Elon Musk says a lot of things that appear fanciful. For example, Elon Musk, the millionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, appears to believe that by transferring their brains into robots, humans would be able to live indefinitely.
“I believe that is achievable,” Musk, 50, told Insider recently. “Yes, we could download the characteristics that we believe distinguish us. Of course, if you’re no longer in that body, there will be a difference, but as far as keeping our memories and personalities, I believe we can do it.” The idea of prolonging human life by downloading consciousnesses into synthetic bodies has been a staple of science fiction for decades, with such people being referred to as “comes” in the 1964 sci-fi novel “Dune.” Some experts believe that “mind uploading” technology may be possible in the future, but the timing is quite hazy.
Graziano pointed out that building the artificial brain would be quite simple. “However, in order to upload a human brain, we’d need a scanner that doesn’t kill the subject and can scan around a hundred million times as many details,” he wrote. “That technology isn’t available yet.” Mind uploading could happen in a few decades, according to the most optimistic projections, but I wouldn’t be astonished if it took centuries.”
If mind uploading becomes a reality in the not-too-distant future, the Musk household has some ideas about who might want to test it: Musk’s co-parent and ex-partner Grimes described Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos as “going to be a cymek” in a recent interview with Vanity Fair.
Though Bezos, 58, has a track record of investing in longevity and anti-aging research, he has not publicly indicated any interest in such technologies. He did not immediately react to a request for comment from CNBC Make It.
