and the nuclear bomb,
17:02what's coming will transcend any technical innovation in live memory,
17:06perhaps the most significant technology of human history.
17:09People are usually reluctant to acknowledge a revolution, especially if one is already under progress.
17:14They are also quite poor in foreseeing the future.
17:16Still, the gap between the arrival of new technologies and the development of standards and norms is usually somewhat small.
17:23Stated differently, the Wild West is only temporary.
17:26Eventually, the railroads standardize time, arc lamps are replaced with incandescent bulbs,
17:32and the open web dream dies.
17:34In the field of artificial intelligence, the window of influence is still open.
17:38Many of those who have labored most to create protections for this new technology, however,
17:43are dismayed that the opportunity is practically closed.
17:46Like search engines, telephones, and trains before it,
17:48generative artificial intelligence will allow humans to complete jobs with such amazing efficiency that it will seem magical.
17:55Whole types of employment, indeed whole industries, could disappear astonishingly quickly.
18:00The utopians among us will see this as an opportunity to assign routine chores to machines so they may pursue the higher aim of human self-actualization.
18:09Deeper searches for knowledge, faster routes to scientific discovery, and more time for leisure and family,
18:14all of which are increasingly essential to us, may all be accessed with this new magic.
18:19As a more competent artificial intelligence looks over our shoulders,
18:23it could also lead to a loss of professional confidence and widespread unemployment.
18:28By now, we should be aware that neither the government's control of new technologies nor self-regulation by tech behemoths
18:38can keep up with Silicon Valley's capacity to pursue profit and scale at the expense of society and democratic health or the rate of scientific advancement.
18:47Starting with an individual, what characterizes the next phase of human existence?
18:52We now need a cultural and intellectual revolution, just as the Industrial Revolution inspired transcendentalism in the United States and Romanticism in Europe,
19:01both of which questioned conformity and valued truth, nature and individualism.
19:07This new movement should challenge the limits of what technology can accomplish best,
19:12and give people above machines top priority, redefining human interactions with environment and technology.
19:19Surely, artificial intelligence will enable humans to make amazing, life-saving discoveries.
19:24The risk is in giving our humanity to this technology without discipline,
19:29particularly when it surpasses us in perception.
19:32We need a human renaissance in this age of intelligent machines.
19:36With the power of today's tech barons so concentrated,
19:39ordinary people may feel helpless to affect the robots that might soon be cognitively superior to us all the face of world-changing discovery.
19:47Still, articulating ideals has great power, even if they are finally unattainable.
19:52Given all that is online, we have to at least try.
19:55Transparency should be the guiding concept in the new human interaction of ideas.
20:00People should expose any time an artificial intelligence is present or used in communication.
20:05This ground rule could inspire less anonymous web as well as discipline in building more human and human-only spaces.
20:12Any journalist will tell you that anonymity should only be used in rare cases for the public interest and as a last resort.
20:19Cultural norms requiring people to express not only their ideas but also their actual names would help us.
20:26This is also the time to redouble your will to grow closer to others.
20:31Though it is a poor substitute for in-person contact, especially in cases where creative collaboration or learning is vital,
20:38live video chat can overcome time and distance.
20:41The epidemic brought this terrible clarity.
20:44Especially when artificial intelligence undermines our sense of what is real, relationships cannot and should not be kept just in the digital sphere.
20:52Tapping the like button is a data point, not a friendship button.
20:56And a one-sided conversation with an artificial intelligence fosters connectivity.
21:00A child might have more AI friends than human ones someday not too far off.
21:05These friends will be meant to encourage involvement and profit as much as to keep an eye on the people who use them.
21:11Such incentives redefine the nature of cooperation.
21:15Years of warning about doppelgangers who threaten our humanity by copying a person's likeness
21:20have come from fiction writers such Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Rod Serling, and Jose Saramago.
21:25Our new planet is a doorway into the uncanny valley.
21:28The first algorithmic revolution used personal data to reorganize the planet for individuals.
21:34The second will utilize our personal data not only to split our shared perception of reality, but also to generate synthetic replicas.
21:42The profit-driven music studio executive will be thrilled by the prospect of an artificial intelligence-generated voice
21:48accompanied by AI-generated tunes unrelated to a human with intellectual property rights.
21:53Writers, musicians, and artists should expect and fight large-scale imposter campaigns.
21:57Therefore, every one of us should do as well.
22:00One computer scientist recently told me that she plans to create a secret code word only known to her and her elderly parents
22:06so that should they ever hear her voice on the other end of the phone begging for money or assistance,
22:11they will know whether it is produced by an AI trained on her publicly available lectures.
22:17So, sounding exactly like her and scamming them.
22:21Elementary school pupils of today are already learning not to think everything they come across on a screen is accurate,
22:27but they merit a modern, technological, and informational environment grounded in enlightenment values,
22:34including reason, individual autonomy, and the peaceful exchange of ideas.
22:38Not everything should be documented or shared.
22:40One has personal freedom in embracing ephemerality.
22:43More personal contacts should take place just between the relevant people.
22:47Our humanity depends on our privacy.
22:49At last, a more existential component calls for our attention.
22:53How far the search of knowledge guides us either inside or outside.
22:58Near-future artificial intelligence will improve our empirical skills, yet it could also stifle our curiosity.
23:04We run the danger of losing our capacity to gaze into the future with real wonder or inventiveness
23:09as we become so enthralled with the synthetic worlds we create, all data sets, duplicates, and feedback loops.
23:16We should rely less on tools that dull our own aesthetic and intellectual acuity
23:21and more on human originality and creative intuition.
23:24Emerson said famously that Isaac Newton used the same wit to weigh the moon he used to buckle his shoes.
23:30Newton, I'll add out, also employed same wit to build a reflecting telescope,
23:34the beginnings of a potent technology allowing mankind to peep into the origins of the universe.
23:39Emerson's theory spirit is still crucial, though.
23:42A required exercise on the path to wisdom is viewing the surroundings and absorbing it through our senses.
23:49Technology tools can and should be used to assist us in this quest.
23:53However, never at the price of seeing, feeling, and finally comprehending for ourselves.
23:58Not only is a future in which overconfident machines seem to have the solutions to all of life's great challenges dangerously incorrect,
24:05but it also eliminates what makes people human.
24:08In a day of hasty decisions, fury, and apparently all-knowing artificial intelligence,
24:12we should pay more attention to contemplation as a way of life.
24:16We should welcome an incomplete state of mind,
24:19constantly question our past opinions,
24:21hunt out people we disagree with, and occasionally not know.
24:25Being mortal people, we yearn for knowledge beyond what we will or can acquire.
24:29Time has the ability to wipe human knowledge.
24:32Whole languages vanish and explorers lose their sense of direction across oceans by fixating on the stars.
24:38Technology is continuously changing our intellectual capacity.
24:42We only have so much time to pursue knowledge, truth, and beauty on this planet.
24:47These are what remain.
24:49Our own experience cannot be replaced by any book, photo, TV broadcast, tweet, meme, augmented reality, hologram,
24:56artificial intelligence-generated blueprint, or fever dream.
25:00You travel for this reason.
25:02You cross the seas, see the sunset, listen to the crickets, and note the moon phase.
25:06You thereby touch the arm of the person next to you as you laugh.
25:10And it is the reason you find wonder in the Jardin des Plantes when the universe shows you its hidden code.
25:22As we contemplate the fleeting nature of human experience,
25:25where time erases memories, and even the most profound moments can slip away,
25:30we find ourselves driven by the desire to preserve what makes us who we are.
25:35This yearning for permanence is fueling the pursuit of technologies that promise to transcend our biological limitations.
25:42At the heart of this quest lies mind uploading, a concept that could fundamentally alter our relationship with time and existence.
25:50By capturing the essence of our consciousness in digital form,
25:54we may not only defy the boundaries of life and death,
25:57but also create a new paradigm where our experiences and identities are no longer confined to the physical world.
26:03First, we have to scan the brain at a high resolution to compile pictures of the cross sections,
26:09then create a computer model from these images.
26:11This model will run on a strong supercomputer,
26:14and a digital copy of me will remain contentedly married ever after.
26:19This is known as mind uploading and can be somewhat confusing as,
26:22like what Neuralink is working on,
26:24it seems that we must create a high bandwidth connection between the brain and the machines.
26:29Actually though, the objective is to produce a digital model of the brain that is somewhat like the real brain.
26:36This technology excites me personally,
26:38since it would enable us to not only live indefinitely,
26:41but also create and manufacture things without regard for time,
26:44therefore freeing us from the limitations of our physical bodies.
26:48Of course, one approach many think of as reaching substrate independence,
26:52and therefore a longer lifespan, is mind uploading.
26:55Beyond that, this is really the question that mankind as a whole faces.
26:59Our capacity to transcend our current limitations beyond where we have evolved.
27:03Living in spaces like space, virtual reality, or other planets, for instance,
27:07where humans did not evolve.
27:09Being digital instead than biological clearly has some advantages in my opinion.
27:14Though they might not be appealing to everyone,
27:16take some fundamental note of the digital substrate,
27:18but first of all, you may readily create backup copies.
27:21You can save it as a file, same like with any other program,
27:24that is challenging given a biological brain.
27:26Being living entities, we are prone to mistakes.
27:29Even if you could halt aging, you might finally run across a bus or whatever.
27:34On the other hand, you would lose no more than 24 hours
27:37if you just stored a backup copy every day.
27:40Starting with physically scanning the brain,
27:42we are fascinated in its structural as well as functional aspects.
27:46We have to do a really thorough scan covering all of the neurons and their connections,
27:50as well as the momentum, that is the pulse frequency.
27:53One can approach this from several angles.
27:55One of these is fMRI scanning, which uses a strong magnetic field
27:59to get finely detailed pictures of your brain under active state.
28:02For medical purposes, fMRI technology is quite useful,
28:05but for mind uploading, it is not that great.
28:08Resolution provides the straightforward justification for this.
28:12The smallest voxel size on an fMRI at a Tesla level that isn't too high to survive
28:17is so rough and big that it just records highly broad brain activity.
28:21Nowadays, electron microscopy is somewhat common, unlike fMRI.
28:25It is carried out under a powerful microscope that magnifies brain anatomy using electrons instead of light.
28:30This year, scientists took a major step by finely detailed scanning an entire mouse brain.
28:35Alright, therefore, we are already really good in compiling the relevant data.
28:39Evaluating this information and then building a digital model depending on it presents the main difficulty.
28:45This clearly will take some time.
28:47For this reason, the startup Nectome is creating technologies meant to preserve human brains.
28:52Saving them for the future will help us to scan and upload them once mind uploading technology becomes possible.
28:58Right now, the whole mind uploading process seems to be rather challenging.
29:08So I pondered, what if there was a whole fresh approach to achieve it?
29:12Suppose there was a shortcut.
29:14What if a neural network can learn to duplicate the brain,
29:17that is, deduce the function from all of the outputs, even without a complete knowledge of the brain?
29:22Neural networks learn anything precisely this way.
29:25They essentially reverse engineer the function based on observations of a lot of output data from a black box.
29:31If you had enough of that, like a couple of decades of everything the particular individual did,
29:36then you could have a super intelligence looking at all that information and trying to infer from that
29:41what the brain would have been like to produce this data set even without looking inside the brain,
29:45but just looking at the output traces of, say, a human, the text they have produced.
29:51Maybe video feed and recordings?
29:53But if we could use this for mind uploading to solve the primary modeling barrier,
29:57then another group, for instance, is trying to launch a company similar to the well-known NextUp Neuro,
30:03with an emphasis on using LLMs, long language models,
30:06and comparable machinery tools to work on whole brain simulation.
30:10And that's not incorrect either.
30:12That is, in my view, a wise path to investigate as LLMs and other machine learning methods will surely be crucial
30:17in enabling neuroscience to become faster, more methodically, and better.
30:22Valuating a digital model, possibly with help from artificial intelligence,
30:26will prove to be the next big difficulty when we finally arrive at one.
30:30Assume a neural network has developed in the brain to carry out a function,
30:34but a neuroscientist is not sure what that function is.
30:37It is just some kind of neuronal activity.
30:39The important question is how you verify what you find incomprehensible.
30:43Still, these generative transformer models are quite helpful in filling in missing data since they know what to do.
30:50For instance, if you do an electron microscope scan and discover an area of the tissue where there was noise or something went wrong,
30:56it can help to fill in the blanks with most likely present.
30:59That is rather handy.
31:00But depending on the LLM to generate inferred output for a whole brain or draw conclusions becomes dangerous.
31:06This is so precisely what you do not want.
31:09The LLM has a propensity to eliminate personally unique data features.
31:13You want to replicate that particular human brain, not a broader likely human brain.
31:18You want that unique human brain.
31:20Then, raising the temperature will cause this LLM to become more creative to start to hallucinate.
31:25What it generates might thus not be what you had in mind.
31:28Thus, even if this looks like a great shortcut, we are not quite there yet.
31:32We have to first define the unique characteristics of the human brain before we may talk about mind uploading.
31:43Maybe we can just build digital brains and assume that one consciousness lives inside.
31:47Not only for our technology, but also for mankind as a whole.
31:50This is among the most ancient and important philosophical questions.
31:54Understanding the difference between a person and a robot and how they could coexist depends on knowing what the mind is, what generates our consciousness.
32:03I think this will be as important a turning point as mind uploading itself if we eventually solve the challenging issue of awareness.
32:11There might, however, another approach to handle this topic.
32:14What if we are not obliged to consider if a digital mind is really conscious?
32:18Suppose it's sufficient for this digital mind to act as though it were conscious.
32:21We are constantly using the so-called behaviorist method.
32:24When we talk to one another, we overlook whether the other person is really conscious or not.
32:29We just assume from their actions that the other person is conscious.
32:33With digital minds, we could apply this similar approach.
32:36Maybe the tough topic of awareness is not something we should discuss at all.
32:40Maybe all we need is for computer minds to act as though they are conscious.
32:45And this would be plenty to let us label them as aware entities.
32:49Should we be able to overcome these obstacles, we would reach digital immortality.
32:54Imagine a society in which aging, illness, or even death are not causes of concern anymore.
32:59We could live forever, travel the cosmos, and keep learning, developing, and changing.
33:03Mind uploading aims ultimately towards this.
33:06Although it still seems to be science fiction, technology is developing rapidly,
33:10and we are getting closer to bring it to pass.
33:13Mind uploading is still divisive, and many ethical, philosophical, and technical obstacles have to be overcome.
33:19Still, I am sure that with constant study, ingenuity, and teamwork, we may realize this ideal.
33:29Now consider if it would be possible to watch every neuron in our brains interacting.
33:34Track the relationships in real time.
33:37That's the wild hypothesis underlying mind uploading.
33:40Ultimately, we might be able to move our awareness from our bodies to a synthetic brain.
33:45It is a component of the transhumanist movement, which advocates harnessing technology to raise human capacities and perhaps extend our lives.
33:53Among the important intellectuals backing it are neuroscientist Randall Cohn, philosopher Nick Bostrom, and computer scientist Ray Kurzweil.
34:02Mind uploading excites the transhumans greatly.
34:05They think it will enable us to live as long as we want and accelerate our minds to run faster than they do right now.
34:11The challenge is that simulating the human brain is not an easy coracle.
34:16With around 86 billion neurons and trillion of connections, human brains are quite complex.
34:21In perspective, the Milky Way boasts only roughly 200 billion stars.
34:27Currently mapping simpler brains, including fruit flies, scientists plan to achieve the same with mouse brains over the next 10 years.
34:33Given that the human brain is 1,000 times more complex than that of a mouse, working it out will be quite difficult.
34:40Still, given the explosive speed at which technology is developing, mind uploading is probably going to become a reality in the lifespan of our children or grandkids.
34:50The difficult problem is that mapping the brain by itself is insufficient.
34:54Real-time observation of those neurons would be necessary to create a functional brain simulation.
34:59The big question then is would consciousness still exist if we could replicate a brain?
35:05Most thinkers nowadays agree that our ideas are closely entwined with our physical brains
35:10and that we would be able to recreate consciousness as well if we could replicate the structure of the brain in a computer.
35:16Still, let's delve further. Should we be able to upload our minds? Would the resulting copy or indeed be you?
35:22This has bearing on a well-known philosophical conundrum on identity.
35:27Some individuals feel you are the same person if you are the same biological creature.
35:30Others believe that over time memories and events link you.
35:33Imagine this, supposing your uploaded self and your biological self coexisted simultaneously.
35:40Who is your?
35:41While the upload is merely a mental clone, most people agree that the biological form is still the actual you.
35:50But supposing the only remaining was the upload, you would then beβ¦
35:59The scary thing is that many companies are really stretching the bounds of artificial intelligence avatars.
36:05Justin Harrison, CEO of You Only Virtual, Y-O-V, wants each time someone interacts with their avatars to offer a distinctive experience.
36:13Based on their digital footprints, messages, recordings, movies, etc., Y-O-V educates these virtual personas, sometimes called as personas, to replicate people's personalities.
36:24The amazing thing is that a persona doesn't just repeat past knowledge, its algorithm develops with every conversation, enabling it to retain specifics about the person with whom it is speaking.
36:34To keep current with events and debate films, news, and so forth, it can even start surfing the internet.
36:41The troubling point is that dead people have no say about their own persona.
36:45Y-O-V does not call for authorization for construction.
36:49Harrison says there are no regulations prohibiting it.
36:52Once you message someone, they now own the information and could use it.
36:56Though this would have little legal weight, people may perhaps ask not to be digitally revived in their wills.
37:02Y-O-V plans to get in touch with actual people whose conversations are being used right now and find out whether they wish to opt out.
37:08Harrison expects, therefore, that in this field, there will be many legal gray areas to negotiate.
37:19Harrison's first persona included his own mother, Melody.
37:22He simply wanted the gadget to act like her, including sending a million texts if he didn't answer fast enough.
37:29He was not bothered with copying her life story.
37:31Talking to this persona has been somewhat consoling for him, not because of her great knowledge, but rather because it sounds like his mother.
37:39He intends to have dinner with her once more utilizing augmented reality someday and questions where the line is between her real presence and her digital availability.
37:48Though imperfect, many find these artificial intelligence bots to be significant.
37:52Vlahos created the dad bot and still interacts with it sometimes.
37:55The bot makes clever, sarcastic remarks that shock Vlahos, even if it is not current events up to date.
38:01The times when he shows awareness of the outside world, like telling him he ought to get breakfast, are the ones that really make him amaze.
38:08People might be less lamenting mortality in the future.
38:12That person is still here for you.
38:14You could go on as usual cracking jokes and consulting her.
38:17Referring to the dead in the present tense could start to feel natural.
38:21It is a world in which only the departed are immune to death, not quite the singularity with totally sentient machines.
38:27As we explore this mind-bending future, where uploading our minds could be a reality, it really makes you wonder.
38:34Would you do it?
38:35If you had the chance to live on digitally, would you take it?
38:39Or does the idea freak you out a little?
38:41Maybe you're curious about how it would change your relationships or what it would feel like to exist in a computer.
38:46I'd love to hear what you think, so drop your thoughts in the comments below.
38:49If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to hit that like button and subscribe for more fascinating topics about where technology is taking us next.
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