Digital Immortality

In 30 years, humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal, Google has predicted

17:08 06 July 2016

The idea of uploading brain into computers is a staple of science fiction. However, Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering in Google, said that this might become a reality as soon as 2045. If achieved, this will make the dream of going beyond the limitations of the body come true.

 

Referred to as transhumanism, it is the belief that science will be able to provide ways for humans to evolve beyond their current physical forms and realise these dreams of transcendence.

 

By converting human minds into digital data and uploading them to an immensely powerful computer, people will be able to live in world of unbounded virtual experiences and effectively achieve immortality. 

 

Kurzweil also claimed that biological parts of the body can also be replaced with mechanical parts and this could be a possibility as early as 2100.

 

He said: 'Based on conservative estimates of the amount of computation you need to functionally simulate a human brain, we'll be able to expand the scope of our intelligence a billion-fold.'

 

In his book, The Singularity Is Near, he plots this development and journey towards singularity, also referred to as digital immortality, in a graph.