[ExI] after upload, what?

[Travis Porco]

From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>

[snip]

>> Thank you--yes, this is the sort of thing.  Up to a point.  One does
>> not want the
>> upload to be a limited, static memorial thing, but rather a capable
>> agent capable
>> of continued growth.

>> The challenge is only partly technical, but also legal.  Getting a
>> mechanism to maintain
>> such an entity in its digital valhalla after the primary has died is
>> actually the main challenge
>> right now.

>I wrote about this 18 years ago.

>The people in that story who were subjected to uploading did not die.
>The uploading was bi-directional and they went back and forth a number
>of times before settling in the uploaded state.

>The clinic where the uploads were located was nanotech based, solar
>powered, and self repairing.

>Keith

Today we have to do with unidirectional more or less.  I don't think
what we can do now should really be called "upload", since it's not as full
as people have come to expect from that word.  "Digital reincarnation" isn't
so great either for the same reason.  I would like "reinstantiation" or even
"transinstantiation" (though the latter is confused with unrelated issues
in the culture). "Digital metamorphosis" might have to do, and it lets us
separate it into "instars".

In the first you just do your best to transfer as much of your personality,
thoughts, memories, propensities into durable digital form, using the
capability of modern AIs to allow thought (shallow thought, but thought
all the same). This is the sort of thing Replika did.  The goal is preservation
of the narrative self.

In the next instars, with help from others, the nascent agent should gain
capability, and then later still, what is arguably consciousness.  I will
leave vague what this means, since too little is known at this time.

--tcp