Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital Immortality

Virtually Human explores what the not-too-distant future will look like when cyber consciousness - simulation of the human brain via software and computer technology - becomes part of our daily lives. 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 backup 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, but the nascent technology already exists. Thousands of software engineers across the globe are working to create cyber consciousness 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 cyber consciousness and Rothblatt, with a Ph.D. in medical ethics, is uniquely qualified to lead the dialogue.

Ingenious... a thoughtful philosophical exploration of the role of virtual humans in our future. Kirkus Reviews Exponential technologies are driving a new dimension of human evolution. In her compelling book, Virtually Human, Martine Rothblatt outlines how artificial consciousness is just around the corner, and explores the scientific and ethical ramifications. Science fiction is rapidly becoming science fact and the implications are breathtaking. Virtually Human is critical reading to anyone who plans to be around for the next couple of decades. Peter H. Diamandis, MD, CEO, XPRIZE; Exec Chairman, Singularity University; New York Times bestselling author of Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think. We are in the midst of a war between biological and electronic brains for dominance in our hybrid population. Bio-brains are, so far, ahead based on their inventiveness, energy-efficiency and exponential improvement rate. Will ethics asymmetrically restrict engineering humans or will it equally apply soon to virtually human electronic brains? Martine's insights on these and many other topics are timely and welcome. George Church, Harvard Professor, and author of Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. Virtually Human is a fascinating read that clearly brings Alan Turing into the 21st century. I have argued that we are DNA-software driven machines and as we expand digital-biological interconversions, Martine's mind clones and functional avatars are a logical outcome. Only by attempting to recreate models of humans will we truly begin to understand ourselves. Virtually Human is a great beginning. J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., author of Life At The Speed Of Light and creator of the first synthetic cell In Virtually Human, Martine Rothblatt builds on the observation that I think, therefore I am in ways that Descartes could not have imagined. With the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence, Rothblatt predicts that we soon will confront cyberconsciousness comparable to indeed, indistinguishable from the human mind. When we cross this technological Rubicon, we will be forced to reconsider the meaning of concepts as foundational as life and death, law and liberty, love and kinship. Bringing to bear the lessons of history, philosophy, psychology, law and science, Rothblatt makes abundantly clear that these unprecedented challenges will define the humanity not just of our technological doppelgangers but of ourselves. Rachel F. Moran, Dean and Michael J. Connell Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law, and author of Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race and Romance Martine Rothblatt delivers an engaging exploration of the pathway to the near-term realization of our digital clones, and through the many ethical, legal, and spiritual challenges their advent will pose. Even skeptics, like myself, will find Virtually Human an intriguing vision filled with profoundly challenging ideas. Wendell Wallach, Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, co-author of Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong. The social struggle over the moral status of uploaded personalities and machine minds will be as fraught and momentous as the struggles to end slavery and extend women's suffrage. In Virtually Human, Martine Rothblatt brings her remarkable intellect and profound ethical insight to this issue in a way that will make it essential reading. James J. Hughes, Ph.D., Executive Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies Martine Rothblatt's combination of stunning intellect, imagination, and optimism about the future take us to places that most of us can't yet contemplate, but should. The term renaissance person is overused, but so deserved in Rothblatt's case. With her unparalleled expertise from several fields and deep.Ray Kurzweil --Various