Contemplating Mortality: Personal AIs, Mind Melds, and Brain Preservation — Three Paths to Our Postbiological Selves

Note: This is one of my more speculative posts, about events I expect to occur in in last few decades of this amazing century. Nevertheless, it has implications today, so perhaps you’ll find it worth a skim. As always, let me know what you think, here or privately at john@foresightu.com. Thanks.

When we presently die, most of our unique self, including, for most of us, the majority of our unique experiences, ideas, values, goals, and personality, currently dies with us. That can be a traumatic realization. Avoiding thinking about all that we, our loved ones, and the world will lose when we die may even be the primary reason (loss aversion bias) that we typically do so little future thinking about our own death. This article will now explore three important paths to a postbiological future of self.

The First Path to Our Postbiological Selves: Personal AIs

I’ve discussed the importance of Personal AIs (aka PAIs) in a previous Medium series. Briefly, they are a software agent that continually collects personal data on the user, and which increasingly understands and looks after the values, goals and tasks of the user. This agent (simulation, recommendation and intelligence system) will be continually improved by user use and feedback. Good governments will have to develop a host of useful regulations around their access, security, privacy, and use. In my view, the best…