The First Stages of Mind Uploading

Often I speculate how exactly mind uploading will evolve and what path it will take before it becomes a reality. As I discussed in a previous post, one possibility is a "super Facebook," or a website that stores virtually all of one's personal qualities and quirks to the point of recreating the person's personality, or consciousness. This would require incredibly complex algorithms that generate personalities based on people's individual preferences and rely on sharing experiences, thus it may be impractical, if not impossible.

Another, perhaps more practical route would be in the form of brain-machine technology. Eventually, it will become common to connect our brains with computers and the vast resources of the internet. The majority of us will have visual and auditory recording devices embedded into our sensory organs, thus digitizing our senses. These devices will effectively record everything we see and hear (basically the mature version of lifecasting).

Additionally, we will be able to connect our brains to devices that monitor our reactions to external events. Through analyzing our responses to daily situations and having access to our memory banks in the form of recorded media, we will have made the first steps towards truly replicating human personalities.

It may be more difficult to create independently intelligent artificial beings, but these archived personalities will likely be our first steps toward creating truly virtual humans. Thus this is the path I believe mind uploading will take as it matures into a realized technology.