Dr Michio Kaku says technology will be available for people to download their personality to computer to create an avatar of themselves before they die.The theory is the avatar will include that person's memories and personality, and through artificial intelligence people will be able to continue to communicate as they would have done in real-life.The avatar would be activated once a person was dead and would include a visual perception of the person that would be able to speak to relatives who are still alive.In the future it could even be beamed from the computer as a hologram, or even in a physical three dimensional format as a robot that could interact with you.
Dr Kaku said: "Imagine being able to speak to your loved one after they died, but it is possible if their personality has been downloaded onto computer as an avatar."You would be able to communicate with them as if they were still here."They would, in effect, become immortal."
Some scientists have questioned whether transferring a human brain to a computer is a realistic goal, but Dr Kaku is not the first to float the idea of human avatars leading to immortality.Billionaire Russian Dmitry Itskov has said he will make it possible for humans to live forever in the next 30 years - by uploading their brains onto computerHe is behind the 'Avatar Immortality Project 2045 Initiative' to do just that.The 35-year-old founded the organisation which is trying to create a feasible program to map the brain and store it artificially.
Mr Itskov has been subject to a BBC documentary titled The Immortalist, in which he said: "Within the next 30 years, I am going to make sure that we can all live forever. “I'm 100 per cent confident it will happen. Otherwise I wouldn't have started it.”The 2045 Initiative hopes to have functioning 'avatars’ by 2020 where a human will be able to control a robot via their brain.Five years later, the team will create another form of avatar which will be able to host a human brain that will have been transferred after the person has died.By 2035, the network of scientists aim to have an avatar with an artificial brain which can possess a human personality.The team hope to have completed the trans-human beings by 2045 when they plan to have a hologram-like avatar.