In response to a Twitter user’s idea that Elon Musk was using the site to create digital replicas of our personalities in a “digital afterlife,” the social network’s new owner cryptically replied, “Maybe we first are in it.”
Several experts have commented on how tech billionaires seem obsessed with immortality, whether through biohacking or uploading their consciousness into a “Matrix”-style metaverse.
PayPal founder Peter Thiel said in 2012 that immortality is not impossible, “Death is a problem that can be solved.”
Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, predicted a future in which technology like Elon Musk’s Neuralink allows us to upload ourselves into machines: “We’re rapidly going to be non-biological to the point where The non-biological part dominates, and the biological part is no longer important.
“In reality,” Kurzweil continues, “the non-biological part—the machine part—will be so powerful that it will be able to model and understand the biological part perfectly.”
However, Rami Kaminsky of the Institute of Integrative Psychiatry believes that billionaires’ desire for endless life is “adolescent”.
“You can go to Mars,” he says, “but you can’t go to the solar system.” He claims that Internet billionaires have a “limited” view of life, saying, “What they’re trying to do is get away from the mortal coil. Every day when you look in the mirror. So you’re reminded that you’re made of carbon. It’s destructive and has to be recycled.”
In a lengthy Twitter thread last month, American data scientist Emily Gorcinski predicted a future in which the human race will split into “digital” personalities living on computer servers and computer cores in a crumbling physical world. The working class maintains the structure.
“Understanding the metaverse means you have to understand that rich technocrats actually believe they’ll be able to upload their consciousness before they die,” she says of Jeff Bezos’ metaverse.
“Metaverse isn’t being built to revolutionize remote work. It’s being built because they need to believe they can make heaven.
But, as she argues, it’s a difficult concept to sell, so the dominant discourse in the metaverse revolves around entrepreneurship and remote work. That said, no one has requested virtual reality business meetings.
Emily added that even if the digital afterlife is effectively developed, we will not be able to take full advantage of it.
“The servers running the Metaverse have been physical. They require electricity as well as spare parts. They are breakable. Consequently, humans need to keep them alive.
“In the Metaversal future, there will be a class of humans tasked with taking care of the Heaven of the Gods.”
“There are *many* people who would be deeply offended by the idea of an artificial paradise. Many who would be violent to stop it,” she continues. There are many who would resort to violence to stop it. are