When will we upload our consciousness to the cloud?
[Music]. as long as people have been alive. they've wanted to stay alive and for. centuries explorers have searched for. the fountain of youth and today. scientists are hard at work researching. technology that can extend the human. lifespan stop a reverse aging and even. preserve a terminally ill person. indefinitely until a cure for their. disease is discovered but what if. instead of preserving our bodies we. could preserve our consciousness by. uploading it to a powerful computer this. is called mind uploading and one startup. has developed a procedure to do exactly.
this it's scientifically sound there's a. waiting list to participate and the. procedure. is 100 fatal. let's find out why. [Music]. there is no limit to human desire. unfortunately or fortunately depending. on your perspective there is a limit to. our lifespan. what if we could upload our memories. experiences or entire consciousness to. the cloud this would be a sort of. digital immortality and it might not be.
as far-fetched as you think famous. futurist ray kurzweil believes we'll be. able to upload our entire minds to. computers by 2045 and by the end of the. century our entire bodies will be. replaced by machines now this might be a. bit optimistic but it really is just a. matter of time but there are a few. issues we need to solve first the. concept of uploading an entire human. brain is called whole brain emulation. and there are three main areas of. technology that make this possible. scanning processing power and. environment let's start with brain.
scanning the complete map of the brain. is called the connectome and mapping. this is the holy grail and so far we've. only been able to map the complete. connectome of one creature. the nematode and the nematode brain has. about 300 neurons that doesn't sound so. odd well the human brain has over 80. billion neurons oh right but i guess a. heckle fish brain has even more neurons. in it well. and our 80 billion neurons are connected. by about 100 trillion synapses then you.
have neurotransmitters proteins hormones. and all kinds of electrochemical. processes to replicate now all of this. needs to be mapped and understood before. we can even consider uploading now our. current imaging technology just isn't. good enough to map this out there are. methods that are better like cutting the. brain into millions of slices and then. using an electron microscope to scan all. the cells and synapses but this. technique is destructive we know that it. works though because this was done with. mice in 2019 a cubic millimeter of a.
mouse brain a cubic millimeter of a. mouse brain was successfully mapped. using this technique now cubic. millimeter is only the size of a grain. of sand but this piece of brain contain. 100 000 neurons and over a billion. synapses but this brings us to the. second problem with mind uploading. processing power and storage space when. that tiny piece of mouse brain tissue. was imaged it used about two petabytes. of data storage that's two. million gigabytes now okay fine that's.
doable but for an entire human brain. we'd need 2 million petabytes or 2 000. exabytes that's a lot of storage for. comparison all of google storage. all of it is estimated to be about 15. exabytes so humid brain would need over. 100 times what google has that's a lot. it is and let's say you cut a deal with. google to give you 2 000 x bytes of. storage what would they bill you for. this. well google says its biggest corporate.
clients pay a little over five million. dollars per month per exabyte so the. cost to store a human brain 10 billion. dollars per month per brain hey uh can i. borrow your amex here's a little more. perspective on 2000 exabytes also known. as two zettabytes if you had a nickel. for every bite and stack them up the. pile would reach to the nearest star to. the earth alpha centauri that's flaw. and back whoa. 100 times.
what yup the stack of coins would be. 2500 light years tall. i. can't can't comprehend i know but you. get the point a human brain and the. heckle fish brain is a ton of data and. that's just storage to actually process. this data would take more computing. power that's available on the entire. planet. but moore's law states that computing. power doubles every 18 months now this. is slowing down a little bit but it's.
pretty much held true for years so this. means that even though we can't do it. now at some point in the future we will. be able to store this data and process. it and that's why mit graduate robert. mcintyre founded nectome a company that. claims to be able to back up your brain. and for a fee you can put yourself on. their waiting list to have your brain. imaged and stored in the cloud the only. catch is. you need to die first no such thing as a. free lunch nope. brain storage is not a new concept the.
alcor life extension foundation has more. than 150 bodies. and severed heads stored in liquid. nitrogen but there's some dispute as to. whether liquid nitrogen damages brain. tissue so a few years ago robert. mcintyre while working with a. cryobiologist came up with a different. approach. their technique combines typical. cryonics with embalming to preserve the. brain structure nectome developed. aldehyde stabilized cryopreservation or. asc and nectome says their technology. can preserve a detailed brain.
ultrastructure over long time scales. we're talking hundreds or even thousands. of years and their technique has proved. effective at preserving an entire brain. at nanometer level including the entire. connectome so all cells synapses fibers. proteins molecules all of it and there's. no expectation of reviving the preserved. tissue like with alcor life's cryonics. instead the idea is to retrieve the. information that's stored on the brain. anatomy now ken hayworth a. neuroscientist and president of the.
brain preservation foundation said if. the brain is dead it's like the computer. is off but that doesn't mean the. information isn't there. that's really interesting will you sign. up for it well if you put down a 10 000. deposit you can get on the waiting list. but there's a bit of a catch you need to. still be alive at the beginning of the. procedure and at the end of the. procedure you won't be and that's okay. your body's gone but your consciousness. lives on but when you wake up. what's that like.
uploading your mind gives you functional. immortality it means that you continue. to exist until your mind's digital copy. is deleted or destroyed you better hope. your brain doesn't run on windows 10. well that's a pretty good point. [Music]. what happens if your digital mind. becomes corrupted hacked or infected. with malware that experience might leave. you with feelings of pain paranoia and. psychosis that could last forever but. let's assume everything goes according. to plan what does your digital.
consciousness do. where does it go well one option is to. have yourself downloaded into a physical. body and that could be organic or. cybernetic but probably would be. something completely mechanical you. become a robot. well sort of a robot is defined as a. mechanism designed with human-like. features or to mimic human behavior you. would be more than that you would be a. conscious sentient being inhabiting a. mechanical form now assuming the. technology is there you would be able to. taste ice cream smell flowers have sex.
fall in love all like humans do but. you'd be able to do these things forever. another option for your digital. afterlife is to inhabit a simulation by. inserting your consciousness into an. elaborate program you'd be able to. create and live in any type of world you. can imagine. kind of like a god you'd be able to walk. with dinosaurs or visit other planets. you could explore outer reaches of the. galaxy or investigate molecules in inner. space by adjusting your programming you. could delete painful memories and relive.
positive experiences in an infinite. number of ways you could create a. perfect utopia and if you don't like. something in your simulation change it. and after hundreds thousands or even. millions of years you may have seen and. experienced everything you could. possibly imagine and at that time you. might choose to finally rest and turn. off your program altogether. but would you when we get to the point. where our minds could be converted into. a conscious sentient program we'll have. security in knowing that if we become. injured or ill that we can continue to.
exist in digital form. but would we still be human. i don't know that's a question for. philosophers but i do know that because. our time here is so short that creates. urgency urgency to experience all we can. while we can that's why there's the. concept of a bucket list the urgency. makes us human if we could live forever. and experience literally everything what. happens. after that. what purpose would we serve and what's. our reason for even existing and after a.
while would we even want to. now digital immortality isn't happening. anytime soon so go out and enjoy actual. life while you can. and the simulation without risk will. never be as exciting or as fun as the. real thing anyway we just have to accept. that we're not meant to live forever and. that's okay. but it'd be nice to have the option. thank you so much for hanging out with. me today my name is aj that's hecklefish. this has been the y-files if you had fun. or learned anything do me a favor and.
like subscribe comment and share the. youtube algorithm is like an evil. sentient digital consciousness bent on. our destruction but with your help we. can defeat it until next time be safe be. kind and know that you are appreciated. [Music].
you.
