Electronic People

Dmitry Ikskov is a Russian billionaire. He is the founder of the 2045 Initiative. The goal of the project is "to create technologies enabling the transfer of an individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society." In other words, the goal is to allow people to live forever.

It sounds wonderful, too good to be true. With this technology you can go on enjoying life forever. When an electronic copy of your brain is placed in some sort of robotic body, you no longer have to worry about the slings and arrows that flesh is heir to. Instead of leaving your money to some ungrateful heirs, you can continue to enjoy it. You'll be able to eat rich food, drink champagne, make love to beautiful people.

Wait! Robots can't eat or drink—anything. And love? Only in the platonic sense. Will your money last for centuries? If you don't have a pile of money when you pass on, how will you maintain yourself in this life after life? Have you thought about those things?

Before you sign up to have an electronic copy of your brain made to be put into some kind of robotic body, you need to ask yourself a lot of questions. First of all, will this procedure be available to everyone? Obviously, it will not. The process will take a lot of time and will cost a lot of money. Many people already are resentful of the privileges that are available only to the affluent. It will not seem fair that well-to-do people, who already have so much, will add extended or even eternal life.

If the practice becomes widespread, what will we do with all these electronic people? How will they support themselves? Will they keep biological people from the best jobs? Will they want to continue working? How will ordinary people react to them? If ePeople continue to work, they will hold most of the senior positions in their field by virtue of their seniority. Do we want our businesses and institutions run by people whose thinking is decades out of date? Do we want to keep our talented younger workers from moving into leadership positions?

If these electronic people choose not work, what will they do with their time? Will they just sit back and complain about what a mess the younger people are making of things?

Where will they live? Will the typical family include the robotic parents of both husband and wife? And in time, maybe the parents' parents? Or since their needs will not be the same as those of biological people, maybe the ePeople will live in special housing units or even special communities, like those that exist now for senior citizens.

Most retired people live on a combination of Social Security and a pension. Will these income sources dry up after people cease to be alive biologically? Will the people who run Social Security and other pensions say, “Sorry, you have died. You can't expect this money to be coming to for eternity”? If pension plans continue to pay out, they will eventually run out of money. If they don't continue to support ePeople, how will they pay for their needs? If they continue working they will take away the earning of biologic prople.

Will ePeople be accepted by biological people, or will they be regarded as some grotesque Frankenstein monsters by real people? How will electronic people respond to seeing most of their friends pass away?

Will the ePeople still be considered citizens? Will it be legal for them to vote or run for office?

Will this extension of the natural life be pleasant, or will it be a burden to the electronic people as well as to the biological people around them?

According the Psalm 10:90, The days of our years are three score years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Maybe there are some things that people should not fool around with.