Virtually Human
eBook - ePub

Virtually Human

The Promise—and the Peril—of Digital Immortality

  1. 388 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Virtually Human

The Promise—and the Peril—of Digital Immortality

About this book

Virtually Human explores what the not-too-distant future will look like when cyberconsciousness—simulation of the human brain via software and computer technology — allows our consciousness to be present forever.
Meet Bina48, the world's most sentient robot, commissioned by Martine Rothblatt and created by Hanson Robotics. Bina48 is a nascent Mindclone of Martine's wife that can engage in conversation, answer questions, and even have spontaneous thoughts that are derived from multimedia data in a Mindfile created by the real Bina. If you're active on Twitter or Facebook, share photos through Instagram, or blogging regularly, you're already on your way to creating a Mindfile—a digital database of your thoughts, memories, feelings, and opinions that is essentially a back-up copy of your mind. Soon, this Mindfile can be made conscious with special software—Mindware—that mimics the way human brains organize information, create emotions and achieve self-awareness.
This may sound like science-fiction A.I. (artificial intelligence), but the nascent technology already exists. Thousands of software engineers across the globe are working to create cyberconsciousness based on human consciousness and the Obama administration recently announced plans to invest in a decade-long Brain Activity Map project. Virtually Human is the only book to examine the ethical issues relating to cyberconsciousness and Rothblatt, with a Ph.D. in medical ethics, is uniquely qualified to lead the dialogue.

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Yes, you can access Virtually Human by Martine Rothblatt,Ralph Steadman in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Semantics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Notice
  4. Contents
  5. Foreword
  6. Introduction
  7. Dedication
  8. 1. The Me in the Machine
  9. 2. Our Doppelgängers Already Exist
  10. 3. Mindcloning, Natural Selection, and Digital Eugenics
  11. 4. Pardon Me While I Have Technical Difficulties
  12. 5. Elbow Room
  13. 6. Evolution or Revolution?
  14. 7. Rethinking Kinship Systems
  15. 8. Law and Liberty
  16. 9. G-d and Mindclones
  17. 10. The Future of Forever
  18. Glossary
  19. Notes
  20. Also by Martine Rothblatt
  21. About the Author
  22. Acknowledgments
  23. Selected Bibliography
  24. Index
  25. Copyright