Photo: Kimberly White/Getty Images for GLAAD
I remember years ago I read a story about Brad Pitt spending $250,000 on a coffee table. That’s right, a quarter of a million dollar on a coffee table, and I remember thinking to myself, “Man, I want to be so rich one day that I spend loads on useless garbage.” Well, one guy is so rich that he has the funds to “live forever.”
Entrepreneur Sam Altman, a Silicon Valley billionaire is putting down $10,000 to have himself killed and have his brain uploaded into a computer. All of this done by the folks at Nectome. Altman is actually one of 25 people who have already signed up to be hooked up to a machine and then pumped full of Nectome’s custom embalming chemicals, which according to them is “100 percent fatal.” Essentially it is “physician-assisted suicide.”
Here’s what Nectome’s co-founder Robert McIntyre had to say:
“Our mission is to preserve your brain well enough to keep all its memories intact: from that great chapter of your favorite book to the feeling of cold winter air, baking an apple pie, or having dinner with your friends and family. We believe that within the current century it will be feasible to digitize this information and use it to recreate your consciousness.”
The reality, however, is that physician-assisted suicide is currently only legal in five out of 50 US states, and individuals seeking it must have a terminal illness, as well as a prognosis of six months or less to live. As crazy as it sounds, the idea of uploading our consciousness into a computer is gaining ground among techies and scientists.
Futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson previously told The Sun that in 50 years time we’ll be able to transfer our brains to the cloud (tech speak for online storage).
That way you’ll be able to “use any android that you feel like to inhabit the real world,” he said.
In conclusion: if you’re rich and the thought of living in a computer is your thing, well then go right ahead and let a bunch of nerds in lab coats put you down.
