Question by Dr.™: R&S: Would you download yourself onto a computer for true eternal life?
“Playstation 5 will probably be as powerful as the human brain.” By the year 2050, it is quite possible that we will have the choice to download our brain onto supercomputers. Would you take part in this and become immortal(ish)?
Fundies, try not to get the splattered remains of your head on my question – thanks.
——— Article on this! ——–
London, England — By the middle of the 21st century it will be possible to download your brain to a supercomputer, according to a leading thinker on the future.
Ian Pearson, head of British Telecom’s futurology unit, told the UK’s Observer newspaper that the rapid advances in computing power would make cyber-immortality a reality within 50 years.
Pearson said the launch last week of Sony’s PlayStation 3, a machine 35 times more powerful than the model it replaced, was a sign of things to come.
“The new PlayStation is one percent as powerful as the human brain,” Pearson told the Observer. “It is into supercomputer status compared to 10 years ago. PlayStation 5 will probably be as powerful as the human brain.”
Pearson said that brain-downloading technology would initially be the preserve of the rich, but would become more available over subsequent decades.
“If you’re rich enough then by 2050 it’s feasible. If you’re poor you’ll probably have to wait until 2075 or 2080 when it’s routine,” he said.
“We are very serious about it. That’s how fast this technology is moving: 45 years is a hell of a long time in IT.”
Pearson also predicted that it would be possible to build a fully conscious computer with superhuman levels of intelligence as early as 2020.
IBM’s BlueGene computer can already perform 70.72 trillion calculations a second and Pearson said the next computing goal was to replicate consciousness.
“We’re already looking at how you might structure a computer that could become conscious. Consciousness is just another sense, effectively, and that’s what we’re trying to design in computer.”
Pearson said that computer consciousness would make feasible a whole new sphere of emotional machines, such as airplanes that are afraid of crashing.
By 2020 Pearson also predicted the creation of a “virtual world” of immersive computer-generated environments in which we will spend increasing amounts of time, socializing and doing business.
He said: “When technology gives you a life-size 3D image and the links to your nervous system allow you to shake hands, it’s like being in the other person’s office. It’s impossible to believe that won’t be the normal way of communicating.”
But Pearson admitted that the consequences of advancing technologies needed to be considered carefully.
“You need a complete global debate,” he said. “Whether we should be building machines as smart as people is a really big one.”
Shini, by 2050 it will be only for the rish – however us poor folk can get it around 2075-2080!
Dead fundie, that’s why I added the “ish.” 
Best answer:
Answer by Indie Jesus
LMFAO
Give your answer to this question below!
Hell Yeh!
I would play Call of Duty all the time!
yeah, how much is this going to cost?
That wouldn’t really be nuclear holocaust-proof, would it?
Yeah, I’d try it. Why not?
How could a computer be as smart as a person if it couldn’t run without electricity?
Oh, I take your point. Just a couple of questions remain:
Should we be building machines as dumb as people? That’s a real big one but not as big as:
Why would you want to live forever?
immortal?i’ll just unplug you.
yes, as long as I can watch porn on myself
lol. Journey within and explore the inner world with ease, just as the outer world.
The brain is far too complex to download, fool. We don’t even know how to take information out of a brain, let alone download it.
And it’s going to take a lot longer than just 2050.
By the way, you do realize they expect a computer to run faster than the brain can by the year 2020, right? And a computer that can run faster than the whole human population by the year 2050, right?
Its all good until there is a power outage or someone takes the network down or hackers pwn your soul online lol
I usually skip posts that are this long. But I have to say that Pearson is dragging his feet on his predictions. I’d subtract at least 20 years from each of them.
And, no. For me, the world has to be one heck of a different place for me to grouse about as a human computer chip. Maybe put me in remote storage for a few-thousand years then let me look around — with the option of exercising total delete.
I’m Miley Cyrus.. I never die.
It would be a big mistake. I read of a civilization on another world that tried it. And all they wanted to do was get out. They could basically do anything they wanted with their brain in the computer, but they could not do the dance of life, they could not move their bodies, and they were no longer happy, but they had imprisoned themselves, and there was nothing anybody could do to help them, so the visitors left them in as they found them. Didn’t sound too good to me…
Did you ever see the episode of Numbers where they thought that had been done?
And that the Super-computer had murdered someone?
Pretty interesting, because by the end of it, they concluded
that “computer consciousness” is rather a contradiction in terms…
I definitely would, so long as they conveniently forgot the failsafes keeping the downloaded immortal-ish people from wriggling into important places and taking over the world. I could be Skynet!
It would be spectacular!
Not if it’s going to be running Windows. I wouldn’t trust my cybernetic essence to the Blue Screen of Death.