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Virtually Human
A groundbreaking and compelling book that gives readers an in-depth understanding of the most thought-provoking and important technological innovation of the twenty-first century
Every day, social media is automatically uploading our thoughts, memories, preferences, beliefs, and history to a virtual existence, essentially creating a "mindfile" of ourselves. Thousands of software engineers across the globe are working on "mindware" to create from these mindfile personalities and humanlike consciousness in computer software, or cyberconsciousness. In the next decade or two, these efforts will result in the first digital copies of our identities, which will be our "mindclones."
In Virtually Human, Martine Rothblatt shares her insights into how cyberconsciousness will manifest in our lives, and what we need to consider when a new, high-tech population of mindclones awakens to the rights, privileges, and obligations humans take for granted.
Virtually Human conveys a profound understanding of how close we are to achieving a full simulation of the human brain via software and computer technology in clear, positive language, and raises numerous ethical and moral questions we absolutely need to address now, before the technology becomes commercially viable and accessible to all of us. Virtually Human will be the essential companion book to the future of mankind.
Every day, social media is automatically uploading our thoughts, memories, preferences, beliefs, and history to a virtual existence, essentially creating a "mindfile" of ourselves. Thousands of software engineers across the globe are working on "mindware" to create from these mindfile personalities and humanlike consciousness in computer software, or cyberconsciousness. In the next decade or two, these efforts will result in the first digital copies of our identities, which will be our "mindclones."
In Virtually Human, Martine Rothblatt shares her insights into how cyberconsciousness will manifest in our lives, and what we need to consider when a new, high-tech population of mindclones awakens to the rights, privileges, and obligations humans take for granted.
Virtually Human conveys a profound understanding of how close we are to achieving a full simulation of the human brain via software and computer technology in clear, positive language, and raises numerous ethical and moral questions we absolutely need to address now, before the technology becomes commercially viable and accessible to all of us. Virtually Human will be the essential companion book to the future of mankind.
368 pages, Paperback
First published September 9, 2014
58 people are currently reading
1107 people want to read
About the author
Martine Rothblatt
15 books42 followersMartine Aliana Rothblatt is an American lawyer, author, and entrepreneur. She graduated from UCLA with a MBA/JD degree in 1981, then began work in Washington, D.C. in the field of communication satellite law, and eventually in life sciences projects like the Human Genome Project. She holds a Ph.D. and is currently the founder and CEO of United Therapeutics Corp.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
December 22, 2018
Dr. Martine Rothblatt, an expert in medical ethics, takes the time to imagine a future in which artificial intelligence is real and the potential problems that could arise from such interactions.
Unfortunately, I found Virtually Human to be virtually unreadable.
The introduction sounded promising enough — a description of the robot that Dr. Rothblatt created and its capabilities — but then Dr. Rothblatt launches into an abstract conversation about what is consciousness. She applies her definition to hypothetical artificial intelligences, which haven't been created yet, and proceeds into a dizzying array of potential scenarios involving mindclones and "bemans".
She talks about potential marriages between people and machines, various types of AI — some dysfunctional, some not — voting rights, reproduction rights, and more. It all reads like a discussion of very dry, very abstract human rights law mixed with a smidgen of science fiction, but not enough to be engaging.
Dr. Rothblatt certainly knows her stuff, but is seemingly unable to impart her knowledge in an approachable manner. Perhaps, I should say, this is a book that would probably be enjoyed by scholars interested the subject.
I suppose this might be more interesting when such technology actually exists, but in the meantime, it seems rather pointless to be asking ourselves if mindclones should have the right to vote or not. I'm not convinced that by asking ourselves unanswerable questions we'll be better prepared for when/if this sort of thing actually occurs. Maybe we'll just have to take life as it comes.
I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads.
Unfortunately, I found Virtually Human to be virtually unreadable.
The introduction sounded promising enough — a description of the robot that Dr. Rothblatt created and its capabilities — but then Dr. Rothblatt launches into an abstract conversation about what is consciousness. She applies her definition to hypothetical artificial intelligences, which haven't been created yet, and proceeds into a dizzying array of potential scenarios involving mindclones and "bemans".
She talks about potential marriages between people and machines, various types of AI — some dysfunctional, some not — voting rights, reproduction rights, and more. It all reads like a discussion of very dry, very abstract human rights law mixed with a smidgen of science fiction, but not enough to be engaging.
Dr. Rothblatt certainly knows her stuff, but is seemingly unable to impart her knowledge in an approachable manner. Perhaps, I should say, this is a book that would probably be enjoyed by scholars interested the subject.
I suppose this might be more interesting when such technology actually exists, but in the meantime, it seems rather pointless to be asking ourselves if mindclones should have the right to vote or not. I'm not convinced that by asking ourselves unanswerable questions we'll be better prepared for when/if this sort of thing actually occurs. Maybe we'll just have to take life as it comes.
I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads.
February 1, 2016
This book reads thickly and dryly- like a legal document for something that doesn't exist yet. And by legal document I mean exactly like a legal document (minus occassional examples sprinkled throughout that break up the drudgery).
The text is a long monologue, not once trying to include the reader in what is being said, just throwing a bunch of ideas at them.
It's highly repetitive, saying the same thing over and over again in different sentence structures (just like in a legal document) to ensure that the reader 100% understands whats being said and leaves no room for the imagination to run wild.
Every aspect of "mind clones" -a term which is repeated at least 5 or 6 times on EVERY PAGE- is maniacly milled over as if the author saw a grand vision of the future, was told to write about it by a boss, and couldn't be more enthusiastic about it. LITERALLY every possible angle of societal norm and perception is adressed in regards to assimilating something that doesn't exist yet to the point where you feel like your sitting in a boring polisci or history lecture... about something that someone just...came up with...
If give this book 2 stars if it actually hadn't had some interesting information in it. At some points I've actually considered 4 stars. But again, it reads like an essay a student wrote just to pass a strict class in hopes of never touching the subject again. And although I'll remember the fascinating ideas the author put into my head (which in many ways is the only thing that matters here) I'll never be touching this book myself again either.
Thank you and good night.
The text is a long monologue, not once trying to include the reader in what is being said, just throwing a bunch of ideas at them.
It's highly repetitive, saying the same thing over and over again in different sentence structures (just like in a legal document) to ensure that the reader 100% understands whats being said and leaves no room for the imagination to run wild.
Every aspect of "mind clones" -a term which is repeated at least 5 or 6 times on EVERY PAGE- is maniacly milled over as if the author saw a grand vision of the future, was told to write about it by a boss, and couldn't be more enthusiastic about it. LITERALLY every possible angle of societal norm and perception is adressed in regards to assimilating something that doesn't exist yet to the point where you feel like your sitting in a boring polisci or history lecture... about something that someone just...came up with...
If give this book 2 stars if it actually hadn't had some interesting information in it. At some points I've actually considered 4 stars. But again, it reads like an essay a student wrote just to pass a strict class in hopes of never touching the subject again. And although I'll remember the fascinating ideas the author put into my head (which in many ways is the only thing that matters here) I'll never be touching this book myself again either.
Thank you and good night.
February 7, 2018
1) Review + 2) personal highlights:
Review
Interesting to read some theory behind Bina48 and mindclones. The questions it addresses are relevant and inspiring (What is consciousness? When I merge with a mindclone, will we still be 1 me? How about the voting system when we have digital mindclones and bemans? Will they outnumber flesh people? How will the early discrimination take form?)
Sometimes I was missing nuance and found the book a propaganda pamflet for Mindclones. Rothblatt seems to have an answer for every risk. E.g. 'mindware can be designed with antivirus software and error-correcting routines to protect one against false memories.' p. 144 --> that is just naive and I don't believe Rothblatt actually thinks it will be so easy to protect us and our mindclones against wrong doing. Furthermore I was missing a discussion about singularity: when we can create mindclones, how easy will it be to create a superintelligence? Luckily there are other books on that subject and I understand you can't address every subject in a book (although superintelligence and mindclones are closely connected).
Anyway, overall I'm grateful Rothblatt put together her thoughts and work in this book. It was an interesting read! :)
Personal highlights
• Kurzweil about the neocortex: self-organizing system of about 300 million modules, each of which can learn, remember and process a pattern. p. xii
• Kurzweil: 2030 we will expand our neocortex in the cloud p. xii
• Kurzweil: recreating computational capacity of the human brain requires about 10 to the fourteenth power or 100 trillion calculations per second. --> early 2020 computers will have this power p. xiii
• sofware called mindware, that will activate a mindfile and operate a mindclone p. 3
• it isn't necessary to copy every funciton of the human brain in order to generate thougth, intelligence, and awareness. (a plain is not a bird) p. 4
• the mindclone is to the consciousness and spirit as the prosthetic is to an arm that has lost its hand. p. 10
• Vast wealth awaits the programming teams that create personal digital assistants with the conscientiousness and obsequiousness of a utopian worker. p.11
• Definition Human Cyberconsiousness = A continuum of software-based human-level autonomy and empathy as determined by consensus of a small group of experts in matters of human consciousness. p. 17 -> It is a Turing test 2.0: convince a group of experts instead of just a human, and on the subjects of autonomy and empathy.
• Daniel C. Dennett: 'Whatever else a mind is, it is supposed to be something like our mind; otherwise we wouldn't call it a mind." p. 18
• In the 1940's a computer was usually a person whose job it was to make calculations. p. 19
• essentialist vs materialists. Essentialists "Minds arise only in humans owing to the miraculous human brain." Materialists: "Minds arise in and owing to any suitably complex computing substrate." Middle position: 'Minds arise only in and owing to the unique biology of the human brain". Outside the circles: "Minds arise in any substrate that supports mental processes owing to spiritual (nonempirical) intervention." Rothblatt is a materialist.
• relational - database concept: 'meaning derives both form the correlated firing... and from the linkages to related representations. For example, neurons related to a certain face might be connected to ones expressing the name of the person whose face it is, and to others for her voice, memories involving her and so on, in a vast associational network, similar to a dictionary or a relationship database. p. 33
• the brain is vastly more complex, variable, self-organizing, unpredictable, and dynamic than any computer. p. 37
• We already try to guess the level of consciousness of someone in trials, based on our assessment of the subject's own reports of their consciousness. p. 42
• Consiousness experts will rise. p. 43
• It is unlikely that matching the number of human-brain neurons with the number of processors will be necessary to replicate the mind. p. 48
• Mindclones are around the decade corner. p. 49
• The U.S. government is following up on the Human Genome Project with a Brain Activity Map, ad decade-long effort meant to chart the activity of the brain's billions of neurons in hope of gaining greate insights into perception, actions, and, ultimately, consciousness. p. 53
• We already have digital doubles (Facebook behaviour data, etc.). p. 57
• 'Vitology' is a neologismm for the study of cyberlife, just as "biology"is the term for the study of cellular life. p. 62
• Paulk Ekman (universal emotions and microexpressions) and facial recognition, emotion recognition software as building blocks for mindclones. p. 63
• Stress does not affect a robot's judgment in the way it affects a soldier's. p. 65
• The field of regenerative medicine will ultimately permit ectogenesis, the rapid growth outside of a womb of a fresh, adult-size body in as little as twenty months. p. 66
• More older people = a need for mindcloens, p. 67
• My experience is that the uncanny valley is a myth. p. 67
• Groups that will be devoted to mindclones: acedemicians, gamers, defense, medical technologists, IT industry, "maker movement" p. 62 - 69
• Therefore, I'm confident that those who create mindclones will experience the profound, life-altering event of having redefined themselves as a dual-platform consciousness. p. 70
• We earth dwellers never appreciated who we were so well as when we received the photograph from space of our blua-and-white planet suspended in inky black space. p. 74
• The question of diachronic selfness: How much of our identity must persist through time to be the same identity? p. 75
• It will be a crucially important element of mindware design to ensure that most things are forgotten, (otherwise there will be to much difference between original and clone) p. 77
• Psychically we are a melange of many more people's bemes (aquired beingsness characteristcs). p. 85
• Yale bioethicist Wendell Wallach: "The similarities and the differences tell humans much about who and what they are. As AMAs become more sophisticated they will come to play a corresponding role as they reflect humans' values. For humanity's understanding of ethics, there can be no more important development. p. 90
• The overall pie of life will be much larger, for it will now include vitology as well as biology. p. 93
• Daniel Dennett: we developed conciousness because of the evolutionary advance of antcipating on thoughts of members of the troop: It helped creating a better future. Mindclones will help in creating a better future as well. p. 93
• Bemans: human beingness with cyberconsciousness and human identity. Minclone = copied mind coupled to origin. p. 97
• Negative eugenics = getting rid of certain genotypes or phenotypes, positive eugenics is affirmative efforts to enhance the gentic stoch of one's offspring. p. 98
• Euthenics are changes to the environment to help you better adapt. It's a slippery slope from euthenics to enhancement to eugenics, but there are also plenty of safe plateaus between. p. 99
• Vitology incroporates Lamarckism. p. 100
• Definition Ethical behavior: that which maintains a healthy balance between personal or group freedom (what can be called respect for diversity) on the one hand, and community or national cohesion (what can be called respect for unity) on the other hand. p. 104
• Hence, if mindclones reason ethically they will accept the premise that all conscious lives are connected such that a harm to one or some is a harm, or at least a heightened risk of harm, to all. p 105
• Society will have plenty of tools at its disposal for tracking down fleshophobic vitology, including legions of citizen mindclones. p. 107
• Reasons mindclones won't kill us: 1) We don't usually kill our own families, 2) We don't usually act against our own self-interest (mindclones will be tracked and punished for bad behaviour), 3) We rarely do significant things for no reason 4) The exceptions prove the rule p. 109 -111
• Our minds can be in two or more places but have the same identity. Indeed, this is why we say "the beme is mightier than the gene." p. 115
• How to begin creating mindclones when they will be half-bake consiousnesses at first. Won't they suffer? We will need to develop mindware module wise. Only combine the modules once perfected. p. 116
• When you have a mental disorder: do you want to clone that part as well? Parallels with natural reproduction. p. 126
• Identifying mindclones, p. 136
• terminating a mindclone is not murder, terminating a beman = murder. p. 141 (not true imo)
• The freedom to create a mindclone, or even a novel cyberbeing, is part of our reproductive rights, and thus something to be steadfastly preserved. p. 143
• False memories could be created (p. 144)
• Technology democratized. I can't think of a technology that hasn't democratized. p. 147
• As with flying and phoning, so it will be with mindcloning. At first there wil be just a few mindclones, likely reated by wealthy people, technologists, or high-tech companies trying them on for size. p. 149
• Two reason mindcloning will rapidly democratize: 1) marginal costs once it is available to replicate the procedure 2) economic interest of the persons having mindclone technology to share it as broadly as possible. p. 150
• Ultimately there are visions of cyberspace replicating biospace. If nanotechnology fulfills its promise of enabling the purposeful construction of any form from atoms, then biological forms could be constructed to also contain infromation technology and thus also be a piece of cyberspace. p. 160
• Discrimination against mindclones and bemans and marriage between humans and minclones/bemans will arise. p. 164
• Today, fleshism is a dominant human philosophy; indeed, it is the 'default' position of many humans. Fleshism comes as a result of lack of experience with and knowledge of non-flesh conscious beings. p. 165
• How about voting? Mindclone = unity with original person. Beman = own identity so voting rights. Will they outrgrow normal people in numbers? Maybe a partial vote since then can only be part of a part of 'flesh life'? p. 185-189
• How about regulation and relegions? P. 190-260
• Becoming a mindclone may be so perilous to our snese of identity that at first people will eschew the experience. In a imiliar vein, only a tiny fraction of humanity is willing to ride atop a rocket ship into space, and a smalle fraction still to depart form the life we know in a timewarping light-speed starship. We call them astronauts, or cosmonauts, and perhaps we will come to call similarly adventurous mindcloners "lifenauts". p. 289
Review
Interesting to read some theory behind Bina48 and mindclones. The questions it addresses are relevant and inspiring (What is consciousness? When I merge with a mindclone, will we still be 1 me? How about the voting system when we have digital mindclones and bemans? Will they outnumber flesh people? How will the early discrimination take form?)
Sometimes I was missing nuance and found the book a propaganda pamflet for Mindclones. Rothblatt seems to have an answer for every risk. E.g. 'mindware can be designed with antivirus software and error-correcting routines to protect one against false memories.' p. 144 --> that is just naive and I don't believe Rothblatt actually thinks it will be so easy to protect us and our mindclones against wrong doing. Furthermore I was missing a discussion about singularity: when we can create mindclones, how easy will it be to create a superintelligence? Luckily there are other books on that subject and I understand you can't address every subject in a book (although superintelligence and mindclones are closely connected).
Anyway, overall I'm grateful Rothblatt put together her thoughts and work in this book. It was an interesting read! :)
Personal highlights
• Kurzweil about the neocortex: self-organizing system of about 300 million modules, each of which can learn, remember and process a pattern. p. xii
• Kurzweil: 2030 we will expand our neocortex in the cloud p. xii
• Kurzweil: recreating computational capacity of the human brain requires about 10 to the fourteenth power or 100 trillion calculations per second. --> early 2020 computers will have this power p. xiii
• sofware called mindware, that will activate a mindfile and operate a mindclone p. 3
• it isn't necessary to copy every funciton of the human brain in order to generate thougth, intelligence, and awareness. (a plain is not a bird) p. 4
• the mindclone is to the consciousness and spirit as the prosthetic is to an arm that has lost its hand. p. 10
• Vast wealth awaits the programming teams that create personal digital assistants with the conscientiousness and obsequiousness of a utopian worker. p.11
• Definition Human Cyberconsiousness = A continuum of software-based human-level autonomy and empathy as determined by consensus of a small group of experts in matters of human consciousness. p. 17 -> It is a Turing test 2.0: convince a group of experts instead of just a human, and on the subjects of autonomy and empathy.
• Daniel C. Dennett: 'Whatever else a mind is, it is supposed to be something like our mind; otherwise we wouldn't call it a mind." p. 18
• In the 1940's a computer was usually a person whose job it was to make calculations. p. 19
• essentialist vs materialists. Essentialists "Minds arise only in humans owing to the miraculous human brain." Materialists: "Minds arise in and owing to any suitably complex computing substrate." Middle position: 'Minds arise only in and owing to the unique biology of the human brain". Outside the circles: "Minds arise in any substrate that supports mental processes owing to spiritual (nonempirical) intervention." Rothblatt is a materialist.
• relational - database concept: 'meaning derives both form the correlated firing... and from the linkages to related representations. For example, neurons related to a certain face might be connected to ones expressing the name of the person whose face it is, and to others for her voice, memories involving her and so on, in a vast associational network, similar to a dictionary or a relationship database. p. 33
• the brain is vastly more complex, variable, self-organizing, unpredictable, and dynamic than any computer. p. 37
• We already try to guess the level of consciousness of someone in trials, based on our assessment of the subject's own reports of their consciousness. p. 42
• Consiousness experts will rise. p. 43
• It is unlikely that matching the number of human-brain neurons with the number of processors will be necessary to replicate the mind. p. 48
• Mindclones are around the decade corner. p. 49
• The U.S. government is following up on the Human Genome Project with a Brain Activity Map, ad decade-long effort meant to chart the activity of the brain's billions of neurons in hope of gaining greate insights into perception, actions, and, ultimately, consciousness. p. 53
• We already have digital doubles (Facebook behaviour data, etc.). p. 57
• 'Vitology' is a neologismm for the study of cyberlife, just as "biology"is the term for the study of cellular life. p. 62
• Paulk Ekman (universal emotions and microexpressions) and facial recognition, emotion recognition software as building blocks for mindclones. p. 63
• Stress does not affect a robot's judgment in the way it affects a soldier's. p. 65
• The field of regenerative medicine will ultimately permit ectogenesis, the rapid growth outside of a womb of a fresh, adult-size body in as little as twenty months. p. 66
• More older people = a need for mindcloens, p. 67
• My experience is that the uncanny valley is a myth. p. 67
• Groups that will be devoted to mindclones: acedemicians, gamers, defense, medical technologists, IT industry, "maker movement" p. 62 - 69
• Therefore, I'm confident that those who create mindclones will experience the profound, life-altering event of having redefined themselves as a dual-platform consciousness. p. 70
• We earth dwellers never appreciated who we were so well as when we received the photograph from space of our blua-and-white planet suspended in inky black space. p. 74
• The question of diachronic selfness: How much of our identity must persist through time to be the same identity? p. 75
• It will be a crucially important element of mindware design to ensure that most things are forgotten, (otherwise there will be to much difference between original and clone) p. 77
• Psychically we are a melange of many more people's bemes (aquired beingsness characteristcs). p. 85
• Yale bioethicist Wendell Wallach: "The similarities and the differences tell humans much about who and what they are. As AMAs become more sophisticated they will come to play a corresponding role as they reflect humans' values. For humanity's understanding of ethics, there can be no more important development. p. 90
• The overall pie of life will be much larger, for it will now include vitology as well as biology. p. 93
• Daniel Dennett: we developed conciousness because of the evolutionary advance of antcipating on thoughts of members of the troop: It helped creating a better future. Mindclones will help in creating a better future as well. p. 93
• Bemans: human beingness with cyberconsciousness and human identity. Minclone = copied mind coupled to origin. p. 97
• Negative eugenics = getting rid of certain genotypes or phenotypes, positive eugenics is affirmative efforts to enhance the gentic stoch of one's offspring. p. 98
• Euthenics are changes to the environment to help you better adapt. It's a slippery slope from euthenics to enhancement to eugenics, but there are also plenty of safe plateaus between. p. 99
• Vitology incroporates Lamarckism. p. 100
• Definition Ethical behavior: that which maintains a healthy balance between personal or group freedom (what can be called respect for diversity) on the one hand, and community or national cohesion (what can be called respect for unity) on the other hand. p. 104
• Hence, if mindclones reason ethically they will accept the premise that all conscious lives are connected such that a harm to one or some is a harm, or at least a heightened risk of harm, to all. p 105
• Society will have plenty of tools at its disposal for tracking down fleshophobic vitology, including legions of citizen mindclones. p. 107
• Reasons mindclones won't kill us: 1) We don't usually kill our own families, 2) We don't usually act against our own self-interest (mindclones will be tracked and punished for bad behaviour), 3) We rarely do significant things for no reason 4) The exceptions prove the rule p. 109 -111
• Our minds can be in two or more places but have the same identity. Indeed, this is why we say "the beme is mightier than the gene." p. 115
• How to begin creating mindclones when they will be half-bake consiousnesses at first. Won't they suffer? We will need to develop mindware module wise. Only combine the modules once perfected. p. 116
• When you have a mental disorder: do you want to clone that part as well? Parallels with natural reproduction. p. 126
• Identifying mindclones, p. 136
• terminating a mindclone is not murder, terminating a beman = murder. p. 141 (not true imo)
• The freedom to create a mindclone, or even a novel cyberbeing, is part of our reproductive rights, and thus something to be steadfastly preserved. p. 143
• False memories could be created (p. 144)
• Technology democratized. I can't think of a technology that hasn't democratized. p. 147
• As with flying and phoning, so it will be with mindcloning. At first there wil be just a few mindclones, likely reated by wealthy people, technologists, or high-tech companies trying them on for size. p. 149
• Two reason mindcloning will rapidly democratize: 1) marginal costs once it is available to replicate the procedure 2) economic interest of the persons having mindclone technology to share it as broadly as possible. p. 150
• Ultimately there are visions of cyberspace replicating biospace. If nanotechnology fulfills its promise of enabling the purposeful construction of any form from atoms, then biological forms could be constructed to also contain infromation technology and thus also be a piece of cyberspace. p. 160
• Discrimination against mindclones and bemans and marriage between humans and minclones/bemans will arise. p. 164
• Today, fleshism is a dominant human philosophy; indeed, it is the 'default' position of many humans. Fleshism comes as a result of lack of experience with and knowledge of non-flesh conscious beings. p. 165
• How about voting? Mindclone = unity with original person. Beman = own identity so voting rights. Will they outrgrow normal people in numbers? Maybe a partial vote since then can only be part of a part of 'flesh life'? p. 185-189
• How about regulation and relegions? P. 190-260
• Becoming a mindclone may be so perilous to our snese of identity that at first people will eschew the experience. In a imiliar vein, only a tiny fraction of humanity is willing to ride atop a rocket ship into space, and a smalle fraction still to depart form the life we know in a timewarping light-speed starship. We call them astronauts, or cosmonauts, and perhaps we will come to call similarly adventurous mindcloners "lifenauts". p. 289
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 24, 2019
A book about non existing technology and everything inbetween.
Read this if you'r bored, and want to strain you'r brain on non exiting problems.
Read this if you'r bored, and want to strain you'r brain on non exiting problems.
December 5, 2017
Plenty of substance and food for thought, even if several major arguments (and many supporting arguments) don't hold up. I was largely unconvinced by Rothblatt's insistence that a virtual mindclone would maintain continuous identity with its biological analogue. I do believe such an entity would be conscious, and continuity would exist from the perspective of the mindclone as well as that of a hypothetical observer. But there is another perspective: that of the biological analogue. I'm not saying I don't believe it's (hypothetically) possible to make such a leap, establishing a truly continuous identity (through some kind of habituation process that takes place over months or years?), but Rothblatt's argument that the difference in subjectivities is ipso facto moot felt like a shell game of sophistry. Moreover, her ontological assumptions -- resting heavily on logical positivism and neoliberal techno-optimism -- didn't sit well with me.
Criticisms notwithstanding, this book presents many insightful observations and analyses of the moral, legal, and ethical ramifications of creating sentient AIs, with or without biological referents. And, for all its flaws, Virtually Human does point generally to the inevitable social and economic transformations (at minimum) that will no doubt result from the emergence of sentient artificially intelligence, and it does present something of a framework for navigating that landscape.
Criticisms notwithstanding, this book presents many insightful observations and analyses of the moral, legal, and ethical ramifications of creating sentient AIs, with or without biological referents. And, for all its flaws, Virtually Human does point generally to the inevitable social and economic transformations (at minimum) that will no doubt result from the emergence of sentient artificially intelligence, and it does present something of a framework for navigating that landscape.
July 28, 2016
It all seems so wonderful, the promise minus the perils, of a digital immortality with a networked system not unlike what is currently available in most countries - Telus is soon upgrading to 4G, so the singularity is immanent, according to their ads! But with all the numerous typos, a repeated sentence (substitute "and" for "as" on top of page 11) and the general positivist view that all of humanity will get on-board with the mind being cloned in a box, it took a while to warm up to the big idea. Asides from Ray Kurzweil and a couple other science fiction luminaries, it would be a surprise if many others pick up on the revolutionary transhumanism, and will mostly be an underground evolution one hope will survive the Gibsonian jackpot humanity is racing towards.
August 20, 2017
Absolutely fascinating on so many levels. For anyone with any interest in AI, history, genealogy, or the future this is highly recommended reading. Martine Rothblatt is nothing short of a genius and someone who is really ahead of her time. This will be a book that I will want to revisit many times just due to the breadth of information being presented.
December 13, 2017
She attempts to lay out some initial talking points for society: ethics, legality, our own association with them, and more. To her credit, the science and tech is as accurate as I can judge, and easily approachable. But the entire book has left me with an uncomfortable feeling of over optimism.
More than a few times I found myself withdrawing from the text based on how dripping ethically superior she sounds. It's clear she is preparing to fight a war, and framing her opponents from the start.
Getting past the emotional issues I had with her tone, there were some fairly serious issues she left out, glazed over, and didn't account for. I'll post a separate blog (the first of my life, thanks Martine!) about them. That entry won't cover minor issues though. And there are a plethora of those: logical falsies, post-modernism views of truth, just... eh.
She likely *is* correct about the timelines and emerging beings, so it's great to be aware of. I just happen to be on the other side of her opinions on what is next.
More than a few times I found myself withdrawing from the text based on how dripping ethically superior she sounds. It's clear she is preparing to fight a war, and framing her opponents from the start.
Getting past the emotional issues I had with her tone, there were some fairly serious issues she left out, glazed over, and didn't account for. I'll post a separate blog (the first of my life, thanks Martine!) about them. That entry won't cover minor issues though. And there are a plethora of those: logical falsies, post-modernism views of truth, just... eh.
She likely *is* correct about the timelines and emerging beings, so it's great to be aware of. I just happen to be on the other side of her opinions on what is next.
April 21, 2019
The author provides us with an expansive discourse on the exponential rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into a virtual world of mind-clones and bemans that will compete with humans at every level. She valiantly marshalls her resources from the latest In AI but there are many unanswered questions. Materialistically one can create a robot but how does one crash the threshold of the real world to ensure consciousness or create soul into a given set of algorithms even if they match all my characteristics. Her book is worth reading for the background it covers and its many assumptions and futuristic speculations.
February 15, 2021
I’m going to have to return to this again because there are so many thoughts packed in here, very dense in a good way. I agree with the reviewer who says she is ahead of her time (also in a good way).
March 27, 2023
While the content of the book is interesting enough and the information is adequate and we’ll researched, the book itself makes for a terrible read for those not very well acquainted with the subject. It proved to be a boring novel that was a slog to get through
June 15, 2019
A good book among many on this interesting, subject. I can't get enough. Augmented reality? Yes please!
April 4, 2022
if you held a gun to my head, still the only thing i could tell you about mindclones is how they cum
March 3, 2017
The times they are a-changin'. Advances in technology have brought us the Internet, smartphones, the sharing economy, cryptocurrencies, and automation. Every day, people all around the world are uploading their thoughts, memories, preferences, beliefs, and history to social media websites, essentially creating "mindfiles" of themselves. Software engineers across the globe are working to create "mindware" that will combine this mindfile data with humanlike consciousnesses in computer software to create "cyberconsciousness". Within the next few decades, the combination of mindfiles and mindware will result in something called "mindclones", which will essentially be an extension of our own human consciousnesses. That is the premise of Virtually Human: The Promise—and the Peril—of Digital Immortality, and Martine Rothblatt goes into great detail about the societal implications of this technological innovation.
This is the sort of book that needs to be read multiple times to fully comprehend. I would definitely recommend it to others, but would caution them that it can be a bit slow to get into. For the first third of the book, I just wasn't hooked. But things definitely picked up and I became really interested in the discussion. It seems like Rothblatt has a deep understanding of where things are headed in the future, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence. Her arguments are well thought-out and thoroughly-researched, and definitely worth considering. If you have any interest in the concept of extending our consciousness past physical bodies and into the realm of computers, this is a must read.
This is the sort of book that needs to be read multiple times to fully comprehend. I would definitely recommend it to others, but would caution them that it can be a bit slow to get into. For the first third of the book, I just wasn't hooked. But things definitely picked up and I became really interested in the discussion. It seems like Rothblatt has a deep understanding of where things are headed in the future, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence. Her arguments are well thought-out and thoroughly-researched, and definitely worth considering. If you have any interest in the concept of extending our consciousness past physical bodies and into the realm of computers, this is a must read.
October 24, 2014
A well written and researched book on the near-future of artificial minds, or sentient digital clones, perhaps within the next few decades and possibly within my lifetime. Virtually Human: The Promise - and the Peril - of Digital Immortality optimistically discusses our future, where digital copies of our minds not only come from, but also coexist with our fleshy selves.
The author, Martine Rothblatt, a lawyer and entrepreneur, practices what she preaches, or writes in this book. She has been a part of the efforts to create robots. As a family activity, her spouse, Bina Rothblatt, is the co-founder of the Terasem Movement Foundation, whose LifeNaut project created Bina48, a lifelike robot modeled after Bina. This clone is fully capable of carrying on a conversation, including facial gestures, along with giving several press interviews.
The author described mindclones from mindfiles, collections of data that reflect our unique life experiences and assembled from all possible sources, including Facebook, blogs, and other social media sources. Furthermore, unknown by many, much of the data needed to create this file is already being collected. Mindware is the artificial intelligence software necessary to read these mindfiles to generate one's mindclone. We should serious be concerned about what we post on the Internet.
Although this seems like science-fiction, the necessary technology currently exists, with thousands of software engineers throughout the world working to create cyberconsciousness based on human consciousness. Also, the author proposes a more radical concept that although these robots aren't flesh, or human, they deserve protection, and even the right to vote, marry, and have sexual relations with others. As a Fleshist, who currently supports human-only rights in these areas, I find it difficult to imagine robots having the same rights I have. Maybe, it's the literature and movies throughout history that gives me my concerns.
Theoretically, robots have been around for thousands of years, beginning with the talking bronze and clay statues in classical works of Homer and Plato. When I grew up, I became familiar with the modern robots from Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury, and my favorite was the helpful Class M-3 Model B9, General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot and his oft-repeated lines of "Warning! Warning" and "Danger, Will Robinson!" from the 1960s Lost in Space shows. More recently, we have the more-powerful and leathal cyborg robots from the Terminator films, along with the helpful android serving as the chief operations officer about the Federation Starship USS Enterprise-D. Although some of these robots have been beneficial to humans, my concern is that others have been harmful. The robots we envision as our tireless, loyal friends easily could and most probably morph into frighteningly formidable adversaries.
What's to stop us from creating, or having a robot create, an Agent Smith bent on hunting down and eliminating flesh humans who realize that they're actually in a computer program, or even a Robocop that can blast humans with immense firepower if they don't comply with their demands in "20 seconds." The one that haunted me most since I was a child was the Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey that was willing to kill people if they threatened to turn it off, even capable of reading lips.
Virtually Human is a well-written book with an extensive list of notes that would be a welcomed addition to one's academic library. Still, I'm very concerned that my children may become vulnerable to assimilation by the Borg or other inanimate cyberconscious system. Perhaps, we should take heed to the warnings of Mary Shelley and refrain from trying to become God in creating life.
The author, Martine Rothblatt, a lawyer and entrepreneur, practices what she preaches, or writes in this book. She has been a part of the efforts to create robots. As a family activity, her spouse, Bina Rothblatt, is the co-founder of the Terasem Movement Foundation, whose LifeNaut project created Bina48, a lifelike robot modeled after Bina. This clone is fully capable of carrying on a conversation, including facial gestures, along with giving several press interviews.
The author described mindclones from mindfiles, collections of data that reflect our unique life experiences and assembled from all possible sources, including Facebook, blogs, and other social media sources. Furthermore, unknown by many, much of the data needed to create this file is already being collected. Mindware is the artificial intelligence software necessary to read these mindfiles to generate one's mindclone. We should serious be concerned about what we post on the Internet.
Although this seems like science-fiction, the necessary technology currently exists, with thousands of software engineers throughout the world working to create cyberconsciousness based on human consciousness. Also, the author proposes a more radical concept that although these robots aren't flesh, or human, they deserve protection, and even the right to vote, marry, and have sexual relations with others. As a Fleshist, who currently supports human-only rights in these areas, I find it difficult to imagine robots having the same rights I have. Maybe, it's the literature and movies throughout history that gives me my concerns.
Theoretically, robots have been around for thousands of years, beginning with the talking bronze and clay statues in classical works of Homer and Plato. When I grew up, I became familiar with the modern robots from Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury, and my favorite was the helpful Class M-3 Model B9, General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot and his oft-repeated lines of "Warning! Warning" and "Danger, Will Robinson!" from the 1960s Lost in Space shows. More recently, we have the more-powerful and leathal cyborg robots from the Terminator films, along with the helpful android serving as the chief operations officer about the Federation Starship USS Enterprise-D. Although some of these robots have been beneficial to humans, my concern is that others have been harmful. The robots we envision as our tireless, loyal friends easily could and most probably morph into frighteningly formidable adversaries.
What's to stop us from creating, or having a robot create, an Agent Smith bent on hunting down and eliminating flesh humans who realize that they're actually in a computer program, or even a Robocop that can blast humans with immense firepower if they don't comply with their demands in "20 seconds." The one that haunted me most since I was a child was the Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey that was willing to kill people if they threatened to turn it off, even capable of reading lips.
Virtually Human is a well-written book with an extensive list of notes that would be a welcomed addition to one's academic library. Still, I'm very concerned that my children may become vulnerable to assimilation by the Borg or other inanimate cyberconscious system. Perhaps, we should take heed to the warnings of Mary Shelley and refrain from trying to become God in creating life.
March 6, 2016
I read this book for the first four chapters which do make for interesting reading regarding what constitutes thought and thinking. The latter part of the book was really more philosophy of what might happen socially should you ever be able to clone a mind.
This whole section, while modestly interesting, I really think went too far to conclusion and could use a more aggressive sounding board. It's interesting, but it is largely opinion supported loosely by philosophical musings. We don't know how this innovation will present itself precisely and what particularly will result in making people want to clone their brain. We don't know if the brain cloning would happen whole outside of the individual and to what degree it would happen. We don't even know the nature of what we could do other than send annoying ads to people with the predictive data that currently exists.
We just don't know. The author runs all the way past that to a series of assumptions that one would wholesale clone the brain, all brains any brains independent of the body. Maybe... but given which is easier to replicate with machinery to scale, an aggressive assumption. Why does it matter, b/c half her musings involve no corporeal being. Not that that matters, except to point out the simple fact that the author has run so far past the goal post. Come back to us a little and just focus deeper thoughts in the immediate. You'll be far more accurate on how it all plays out.
What I liked though in the first four chapters:
P 12 The idea of emotions being tied into the concept of definition of alive
P 15: The idea that we cannot define sentience via consciousness because the unconscious is as much a part of the actual activity and definition (This concept from Freud)
P 20 - The change in vernacular that transitions a world in preparation for AI that has human characteristics vs. data crunch, i.e. Smart Phone vs. artificial intelligence
P 26 - "Brains are awesome relational databases." - well said. I hate the argument that is subsequently made that you might be able to just scale up the brain mechanically. If your purpose is to just imperfect model an amazing piece of equiptment, sure. But shouldn't we be ONLY doing that for the purpose of modeling the perfect piece of equipment. It's a bit like building a wireline telco network when you already know about wireless.
P. 50 - "Knowledge is the only resource that the more you exploit it, the more you have to exploit." Interesting....
All of Chapter 2 - the idea your virtual self partially exists... we know it, but have we really thought about it and its applications enough? Nice.
After that, it's not my cup of tea, so 3 stars, but others may be looking for just this, i.e. some starting place to consider the socio-philosophical issues surrounding AI. I already made clear my thoughts.
This whole section, while modestly interesting, I really think went too far to conclusion and could use a more aggressive sounding board. It's interesting, but it is largely opinion supported loosely by philosophical musings. We don't know how this innovation will present itself precisely and what particularly will result in making people want to clone their brain. We don't know if the brain cloning would happen whole outside of the individual and to what degree it would happen. We don't even know the nature of what we could do other than send annoying ads to people with the predictive data that currently exists.
We just don't know. The author runs all the way past that to a series of assumptions that one would wholesale clone the brain, all brains any brains independent of the body. Maybe... but given which is easier to replicate with machinery to scale, an aggressive assumption. Why does it matter, b/c half her musings involve no corporeal being. Not that that matters, except to point out the simple fact that the author has run so far past the goal post. Come back to us a little and just focus deeper thoughts in the immediate. You'll be far more accurate on how it all plays out.
What I liked though in the first four chapters:
P 12 The idea of emotions being tied into the concept of definition of alive
P 15: The idea that we cannot define sentience via consciousness because the unconscious is as much a part of the actual activity and definition (This concept from Freud)
P 20 - The change in vernacular that transitions a world in preparation for AI that has human characteristics vs. data crunch, i.e. Smart Phone vs. artificial intelligence
P 26 - "Brains are awesome relational databases." - well said. I hate the argument that is subsequently made that you might be able to just scale up the brain mechanically. If your purpose is to just imperfect model an amazing piece of equiptment, sure. But shouldn't we be ONLY doing that for the purpose of modeling the perfect piece of equipment. It's a bit like building a wireline telco network when you already know about wireless.
P. 50 - "Knowledge is the only resource that the more you exploit it, the more you have to exploit." Interesting....
All of Chapter 2 - the idea your virtual self partially exists... we know it, but have we really thought about it and its applications enough? Nice.
After that, it's not my cup of tea, so 3 stars, but others may be looking for just this, i.e. some starting place to consider the socio-philosophical issues surrounding AI. I already made clear my thoughts.
August 12, 2018
For the purposes of this review, know that a mindclone is the consciousness of a human captured digitally which can exist alongside the human original without being considered separate, and can exist after the human body has died.
"Creating a mindclone is much more momentous than having a child or getting married."
I feel like this quote encapsulates the issues I have with this book. The author makes a lot of assumptions about how people and institutions will react to cyberconsciousness, and I think she misses the boat on a few things. For example, with regards to religious acceptance of mindclones, she asserts that most religions will somewhat effortlessly accept them as members, but she fails to explore the issue of baptism without a body.
I was ultimately left with more questions than answers at the end of this book. What happens when a beman (a child of two mindclones) wants to run for office? What happens when a Supreme Court justice or other life term political power creates a mindclone? How do we treat the trauma of a mindclone that has just witnessed and will remember its human original's death, particularly if that death is violent? Do cyberpsychologists (the profession responsible for evaluating the authenticity of mindclones and bemans and granting them citizenship) always have to be humans as implied in the book, and if so, doesn't that make mindclones and bemans an oppressed group, going against every assertion made by the author that they should have equal human rights?
Anyway, this book was super dense and dry and really presumptuous. After reading it, I have no desire to create a mindclone. I'm happy to move on at the end of my life so my loved ones have room for new experiences and relationships. Some of that may be a result of my Christian beliefs, or my age and lack of interest in technology. But...if this is in our future, it's pretty incredible, and I think her cautions to plan ahead for legislation and codes of ethics is insightful and necessary.
"Creating a mindclone is much more momentous than having a child or getting married."
I feel like this quote encapsulates the issues I have with this book. The author makes a lot of assumptions about how people and institutions will react to cyberconsciousness, and I think she misses the boat on a few things. For example, with regards to religious acceptance of mindclones, she asserts that most religions will somewhat effortlessly accept them as members, but she fails to explore the issue of baptism without a body.
I was ultimately left with more questions than answers at the end of this book. What happens when a beman (a child of two mindclones) wants to run for office? What happens when a Supreme Court justice or other life term political power creates a mindclone? How do we treat the trauma of a mindclone that has just witnessed and will remember its human original's death, particularly if that death is violent? Do cyberpsychologists (the profession responsible for evaluating the authenticity of mindclones and bemans and granting them citizenship) always have to be humans as implied in the book, and if so, doesn't that make mindclones and bemans an oppressed group, going against every assertion made by the author that they should have equal human rights?
Anyway, this book was super dense and dry and really presumptuous. After reading it, I have no desire to create a mindclone. I'm happy to move on at the end of my life so my loved ones have room for new experiences and relationships. Some of that may be a result of my Christian beliefs, or my age and lack of interest in technology. But...if this is in our future, it's pretty incredible, and I think her cautions to plan ahead for legislation and codes of ethics is insightful and necessary.
June 20, 2016
People are so anthropocentric they even imagine aliens as their own (very unlike spiders, for example). They make Earth the center of the universe. They make themselves the center of universe. We even have personal gods who take care of all our shit.
Believing, yes, believing human being will remain same and will remain having "feelings" after body (parts) removal is a great underestimation of possible. 90% of all thoughts are in the croc-brain 3-theme category (e.g. sex, food, danger). Without adrenaline, without testosterone, low sugar levels in the blood you will not feel => think anything in those categories. Without skin receptors you will not feel gravity, you will not feel pain that make the usual human "feelings" for everyday life.
On marriage. Why people marry? They fear death ("danger"), they need sex ("sex"), not inc;luding all beings have the need for touch ("stimulation of receptors"), and they need betetr survival ("food"). A little less is need for communication. With mindware you probably can achieve the best possible communication (mind to mind) with anyone. Why you need marriage then? For mindware made children? A bit nonsense, we can't imagine what's possible.
"How creating as god will increase the ego." Also nonsense, because ego as information gravitation center function can increase its size when decreasing information. Having ability to get all the information in the world would diminish ego. Eliminating all hormones will dissolve ego too. Comparison with Steve Jobs is useless as he's an anomaly, probably with psychic problems.
True creators realize they don't know everything and it keeps them in check. Just try to trade, you can feel the god when you win, but reality will average this anomaly down and soon you'll realize the truth along with deletion of excess ego (talking about averages, for course).
So, interesting book, but not very insightful (lacks a lot of multidisciplinary understanding).
Believing, yes, believing human being will remain same and will remain having "feelings" after body (parts) removal is a great underestimation of possible. 90% of all thoughts are in the croc-brain 3-theme category (e.g. sex, food, danger). Without adrenaline, without testosterone, low sugar levels in the blood you will not feel => think anything in those categories. Without skin receptors you will not feel gravity, you will not feel pain that make the usual human "feelings" for everyday life.
On marriage. Why people marry? They fear death ("danger"), they need sex ("sex"), not inc;luding all beings have the need for touch ("stimulation of receptors"), and they need betetr survival ("food"). A little less is need for communication. With mindware you probably can achieve the best possible communication (mind to mind) with anyone. Why you need marriage then? For mindware made children? A bit nonsense, we can't imagine what's possible.
"How creating as god will increase the ego." Also nonsense, because ego as information gravitation center function can increase its size when decreasing information. Having ability to get all the information in the world would diminish ego. Eliminating all hormones will dissolve ego too. Comparison with Steve Jobs is useless as he's an anomaly, probably with psychic problems.
True creators realize they don't know everything and it keeps them in check. Just try to trade, you can feel the god when you win, but reality will average this anomaly down and soon you'll realize the truth along with deletion of excess ego (talking about averages, for course).
So, interesting book, but not very insightful (lacks a lot of multidisciplinary understanding).
December 12, 2016
The topic is a good excuse to take a romp through the mind of the brilliant Dr. Rothblatt. I imagine this book will be treasured by the author's children and descendants as a vehicle for presenting the author's thoughts on science and philosophy.
I do think the author is careless on the topic of power. The throw-away call to morality that closes the book is not enough to address inequality and power, either on the topic of mindclones or as a romp through the author's thoughts. We cannot fool ourselves into thinking that the advantages of this, or any, technology will be evenly distributed. The powerful are already able to pass wealth for hundreds of years, what now if they themselves can live forever?
In fact, the author's focus on all of the other aspects of morality with no attention to this one makes the problem even worse. The author suggests an expensive regulatory process for certifying a mindclone which would guarantee it's accessibility only to the very wealthy.
With that criticism, as someone whose exposure to Dr. Rothblatt is from her scientific work, the fact that she addresses spirituality and ethics seriously is something other scientists would do well to learn from and something which is certainly lacking in our industry. There was a time in the past when scientists were the most educated people of society, and somehow we have lost that. Dr. Rothblatt sounds like one of those educated scientists from past centuries.
Lastly, I noticed that this book could also be read as a gloss on race relations in the USA, and its a comparison the author herself brings up frequently- the useful body that inconveniently has a soul. When the author focuses on morality, this is the focus and the thing that holds us back from all other things, including mindclones. And perhaps the author's response to my criticism is that acknowledging all souls is even more important that acknowledging other less fundamental inequalities of power. And that could be.
I do think the author is careless on the topic of power. The throw-away call to morality that closes the book is not enough to address inequality and power, either on the topic of mindclones or as a romp through the author's thoughts. We cannot fool ourselves into thinking that the advantages of this, or any, technology will be evenly distributed. The powerful are already able to pass wealth for hundreds of years, what now if they themselves can live forever?
In fact, the author's focus on all of the other aspects of morality with no attention to this one makes the problem even worse. The author suggests an expensive regulatory process for certifying a mindclone which would guarantee it's accessibility only to the very wealthy.
With that criticism, as someone whose exposure to Dr. Rothblatt is from her scientific work, the fact that she addresses spirituality and ethics seriously is something other scientists would do well to learn from and something which is certainly lacking in our industry. There was a time in the past when scientists were the most educated people of society, and somehow we have lost that. Dr. Rothblatt sounds like one of those educated scientists from past centuries.
Lastly, I noticed that this book could also be read as a gloss on race relations in the USA, and its a comparison the author herself brings up frequently- the useful body that inconveniently has a soul. When the author focuses on morality, this is the focus and the thing that holds us back from all other things, including mindclones. And perhaps the author's response to my criticism is that acknowledging all souls is even more important that acknowledging other less fundamental inequalities of power. And that could be.
March 4, 2018
The woman who started Sirius Satellite Radio discusses what she believes to be the inevitability of humans cloning their minds to 'digital substrates'. Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D., J.D., MBA, raises and proposes answers to a variety of questions concerning the creation, legal status, integration into society, and even spirituality of digital persons of two types. The first are copies of our own minds, including our personalities and memories. The second are novel creations who may be either 'children' (blends) of mindclones or engineered without specific personal antecedents (parents). Rothblatt is strongest when parsing the legal and sociological issues, fair (though lacking technical details) when discussing the technologies involved in creating digital people, and weakest when straying into the entirely speculative (I should say fantastical) area of what sorts of relationship synthetic humanoid minds could have with supernatural deities. Anyone interested either in the sociological and legal considerations or in a highly generalized overview of methods should read the book. It will also spark a stream of ideas in the brains of sci-fi and fantasy fans and writers.
Most surprising quote: "... His Holiness [the Dalai Lama] announced that upon his death he would reincarnate as the emergent consciousness of IBM's next chess playing mainframe computer, which he believes will be called Deep Mind."
Most surprising quote: "... His Holiness [the Dalai Lama] announced that upon his death he would reincarnate as the emergent consciousness of IBM's next chess playing mainframe computer, which he believes will be called Deep Mind."
November 5, 2014
VIRTUALLY HUMAN is a science/philosophy/trans-humanist work which describes the future of AI, and the interpersonal/cultural/legal/practical implications for the world upon AI's widespread presence. Though the sub-straight of future clones is up for debate, the philosophical questions are posed and many are answered in this fascinating and lengthy book. It is well worth your time if you enjoy trans-humanist topics, futuristic ideas, and technology in general. Luddites and philistines need not apply.
August 11, 2014
It was a good book, HAD LOTS OF FUN INFORMATION in it... not my style of reading, very interesting, but again it felt more like a science book, then an informational book. It was good to meet Bina48 and learn by winning a giveaway. Going to be giving this book to my Dad, he is more interested in books like this :) Scary thought a robot being so human.
I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
March 21, 2016
Anticipates the impact and issues (legal, societal, religious/spiritual) that will arise with very advanced artificial intelligence. Too much detail and speculation for this topic. The book presumes we will suddenly find ourselves in a super advanced setting of AI, not the probable situation in which AI technology evolves over time.
February 3, 2015
I won this novel in the First Read's giveaway! A very fascinating read about the virtual life of an individual, of us all. I learn something from every book I read and Virtually Human is no different; I was very pleased with Martine Rothblatt's writing style and enjoyed the read.
August 22, 2015
Fascinating and overly optimistic. Brain backups and human level AI may be much closer than I suspected. Rothblatt glides over the perils, making straw man arguments to promote a rosy view of the possibilities.
January 2, 2015
I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
I wanted to get into this book but I couldn't.
I wanted to get into this book but I couldn't.
May 31, 2015
A lot of great speculation!
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