H+ Review of “Virtually Human:The Promise and Peril of Digital Immortality
“Virtually Human explores what the not-too-distant future will look like when cyberconsciousness—simulation of the human brain via software and computer technology—becomes part of our daily lives.” by Martine Rothblatt Ph.D., MBA, J.D.
Martine is a lawyer, entrepreneur, and medical ethicist. In 1990 she founded and served as Chairman and CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio (now Sirius XM). When her daughter was diagnosed with a rare disease, Martine left Sirius to search for a cure which she found. She founded United Therapeutics in 1996 and has since served as Chairman and CEO. Martine is also a leading legal advocate for the human rights and has led the IBA in presenting the UN with a draft treaty on the genome and one of the founders of the Tersem movement as well.
In this book Rothblatt suggests that we’ll soon be surrounded by mindclones, digital copies of ourselves that are conscious or what Rothblatt calls “cyberconscious” digital entities. Your mindclone will be exactly like you, indistinguishable, but running on an advanced computer and software system which does not quite yet exist today. But Rothblatt argues it isn’t that far away.
